Everything You Need to Know About Sewer Lines

When you look at homes, it is easy to get mesmerized by the furniture and fixtures that come with its interior design. Some tend to focus on the stylish exterior materials of the house as well.

Oftentimes, the parts deep down in every home are overlooked, but they should not be!

We invited Rocky Kwan of 2020 of Master Home Inspections to share the things you should keep in mind to maintain your sewer lines well and avoid any inconveniences.

Sewer Lines

Factors below the ground can destroy the figure of any beautiful house. Problems in the sewer line are typically issues that people don't see unless some oddities arise, and you have no choice but to have it fixed!

Sewer lines comprise all the plumbing underneath your home and into the main city lines below it. It is where all the sewage wastes goes. Depending on the age of your home, sewer lines could be made out of ABS plastic, cast iron, or in very old houses, even lead.

Every house has at least one sewer line. Pipes are usually hidden under the slab or the house’s foundation, then come down to the main sewer underneath the ground. For some townhomes or multifamily dwellings, there is more than one sewer line, but they all tie in together when they leave the property.

Maintaining Sewer Lines

Most sewer lines will last as long as you take care of them. They can even last for hundreds of years with proper maintenance! It is good to keep an eye out for any indications that there might be issues and always do preventative measures.

To keep the sewer line in good condition, you should never flush chemicals down into the sewer through your sink or drain. Most cleaning products in the market have chemicals that could actually eat and corrode away the sewer systems.

Rocky suggests that it is better to use natural cleaning materials instead. His favourite thing to do is to put baking soda down there and then flush it with vinegar to clean the system, just like a bath bomb.

Clogged Sewer Lines

Generally, sewer lines built from the early 1980s and prior are made of cast iron. Back in the day, cast iron sewer lines were fitted together using a joint. Newer sewer lines are made of ABS plastic glued together.

Over time, as the Earth settles, especially in Calgary, where we have snow, and it thaws after a while, the joints of cast iron sewer lines wiggle and get loose. When that happens, they create offset areas where water is not going to flow cleanly. If left unfixed, the offset will produce a little cavern where water can collect which could be a big issue in the long run.

The first indication that there might be issues in the sewer line is slow drains. Watch out for slow draining tubs, overflowing drains in the laundry area, and if you have a basement with an exposed floor drain, you should never have water coming out of that.

Another thing to watch out for is root intrusions. Roots could break through the pipes and become a problem when they entangle and affect the water drainage. This is something that homeowners usually don’t have a clue that a problem is slowly building up until a sewer scope technician discovers it during the inspection.

During the inspection, the technician can see the water level inside the pipes. A healthy stack is about four inches in diameter, and the sewer scope camera is about two inches. The camera is large enough to stay above the water, but when the camera is submerged under the water at some point, there is an issue with the system because the diameter is getting restricted.

Sewer Line Inspection

It is best to do a sewer inspection near the end of your home inspection when buying a new property. The sewer scope technician will shoot a camera through the sewer stack and try to reach the city tie-off where your sewer meets the rest of the sewer system for all the other properties.

Rocky encourages his client to be present during the inspection to follow along and watch the screen monitor as the camera captures everything inside the pipes.

In some cases, the sewage problem is on the side of the property, but sometimes, it is on the city side. In Calgary, if you see a problem on the city side of the sewage system, you can call the city office to auger it and clean out the clog. If the problem is on the property side, you can reach out to any repair technicians or plumbing companies to do the augering for you.

Where to Find your Sewer Lines

Traditionally, sewer lines are located in the mechanical room. In some areas it can be found in the laundry room as well. However, most of the time, builders and developers plant it near the major plumbing components in the basement.

If you do a renovation, make sure you do not put drywall over your sewer stack so it can be accessed for inspection. If you are buying a property, find out where the sewer stack is because if you cannot find it when a problem comes, it will be hard to fix the issue.

Sewer Inspection Cost

Most sewer issues can be solved by augering, which costs around $300 to $600 for a plumber to come and clear the line itself. From there, most plumbers will sculpt the land to make sure it is free of issues.

If there are other concerns, such as a cracked pipe, there is a new technology called socking out. What they do is they put a tube down the line, then inflate it at the cracked part and leave it there. Over time, that tube will get harder and turn into an actual interior pipe.

Replacement of a sewer line is the last resort when all else fails. This process could cost thousands of dollars depending on how plumbers would need to dig underneath your house to access the line. You may have to remove a part of your garage or yard just to get into the root of the issue.

If you want more information about sewer line inspection, you can visit www.2020mhi.com or call Rocky Kwan directly at 403-383-9018. And if you have any other questions, you can always reach out to us at info@chamberlaingroup.ca or call 587-316-400.