Expectations of Home Ownership
It goes without saying that most homeowners will experience a back up, clog or sewer blockage at some time in their occupancy. The smell alone is the tipoff to a problem, and the mess is enough to remind you to call in the experts to clear the pipes and clean up the mess. Raw sewage carries dangerous bacteria and can be an immediate health hazard if not handled correctly. This is no time for do-it-yourselfers, but a task for a professional plumber who has the skills and the experience to handle even the worst drainage problems.

How Did It Happen?
Knowing how your home's sewer main got clogged can make a big difference in the ultimate cost of repair or replacement. It can be the result of deposits, foreign objects from inside the home, plant roots, or collapses. Typically, when a line is inspected, plumbers will find a combination of two or more factors, and while every clog is unique, there are a handful of solutions that can handle almost every situation. Knowing how the clog happened can make the difference between a several thousand dollar replacement and a several hundred dollar cleaning or repair. In addition, if you know about your city or town's responsibility, you may wind up paying nothing at all.

Did you know your plumber technician can inspect your sewer line with remote video cameras to determine whether a clog is your responsibility or the city's? If your home plumbing drains into community sewer lines, clogs beyond your connection are a municipal responsibility, not a private one. Technicians can inspect your sewer line with remote video cameras and will know whether a clog is your responsibility. They can then help you work with your city to get the drain pipe running freely. This is a utilization of technology in modern plumbing that can work to your advantage.

Do-It-Yourselfer No No's
The temptation is to first try to clear a stoppage yourself, but using a wire hanger to dislodge a disgusting clog only goes so far. And, if it is serious, pouring in the contents of a store-bought bottle of drain cleaner could be extremely hazardous to your health and your home. If the solvent is strong enough to dissolve hair and grease, it will also burn skin and damage finishes on cabinets and floors. Some scientists even believe you can burn your esophagus just by inhaling store-bought chemical drain cleaners.

Oil That's Not Black Gold
Flushing oils and fats like bacon grease down your drains creates continually building deposits, much like cholesterol buildups that cling to peoples' arteries. Over time, these build ups reduce the functional diameter of the drain until finally nothing can get through. Professional plumbers use a process called sewer jetting that uses hot water under extremely high pressure to clean out the mess.

Foreign Objects
They don't have to be large to cause problems. Like a grain of sand in an oyster, the smallest foreign body like a child's toy or a paper towel can form a base for the collection of oils and fats in the sewer pipe. Even sand can become stuck inside your home's sewer line and can cause a clog.

A Root Cause
Your home's sewer line is a magnet for tree roots because of the easy availability of water, and water that carries nourishment for growing trees. Once they find the cracks in your home's sewer line, they literally infiltrate the entire volume of the pipe. Tree roots are one of the fastest ways sewer pipes become clogged and they pose the threat of sewer line collapse.

The Experts' Tools of the Trade
Plumbing professionals use special tools to de-clog dammed up drains and most homeowners don't have access to them and don't usually have them stored in their tool kits.
Larger clogged drains can be solved with a variety of power rooters ranging in size from a compact vacuums to sewer-rooters the size of a lawnmower, to sewer rooter water jetting machines mounted on trailers and trucks.

Calling in a professional service to deal with drainage problems is really the only guaranteed way to save money by getting an accurate diagnosis and implemented solutions for long term results. The plumber you call should be skilled, highly trained and experienced in their specialty area and quickly be able to diagnose problems and implement the solutions to get everything running smoothly again.

Frugal Rooter is a family owned and operated (licensed and insured) business providing residential and commercial plumbing services throughout Northern Virginia, including Fairfax, Arlington and Alexandria. For information about their drain and sewer cleaning systems and repair, installation and remodeling services visit http://www.frugalrooter.com.