What’s The Difference? Main Sewer Line and Drain Lines
Maintaining proper cleaning and regular maintenance of your drains is an essential and crucial aspect to keep your home’s plumbing system working well. By understanding a little bit more about your main sewer line and drain line plumbing, how they can easily become clogged or compromised, you may be able to notice the first signs that you either have a stack pipe, floor drain issue, main sewer line issue, or a combination before an emergency back-up occurs.
Anywhere water runs throughout your home, it exits down an internal and vertical wastewater drain pipe or stack/vent pipe that connects to your main sewer line. Each bathroom tub/shower, sink, toilet, kitchen sink, dishwasher and laundry tub/sink has a horizontal pipe that connects to a vertical stack pipe. All types of debris such as hair, food, grease, sanitary products, lint, or the occasional kid’s toy that has been flushed away can cause a clog in any part of these drain lines. If your drains are slow or your toilet starts gurgling or doesn’t flush completely, a clog is most likely the culprit.
The floor drain is located at the lowest point on your basement floor, and the drain line runs underneath your basement floor and connects directly to your main sewer line. Your floor drain is a plumbing fixture designed to remove possible standing water from heavy rain, condensation from an HVAC unit or leaking water heater. It typically consists of a drain grate/cover. Make sure to keep this cover clean of any debris.
The wastewater drain pipe (stack pipe) and the floor drain both connect directly to your mainline, which is your home’s main sewer line that runs underground and connects to the city’s main sewer system. All wastewater eventually makes its way through your mainline and out to the city connection.
It’s always recommended that a homeowner locates what is called the ‘sewer cleanout’. A clean-out is an accessible opening or cap in your home’s sewer line, which allows for maintenance of your private sewer system. Clean-outs are often found in the basement on the floor, on the sewer stack or outside the home along the private sewer’s lateral plumbing. If you don’t have a main sewer line clean-out, it’s possible that maintenance can still be achieved, but it may need to be accessed through temporarily removing your basement toilet. The toilet clean-out involves more time, work and snaking line. In most cases, a main clean-out can be retrofitted to your existing main line for future ease and accessibility.
Clog prevention tips:
- Use a hair and soap scum catcher for your bathtub/shower; brush your hair and dispose of it in the trash before you wash it; if you bathe your pet, put a washcloth down over the tub/shower drain to collect hair. Also, don’t wash hair down the bathroom sink.
- Only flush human waste and toilet paper down the toilet. Don’t flush any type of wipe or personal sanitary products (even if they are labeled as ‘flushable’), only dispose of these in the garbage. Don’t flush hair, dental floss or any other stringy or dense/bulky materials.
- Never dispose of food, coffee grounds or grease in the kitchen sink.
- Keep a disposable lint trap over your washing machine hose.
If you’re in need of a main line or drain line cleaning from a clog or back-up, or would like to schedule a preventative maintenance cleaning to keep all of your plumbing working it’s best, give Ken’s Sewer a call or click on appropriate link below to schedule any of our drain cleaning and plumbing services.
Small Business Saturday!
small-business-saturday
On November 26th, 2016 this year is a great day to support your local small businesses. Being that we too are a small business we support small business all year round but especially on this weekend. We may promote small businesses we enjoy going to and like to share with others.
So step away from the big box stores and really, truly, support your local convenient store, small tradesman, and restaurant. Small Business is what helps keep prices down to the consumer. If we choose not to use them except to pay much more.
Let us know what you decided to do for small business day/weekend and let’s continue this trend throughout the year.
And as always, if you or a friend/family member is experiencing a plumbing and or drain clogged call us asap.
Leave it to the Pros
Getting a phone call from a client and then actually going on the job can be completely different at times. Being prepared as a professional isn’t always at easy at i seems. In the trade industry it isn’t always as easy at it may seem to have everything you need on your truck. For example, when repairing a toilet there are several different toilet brands and styles and having every part on a truck is impossible (that’s why we have wholesale supply houses throughout town). When a client calls and says for example “can you please come out and unclog my sewer line” we explain to the client how will do so. From the picture you’ll see below you’ll notice the sewer cable in the line isn’t exactly right. The cable somehow actually got twisted up and this client really wanted us to somehow get it out. The client never told us we we’re coming to work on trying to remove a stuck cable in the sewer line.
Drain Cleaning Trench Drains
Good news we got the cable out of the sewer line!
Leave cleaning sanitary drain line sewer systems to the professionals.
Happy World Toilet Day!
If you have never heard of “world toilet day” or want to learn more please read the link below. Hope you all show some sort of outreach on this day and better yet everyday. Not having the use of a toilet seams unthinkable but 1 out of every 3 people don’t get the chance to use a toilet.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Ken’s Sewer Service would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!
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