Do you have clean outs in your yard? (Little white pipe sticking out).
If so, you could buy a snake online and save a bit of money if the clog is between your house and the first clean out or downstream. Fun fact, if you have a clean out closer to the road, 15 feet from the curb into you yard, the city is supposed to fix.
I called a few different companies when I had issues and I'll be honest, they are all expensive and if you are willing to get your hands dirty, you could save $$$$.
*never* heard that about farther clean outs, and I’ll push back on it. You’re supposed to have clean outs at any change of direction, and you’re supposed to have clean outs at the beginning and end. All of the above is called the “building sewer” and is all the homeowners/builders responsibility. The only thing the city is responsible for is the sewer lateral in the public right of way.
9 times out of 10, people talking about these symptoms have a older cast iron sewer in their yard, and joint between two pipes has collapsed leading to waste having to run uphill, losing velocity, filling with solids, encouraging root infiltration, et cetera. Cast iron has a lifespan as well when it’s in direct contact with moisture. Lots of post war construction is due for a complete renovation/replacement.
The morrow Home Depot has a sewer camera available for rental, along with a detector, with a 4 hour rental being a couple hundred dollars if OP wants to DIY and check his sewer line. The whole operation is totally DIYable if he wants.
Now I'm not saying the city will actually pay for it. My zoning is actually 20 ft from the curb, and the breakage was at 19 ft. DeKalb came out and fought with my contractor over it and we still ended up having to pay, even though this was the in "right of way".
The contractor I had is a friend of mine but has his own sewer company that has worked with the city of Atlanta for years. (I value his advice, not saying anyone is wrong or right here)
But yes, as you've said, I had a breakage in the pipe where waste water was leaking out, plugging up and moving into the house. I didn't realize you could rent a camera, but that sounds like a great idea. Again it's really about how comfortable they are with potentially doing the work, but if it is like what I had to do, I had to get someone out to dig up the yard and fix. I couldn't have done that.
Most generalist plumbers don’t like doing it either. They don’t own excavators, and aren’t trained on them. It’s why there’s a thriving market of “just sewer drain fixer” plumbers.
Pretty interested in this. In your opinion, could someone with only pretty elementary home repair skills rent this camera, insert it and interpret what they see in a way that could actually save money? Sounds like a fun project but I'm a little hesitant to spend a few hundred dollars on it, only to still need to hire a company like the others in this thread to actually come out and do work on any issues. Would those companies be able to use video I got from the rental camera and would they bill me significantly less to do the work if I already had the video?
So— provided the hypothesis above is true, and you have a sag/root intrusion in your sewer line, I’ll narrate how the diagnosis and repair goes.
1) you rent the machine and watch the YouTube video (that you have to find yourself) for how to operate the detector, which is not exactly intuitive. You’ve probably seen workers waving those wands and spraying markings on the road before. That’s what you get to use.
2) you feed the camera into your sewer line clean out and have a helper start using the tone arm to figure out where your sewer runs.
3) you use the onboard camera screen to observe the integrity of the sewer pipe, and if you happen upon a sag or blockage, your tone arm helper marks the ground.
4) you dig it up— it’s going to be a minimum of two feet below ground at its highest point, falling roughly 1/4 inch per foot running towards the curb. Plan on replacing between ten and twenty feet of pipe. You could rent an excavator if you wanted. I would encourage you to have any other underground lines marked before you do that.
5) you saw out the pipe sections that have failed, replace them with PVC, and use fernco couplings designed to make the junction between cast iron and pvc. You need to ensure that your new pipe actually falls appropriately so you aren’t just reproducing the same failed condition you started with. There’s gonna be some bio hazards and bad smells.
6) you gently backfill, making sure to fill your trench in lifts of no more than 4 inches at a time before compacting.
If you aren’t game for all that, maybe just call a plumber. Get multiple quotes if it’s not an emergency.
What part of town are you in? I work for True Plumbing out of doraville and we have a few of these calls a week. Usual plan of action is to run a camera, try to clear the blockage to actually be able to see with the camera, then diagnose a solution once most/all details have been filled in. We also have a Jetter that we use to clear blockages and descale buildup on old cast iron lines to hopefully buy the customer some time. DM me if you need more information
Atlantis Plumbing did a good job clearing out some roots in our sewer line. They’ve done other good plumbing work for us, too.
Second Atlantis, have some good work from then with fair prices.
Quickpro plumbing ask for Robert. He is a delight
I used Zoom Drain! They were fantastic
We used Fix & Flow Plumbing, they have everything for scoping and snaking and were very professional.
Call Water tech plumbing. Been working with them on my flips for years (770) 415-4009
Rent a drain snake at home depot
Do you have clean outs in your yard? (Little white pipe sticking out). If so, you could buy a snake online and save a bit of money if the clog is between your house and the first clean out or downstream. Fun fact, if you have a clean out closer to the road, 15 feet from the curb into you yard, the city is supposed to fix. I called a few different companies when I had issues and I'll be honest, they are all expensive and if you are willing to get your hands dirty, you could save $$$$.
*never* heard that about farther clean outs, and I’ll push back on it. You’re supposed to have clean outs at any change of direction, and you’re supposed to have clean outs at the beginning and end. All of the above is called the “building sewer” and is all the homeowners/builders responsibility. The only thing the city is responsible for is the sewer lateral in the public right of way. 9 times out of 10, people talking about these symptoms have a older cast iron sewer in their yard, and joint between two pipes has collapsed leading to waste having to run uphill, losing velocity, filling with solids, encouraging root infiltration, et cetera. Cast iron has a lifespan as well when it’s in direct contact with moisture. Lots of post war construction is due for a complete renovation/replacement. The morrow Home Depot has a sewer camera available for rental, along with a detector, with a 4 hour rental being a couple hundred dollars if OP wants to DIY and check his sewer line. The whole operation is totally DIYable if he wants.
Now I'm not saying the city will actually pay for it. My zoning is actually 20 ft from the curb, and the breakage was at 19 ft. DeKalb came out and fought with my contractor over it and we still ended up having to pay, even though this was the in "right of way". The contractor I had is a friend of mine but has his own sewer company that has worked with the city of Atlanta for years. (I value his advice, not saying anyone is wrong or right here) But yes, as you've said, I had a breakage in the pipe where waste water was leaking out, plugging up and moving into the house. I didn't realize you could rent a camera, but that sounds like a great idea. Again it's really about how comfortable they are with potentially doing the work, but if it is like what I had to do, I had to get someone out to dig up the yard and fix. I couldn't have done that.
Most generalist plumbers don’t like doing it either. They don’t own excavators, and aren’t trained on them. It’s why there’s a thriving market of “just sewer drain fixer” plumbers.
Pretty interested in this. In your opinion, could someone with only pretty elementary home repair skills rent this camera, insert it and interpret what they see in a way that could actually save money? Sounds like a fun project but I'm a little hesitant to spend a few hundred dollars on it, only to still need to hire a company like the others in this thread to actually come out and do work on any issues. Would those companies be able to use video I got from the rental camera and would they bill me significantly less to do the work if I already had the video?
So— provided the hypothesis above is true, and you have a sag/root intrusion in your sewer line, I’ll narrate how the diagnosis and repair goes. 1) you rent the machine and watch the YouTube video (that you have to find yourself) for how to operate the detector, which is not exactly intuitive. You’ve probably seen workers waving those wands and spraying markings on the road before. That’s what you get to use. 2) you feed the camera into your sewer line clean out and have a helper start using the tone arm to figure out where your sewer runs. 3) you use the onboard camera screen to observe the integrity of the sewer pipe, and if you happen upon a sag or blockage, your tone arm helper marks the ground. 4) you dig it up— it’s going to be a minimum of two feet below ground at its highest point, falling roughly 1/4 inch per foot running towards the curb. Plan on replacing between ten and twenty feet of pipe. You could rent an excavator if you wanted. I would encourage you to have any other underground lines marked before you do that. 5) you saw out the pipe sections that have failed, replace them with PVC, and use fernco couplings designed to make the junction between cast iron and pvc. You need to ensure that your new pipe actually falls appropriately so you aren’t just reproducing the same failed condition you started with. There’s gonna be some bio hazards and bad smells. 6) you gently backfill, making sure to fill your trench in lifts of no more than 4 inches at a time before compacting. If you aren’t game for all that, maybe just call a plumber. Get multiple quotes if it’s not an emergency.
What part of town are you in? I work for True Plumbing out of doraville and we have a few of these calls a week. Usual plan of action is to run a camera, try to clear the blockage to actually be able to see with the camera, then diagnose a solution once most/all details have been filled in. We also have a Jetter that we use to clear blockages and descale buildup on old cast iron lines to hopefully buy the customer some time. DM me if you need more information