The Sewer Line Nobody Wanted to Find

Slow drains in every fixture at once — toilets, tubs, sinks — is almost always a main sewer line problem, not individual clogs. A Livonia homeowner had been dealing with this for two years, adding drain cleaner and hoping it would resolve on its own.

We ran a camera down the main cleanout and found the problem at 62 feet: a section of old clay tile pipe where tree roots from a large silver maple had infiltrated through the joints. The roots had formed a dense mat that was blocking roughly 70 percent of the pipe's diameter.

The good news: the pipe itself was structurally intact. The roots hadn't collapsed it — they had just grown through the joints. That meant we could use pipe lining instead of excavation.

We hydro-jetted the line to clear the root mass, then installed a cured-in-place pipe liner — essentially a new pipe inside the old one, sealed at both ends. The liner bonds to the interior of the host pipe and covers all the joints, eliminating the entry points the roots had been using.

The homeowner kept his yard. The drains have been clear for eight months. Pipe lining costs more than snaking and less than excavation — and when the pipe is structurally sound, it's almost always the right call.