Guides
Drains guides
16 guides on drains. If you would rather just have it fixed, the phone is answered day or night.
Looking for the service rather than the reading? See Drain Cleaning & Hydro Jetting.
- An honest look at what is in the bottleEnzyme drain treatments digest grease and biofilm on a drain that still flows. What they cannot do, and when to put a camera in the line instead.Read
- Clearing a sink your disposal has blockedStep by step for a garbage disposal that has backed up the sink: the reset button, the hex key, the trap, and the point where it stops being a DIY job.Read
- Finding the cleanout before you need itHow to locate the main sewer cleanout on a Costa Mesa property, what the fitting looks like, and what to do if the house was built without one.Read
- Five signs the blockage is in your main sewer lineOne slow fixture is local. Gurgling toilets, a flooding shower pan and water at the yard cleanout point to the sewer lateral instead.Read
- Grease in the kitchen line, and what actually removes itWhy grease clogs come back after a snaking, how to safely clean a kitchen P-trap yourself, and when the line needs jetting instead of a cable.Read
- Nine habits that stop drains blocking in the first placeNine specific habits that keep kitchen, bathroom and laundry drains clear, plus the one-off check that matters more than all of them.Read
- Pulling a hair mat out of the shower drainA hair mat sits within arm’s reach of the strainer. The barbed strip, pliers and drum auger that remove it, and why a plunger rarely helps.Read
- Reading the smell coming out of a shower drainSewer gas and biofilm smell different. How to tell a dry trap from a slime layer, and why a gurgling drain points at the vent instead of the drain.Read
- Restaurants, salons and apartment buildingsHow restaurant, salon and apartment drains block differently, why grease needs jetting, and who owns the lateral under the middle of the street.Read
- Standpipe backing up during the spin cycleA washer empties faster than a restricted branch can carry away. Lint felt, standpipe size, blocked vents and the main line, and what to check first.Read
- Steps that work on a blocked kitchen sink, in orderThe order to work through when a kitchen sink holds water: plunger, P-trap, hand auger, and the point where it stops being a sink problem.Read
- The clog that comes back is telling you somethingA drain that backs up again weeks after snaking usually has a lined pipe, not a lump. What a camera shows and when hydro jetting is the right tool.Read
- What a blocked drain is telling you about the houseWhen to snake, when to jet, and how the age of an Orange County house narrows it down before anyone opens a cleanout.Read
- What a cable does, what a jetter does, and when each is wrongA cable cuts a channel through a blockage; a jetter scours the pipe wall. What each one is for, and when jetting is the wrong call.Read
- Why a tub drains slowly, and what actually clears itHair on the crossbars, a seized trip lever, a corroded tub arm or a venting fault - how to tell which one is slowing your bathtub.Read
- Why the lowest drain in the house floods firstHomes here sit on a slab, but garage and laundry floor drains still flood. What comes up tells you whether the main line or a yard drain is at fault.Read
Water running right now?
Shut the meter, then call.
The valve at the meter box in the parkway stops everything. Turn it, then ring us and we will talk you through the rest while the van is moving.