Sewer and drain lines
Water came up out of the floor drain. The main line from the house to the street or the tank: cleared, diagnosed, and repaired or replaced where the pipe itself has had enough.
This is the main line, not a single slow sink. If one fixture is draining slowly and everything else is fine, that is a branch line and it belongs on drain cleaning. This page starts where the whole house is affected, or where the same blockage keeps coming back.
What it covers
The main drain and the line beyond it: the one large pipe that collects everything from the house and carries it away. Clearing it when it backs up, finding out why, and repairing or replacing the section responsible. It also covers the pipe that runs under a concrete basement floor, the same problem with harder access.
Where that pipe goes depends on the house, and that is not a detail. On public sewer, the line runs from the foundation to a main under the street, and a good part of that run is the homeowner's pipe. Many houses around here, especially in Sherborn, are on septic instead: the line runs to a tank in the yard, and from there to a leach field. On those houses a backup is not always a pipe problem, and knowing which it is comes first.
What blocks a main is rarely a mystery. Roots that have found a joint. A section that has settled into a low spot where solids sit. Grease from years of kitchen drains. Something flushed that was never going to make the trip. The useful question is not what blocked it this time but whether it will block again, and the pipe usually tells you.
What the job involves
- Confirming it is the main. More than one fixture affected, and the lowest drain in the house going first, is the signature. A main line problem and a branch problem look similar from upstairs and are not the same job.
- Asking where the line goes. On a sewer house the work is the pipe. On a septic house the first check is the tank, because a full tank or a soaked field backs up exactly like a blocked line and clearing the pipe will not fix it.
- Getting in the right way. Through an access point made for it where the house has one, which is cleaner and kinder to your fixtures.
- Opening the whole pipe. Cleared through the blockage so the whole pipe is open, not left with a narrow channel through the middle that closes again.
- Finding the cause. Roots, grease, a collapsed or sagging section, or something that should never have been flushed. What comes back out of the line usually says which.
- Clear against repair, said out loud. A one off blockage is a clearance. Roots through an open joint will be back on a schedule, and at that point an annual clearing is a subscription rather than a fix.
- Repair or replacement. The failed section dug out and replaced, or the run replaced where the pipe itself has reached the end.
- Run under volume and put back. Fixtures run together, the line watched, and the ground or the floor restored.
When you need it
- More than one fixture backing up at once
- The lowest drain in the house going first, usually a basement floor drain
- A toilet that rises or burbles when the washing machine empties
- Water arriving in a shower tray when a toilet upstairs is flushed
- A blockage that clears and returns on something like a schedule
- A smell at an outside cleanout, or over the line in the yard
- A strip of lawn that is greener or softer than the rest in dry weather
- Wastewater on a basement floor
- An older house with its original drainage and mature trees over the run
- A septic house where everything has slowed at once
Why it matters
A main line backup is the one plumbing failure that puts contaminated water inside the house rather than clean water. That is a cleanup problem and a health problem at the same time, and what it touches, carpet, stored boxes, the bottom foot of drywall, tends not to be salvageable.
The recurring version matters for a different reason. Roots that have found a joint will keep finding it, and every clearing buys a season. Meanwhile the joint keeps opening, the roots keep thickening, and the eventual repair gets larger. The honest calculation is whether you are paying to fix a line or renting a delay.
Then there is the part nobody thinks about until it happens. On a sewer house, the stretch of pipe from the foundation to the main is usually the homeowner's, and in many towns that includes the part under the sidewalk. On a septic house, the whole system is yours, tank and field included, and the Board of Health has an interest in it. A backup is a bad time to learn either of those.
How Connerney handles it
- Licensed and insured. Licensed and insured in Massachusetts.
- Clearance against repair, stated plainly. If the line will block again, you are told that on the day rather than next season.
- Sewer or septic, asked first. Because on a tank the answer is sometimes not a plumber at all, and you are told that too.
- Owner run. Bill Connerney owns the business, answers the phone and books the jobs, and our team of experienced plumbers does the work. Rated 5.0 on Google across 20 reviews, and BBB accredited since 2018.
Questions people ask
- Who is responsible for the sewer line between my house and the street?
- On a house connected to a public sewer, usually the homeowner, for the line from the foundation to the point where it joins the main. In many towns that includes the length under the sidewalk, and your town can tell you exactly where yours ends. The town looks after the main in the street; the pipe from your house to it is yours to clear, repair or replace. A house on a septic system owns the whole thing, tank and leach field included.
- We are on septic and everything has slowed at once. Is that the pipe?
- It might not be. A septic tank that has not been pumped in years, or a leach field that has stopped taking water, backs the house up exactly the way a blocked line does. The first check on a septic house is the tank: if it is full, the pipe may be fine and the problem is beyond it. Clearing a line that drains into a full tank does nothing except move the problem back a day.
- The line has been cleared twice this year. Why does it keep happening?
- Because clearing it removes what is in the pipe and leaves the reason it got there. Roots come back through the same open joint. Solids settle again in the same low spot. Grease coats the same narrow stretch of pipe. A line that keeps blocking usually has a problem in one specific place, and the point is to find that place, so the repair is a section of pipe and not another clearing.
- Does the line have to be dug up to fix it?
- Not always, and not all of it. A single failed section, a sagging stretch, or a joint full of roots can often be dug at that spot and replaced. A line that has failed along its length is a replacement. What decides it is where the problems are, and that is explained to you before any digging starts.
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Where we work
Based in Natick, working across MetroWest Massachusetts.
Plus the surrounding MetroWest towns. If you are nearby, call and ask.
Call us, or request service
Tell us what is going on. If no one picks up, leave a message and Bill will call you back as soon as he can. If it is easier to write it down, the form reaches the same place.