Once you flush the toilet you should never have to look back, right? However things may be happening that you are unaware of. Roots! How do roots get into you drain lines you ask? They enter your drain as a small root the size of a blade of grass. This root is able to continue to grow and feed off of the water that flows down your drain lines. These roots can grow to the size of 4” in diameter and a length of over 3’-4’ long! Then, by flushing toilet paper down the toilet, the toilet paper begins to get caught on the roots and slowly build up in the line which will eventually completely block the line. This can take a week, a month, or two months. Once this occurs all of the drain lines throughout the home will back up.
The correct way to handle this type of stoppage is to have your line partially cleared if possible so that most of the fluids drain. Then run a camera through your drain lines. This will allow a visual inspection on the condition of your drain line by viewing it through a monitor. We then can see the intrusion of roots in your drain line. Once this is done an estimate to excavate (dig down) and replace the damaged root intruded pipe can be given. If roots are not removed and the pipe not replaced the roots will grow once again and could possibly cause complete collapse of the pipe. So, before your home suffers a major sewage back up, you may want to have your drain lines inspected by having a camera ran through them.
