Drain Cleaning Calgary

When it comes to a slow drain or a completely blocked pipe, the most common cause by far is that something—or multiple somethings—that doesn’t belong in your plumbing system were flushed or rinsed down a drain. Usually, it’s a combination of various substances and items that have banded together to make your life more difficult. It can also make your house less sanitary until it’s removed with drain cleaning. Calgary plumbers on our team are experts at breaking through the toughest blockages. Fats, oils and grease are the biggest culprits out there. In fact, they’re so notorious they even have their own acronym in the plumbing industry: FOG.

While that fat, oil or grease may be in liquid form when you pour it down the drain, it coats the inside of your pipe walls and quickly solidifies, turning into a sticky coating that grabs and holds on to anything that follows it down the pipe. It’s really important for the health of your plumbing system to keep FOG out of your pipes. The best way to dispose of it is in the trash if possible. Other items our team members have discovered in Calgary drain lines include:

• Clumps of hair
• Paper towels, tissues and excessive toilet paper
• Wet wipes, including “flushable” wipes
• Coffee grounds, eggshells and other food debris
• Cotton balls and dental floss
• Personal hygiene products
• Tree root intrusion
• Earth shifting under buried pipes

Mineral deposits from hard water can pose a big problem that requires professional drain cleaning. Calgary’s water supply is considered hard due to tap water’s high levels of calcium and magnesium. It’s worth noting that the water is actually significantly harder in south Calgary than it is in the north part of the city, but overall, the entire city has hard to very hard water. While calcium and magnesium are safe to drink, they can wreak havoc on your plumbing system by forming calcified mineral deposits inside your pipes that can partially or completely block the flow of water through your system. For that reason, a routine Calgary drain cleaning service is recommended.

Blockage has two common causes in Calgary: large debris and natural build-up. Sometimes, kitchen and bathroom sinks get blocked by hard blockages like toys, large rocks, and even cell phones. Those objects can get lodged inside pipes and prevent anything else from getting by. Retrieving them is simple for your expert Calgary plumber.

Soft blockage increases naturally over time. Everything you flush down your sinks leaves something behind inside your drainpipes. Soap scum, mineral deposits from Calgary’s hard water, and other sources of debris all join together as soft blockage, which keeps growing until it eventually blocks anything else from getting by—that’s why preventative drain maintenance such as regular drain cleaning in Calgary is important.

Regular maintenance services are essential for anyone who wants to avoid standing water and all the other inconveniences related to waste obstructions. It’s also important to avoid serious problems caused by blocked mainline sewer systems.

Sewer cleaning services reduce your risk of experiencing plumbing emergencies caused by a serious blockage inside your main sewer pipe. That one pipe takes away all the waste in your entire system, so even minor issues with its performance can have major adverse effects across every other fixture. When avoiding regular drain cleaning, plumbing systems are vulnerable to nasty problems like:

• Frequent clogged toilets
• Multiple, reoccurring issues that happen at the same time
• Sewage backups
• Disgusting odours and sewer gas wafting up out of waste lines
• Uneven patches of grass growth
• Isolated lawn flooding
• Small sinkholes
• Foundation cracks

Annual drain cleaning in Calgary is the best way to get continued, lasting protection from future plumbing issues. If your daily use is higher than average or your plumbing system is old, you might need more frequent support from plumbing professionals.

While this may seem like a pretty straightforward service, the cost of drain cleaning depends on factors like the type of problem and where it is located in your home's drainage system. For example, if you don’t currently have any noticeable issues with your drain lines, and you just want to avoid them in the future with preventive maintenance, your plumber can get straight to work on drain cleaning. The same applies when your plumbing has a minor issue, like a clogged sink. Because it doesn’t take long to resolve and is a routine service, it’s less costly.

However, it’s possible there could be less common serious issues that are time-consuming and difficult to deal with, like tree root intrusion. While this requires drain cleaning, Calgary plumbers at Mr. Rooter Plumbing need to investigate this situation via a camera inspection first using inspection tools. Thus, homeowners should note that it’s a longer process, and it may be necessary to perform sewer line repair as well, so it will be more time-consuming and costly than routine cleaning in those scenarios.

Clogged drains are a fact of life that most people have to deal with at some point in their lives—though it's worth noting that people who invest in regular drain cleaning in Calgary have to deal with them a lot less frequently than everyone else. When a basic, run-of-the-mill clog occurs in a fixture such as a toilet, sink or shower, it doesn't necessarily mean you need immediate Calgary drain cleaning service. There are a few things you can try to get the problem solved yourself before you call a plumber.

If you peer into your sink, shower or bathtub drains and can see a blockage just sitting there a few inches below the surface of the drain, put on your rubber gloves and see if you can grab it and draw it out with your fingers. If that doesn't work, straighten out a wire coat hanger and bend it into a long, narrow hook at one end. Push the hook through or past the blockage and then slowly pull up, bringing the clog back up and out of the drain opening, then flush it with water.

If you can't see the clog, you'll need a plunger. But it's important to have the right type of plunger for the type of drain you're trying to plunge. Toilet plungers are bell- or ball-shaped so they can form a seal in the toilet drain. Flat drains like the ones in sinks, showers and bathtubs require a cup-shaped plunger that can form a seal on a relatively flat surface. If there's no water in the fixture, add in a couple of inches and then place the plunger over the drain. Start slowly at first to make sure it's sealed and then plunge away—it may take a few tries so don't get discouraged if it doesn't work right away. When the water starts to drain, you've unblocked the drain.

Calgary’s favourite home remedy includes creating white vinegar and baking soda paste. While it’s a good way to keep your sink opening clean and eliminate nearby blockages, it may only do half the job. While it’s true that they will create an explosive reaction in a closed environment, such as a capped bottle, your pipe is not a closed environment. Therefore, the mixture could fizzle harmlessly for a couple of minutes and add more material to your clog. Cola is also not a good idea—it doesn’t work, and all that sugar isn’t good for your plumbing system either. This may not be the answer you’re looking for, but the best liquid for Calgary drain cleaning is water. It just needs to be pressurized like it is with hydro jetting.

Our plumbing experts don’t recommend pouring chemical cleaning solutions into your sinks, showers, tubs, or other outlets. Even those marketed for that purpose still damage fixtures with frequent use and make them susceptible to corrosion. They can also cause illness or injury when mishandled.

The most effective way to avoid clogs and other frustrating plumbing problems is a regular Calgary drain cleaning service from a professional plumber. But there are also some steps you can take that will help quite a bit to both avoid clogged drains and decelerate the speed of the system’s deterioration over time. Here are a few preventative maintenance tips to consider:

• Avoid pouring liquid grease, fat and oil down your kitchen sink drain, and keep greasy or fatty foods out of your garburator.
• If you don’t have a garburator, or even if you do, make sure to use a strainer plug to keep scraps of food out of your drainage lines.
• Make sure to only flush human waste and toilet paper in your toilet—“flushable” wipes are not truly flushable.
• Add a simple hair catcher to your shower and bathtub drains. These mesh covers fit over drains and prevent most hair from getting into your drain lines.

The plumbing specialists at Mr. Rooter Plumbing of Calgary can help with a wide range of services, from annual preventative maintenance to emergency services for a collapsed sewer line or burst pipe. Our team serves all of Calgary, including Acadia, Eagle Ridge, and Forest Lawn. We also offer commercial drain cleaning and other commercial plumbing services for business owners in Calgary.

If you need a convenient appointment or emergency plumbing assistance, call our friendly customer service staff to find out how we can protect your pipes and enhance your plumbing quality. From water heater services to clogged sewer lines, count on us to get the job done.