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Blocked drains

Blocked Drains in Perth: Find the Cause, Fix It for Good

Clearing a blockage and fixing a drain are two different jobs. We clear the blockage so the property works again, then tell you honestly whether the second job is needed.

  • Roots and grease are the two causes we find most often
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What is actually in there

Almost every blocked drain in Perth comes down to one of five things. Tree roots, which get in through an open joint or a crack rather than through sound wall, then fan out into a mat that catches everything passing. Fat and grease, which go down warm and set hard, narrowing the bore with every wash-up. Things that were never going to break down, wipes above all. A sag or a collapsed section, where the ground has moved and the pipe no longer falls evenly. And scale inside old cast iron, which roughens the wall until it catches on its own.

Which one you have decides whether this is finished for good or back in six months. The first three stay cleared if the habit changes. The last two are the pipe itself.

Where each cause sits in the run

Four blockage causes along one length of drainA drain in cutaway, running left to right. Roots enter through a joint near the left end. Further along, a layer of grease coats the bottom of the bore. Past that, a crack runs through the pipe wall, and debris has collected against it.RootsGreaseCrackDebrisFlow runs left to right
Roots enter at a joint, near whatever tree is closest to the line. Grease builds along the bottom of the bore where flow is slowest. A crack or a sag collects solids at one spot, and debris piles against it.

Clear it first, then find out why

High-pressure jetting cuts through roots and strips grease off the wall, and it is the fastest way to get a property draining again. What it cannot do is tell you why the drain filled up, because once the line is clear the evidence has gone down it. So the camera goes in straight afterwards, while access is open and the wall is clean enough to read: the exact spot, the material, the joints either side, and whether anything structural is wrong.

Most of the time the answer is reassuring and the job ends there. When it is not, you see the same footage we do, and you decide what to do with it.

When it keeps coming back

A drain that blocks on a cycle is not a drain with bad luck. Roots return to the joint that let them in, and a sag keeps collecting solids at the same metre mark, so clearing it again buys a few months. That is where drain reliningearns its place: a cured liner closes the joints and cracks they were using, so there is nothing left to come back to. It does not answer every blockage, and a properly collapsed pipe needs replacing rather than lining. For the symptoms, seesigns your pipes need relining.

What people ask us about blocked drains

Why does the same drain keep blocking?
Because the blockage was cleared and whatever caused it was not. Roots grow back through the same joint they came through last time, a sagging section keeps catching the same solids, and a cracked wall keeps snagging whatever passes it. Clearing is a legitimate first step and it gets the property working again, but if a drain blocks twice in the same year, the pipe is telling you something about itself and a camera is the only way to hear it.
Should I use a supermarket drain cleaner?
Sparingly at most, and not repeatedly. Caustic products can shift a soft blockage close to the fixture, which is why they sometimes work. They do nothing to a root mass or a collapsed section further down the line, and on an old cast iron or clay pipe that is already corroded, repeated doses do not help the pipe. If a product has not worked twice, a third bottle is not the answer, and it makes the drain unpleasant to work on afterwards.
Does pouring boiling water down help?
For a slow kitchen drain with a greasy film, hot water and detergent can loosen it enough to move. It is worth one try. Two cautions: boiling water can damage some plastic traps and fittings, so hot from the tap is the safer version, and if the grease has hardened further along the run, melting the near end just moves the problem down the pipe to somewhere colder.
What should never go down the drain?
Cooking oil and fat, which cool and set on the pipe wall and are behind most kitchen blockages. Wet wipes of every kind, including ones labelled flushable, which do not break down like paper and knit together into a mass. Coffee grounds, rice and pasta, which swell or pack. Nappies, sanitary products and paper towel. Building waste, plaster, cement, paint and sand, which set hard. Most of what we cut out of Perth drains started as one of those.
Can I clear it myself with a plunger?
A plunger is worth trying on a single blocked fixture, and a hand auger through a floor waste or a clean-out will sometimes reach a soft blockage. Two limits. If more than one fixture is backing up at once, the blockage is in the shared line beyond anything a plunger will reach. And a rigid rod pushed hard into an old clay or corroded cast iron line can break it, which turns a blockage into a repair.
Is a gurgling toilet a blocked drain?
Usually it means air is being pulled through the water seal because something downstream is restricting flow, so yes, it is generally an early warning rather than a quirk. Gurgling that appears across several fixtures, or a toilet whose level rises when the washing machine empties, points at the shared line rather than at one fixture. That is the point to book a camera run, before it becomes an overflow.
Is a blocked drain an emergency?
Sewage backing up inside the building, or surfacing in the yard, is a health issue and should be treated as urgent: stop using the fixtures that feed that line so nothing more is added to it. A single slow-draining sink is not urgent, though it is worth acting on before it becomes the other thing. Tell us which of the two you have when you get in touch, because it changes how we schedule it.
Is the pipe my responsibility?
Broadly, the drainage on your side of the connection point belongs to the property, and the main beyond it does not. That sounds simple and is regularly not, particularly in strata, where a blockage in a shared line is common property even though it surfaces in one lot. A camera run establishes where the fault sits relative to the boundary, which is the fact the whole question turns on. If the fault turns out not to be yours, we will tell you that rather than quote you for it.

Blocked now, or blocked again?

Tell us which it is and where the property is, anywhere from Joondalup to Mandurah. We will clear it, then show you what the camera found.

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