Inspect Your Sewer Lines!

Sewer lines are a vital part of our homes. Every time we use a sink, take a shower and flush the toilet our sewer lines are performing their often unappreciated and delicate balancing act to ever so gently FLOW. We assume that "it's gone" as long as it doesn't come back, as in back up into the drain where we can see it with our eyes. However there is more to the story, your sewer could be on the brink of failure or already failed but you just haven't seen it come back up, and it may not, ever.

Per 718.1 of the Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC) sewer lines are required to be installed with a minimum grade or slope not less than ¼" per foot, which is not much! The rational is that water breaks on a plane with a minimal grade so you don't want the water to flow too fast otherwise it will "run" away from the solids. What this means is that your sewer line is barely draining when it's brand new and perfect. Imagine adding years of soil settling, pipe deterioration and root intrusion and the same delicately flowing pipe just gets worse. The tricky part is that you can't see the effects of the ever increasing failure until it's too late.