A clogged drain is one of the few home repairs where the price genuinely can be quoted in a sentence, and almost nobody does it. So here is ours, from our own books rather than a national average: most single-drain clearings in Northern Virginia land between $200 and $800, and the middle of that is about $430. When the problem turns out to be the main line instead of one fixture, the number moves up to roughly $860 to $1,600.
Those are real signed jobs, not a range somebody picked to look competitive. What follows is where in that range your particular clog lands, and why.
Worth knowing before you book a fourth clearing: if the same line keeps blocking, you are renting a problem rather than fixing it. Roots at a clay joint have a permanent answer, and it is usually lining the pipe from the inside rather than digging it up.
The numbers, plainly
Pulled from every drain job SwiftPro sold between May 2024 and this month:
- One fixture cleared (kitchen sink, bathroom sink, tub, shower, a toilet augered): the cheapest tenth come in near $200, half of them land under $432, and nine in ten are under $812.
- Main line cleared (the pipe carrying the whole house out to the street): half land near $1,069, with most between $862 and $1,630.
- A camera down the main line as an add-on to a service call: a couple hundred dollars, and sometimes it is the cheapest money you will spend all year. More on that below.
A quick word on the low end. If you see $99 drain cleaning advertised, that is a door-opener, and there is nothing automatically wrong with that. Just read what it covers: usually one fixture, through an existing cleanout, up to a stated distance, during business hours, with no warranty if the line turns out to be broken. When the job needs more than that, the price becomes the real price. We would rather quote the real one first.
Five things that move the number
Which drain it is. A bathroom sink is a short run of small pipe and a fast job. A kitchen line packed with years of grease is a longer pull with a bigger machine. A main line is a different machine again.
Whether there is a cleanout. A cleanout is the capped access fitting that lets us put a cable into the line directly. If your house has one and it is reachable, the job is straightforward. If there is not one, we are pulling a toilet or going through a roof vent to get access, and that is real added time.
How far in the blockage sits. Fifteen feet is a different job than ninety feet.
What the blockage actually is. Grease, hair and the wet wipes that are absolutely not flushable all cable out. Roots grow back and want a cutting head. A collapsed section of pipe does not clear at any price, because there is nothing to clear.
When you call. Nights, weekends and holidays cost more, here and everywhere. If the drain is slow rather than stopped and you can wait until Monday, wait until Monday.
Clearing a line and fixing a line are two different purchases
This is the distinction that saves people the most money, and it is the one that most often does not get explained.
Clearing is mechanical. A cable goes in, the blockage comes out or gets chewed through, water runs. If the pipe underneath is sound, that is the end of it, and you paid a few hundred dollars.
Repair or replacement is when the pipe itself has failed. Roots have cracked it open, a section has bellied so waste pools instead of flowing, or the old clay or cast iron has simply reached the end. Cabling a broken line buys you weeks, not years, and every repeat visit is another few hundred dollars spent on a problem that was never a clog.
The honest version: if we clear your line and it backs up again inside a few months, stop buying clearings. Buy a camera inspection and find out what is actually down there.
When a camera is worth it, and when it is not
Not every clog needs a camera. A kitchen sink that backs up once in five years is a grease clog, we clear it, everyone gets on with their day.
Put a camera in the line when any of these are true:
- The same drain has backed up more than once in a year.
- More than one fixture is slow at the same time, which points at the main rather than a branch.
- You are buying the house, or selling it. A few hundred dollars now against a five-figure surprise later is not a close call.
- There are mature trees between the house and the street, which in most Northern Virginia neighborhoods built before 1990 means the front yard.
- The clearing worked, but the technician felt the cable catch at the same spot on the way in.
A camera turns a guess into a picture. It also tells you where the problem is and how deep, which is the difference between a targeted repair and digging up a whole yard. Here is what happens if the camera finds a broken line.
What you can try before calling anybody
We would rather tell you this than sell you a visit you did not need.
A single slow sink is often worth ten minutes of your own effort. Pull the pop-up stopper on a bathroom sink and clean the hair off it, because that is the answer more often than not. Clear the strainer basket in a kitchen sink. If a plunger is going to work, it works in the first minute, and it works better if you block the overflow hole with a wet rag first so the pressure goes down the drain instead of out the side.
Two things to skip. Chemical drain cleaners are hard on older pipe, they rarely touch a real blockage, and they turn a routine job into a hazardous one for whoever opens the line next. And if every drain in the house is slow at once, do not keep running water hoping it clears. That is a main line problem, and the next flush has nowhere to go but up through the lowest fixture in the house.
Getting it cleared
SwiftPro clears drains across Northern Virginia, from single fixtures to main lines, with cameras when the line has earned one. You get the price before the work starts, and if what we find is a broken pipe rather than a clog, we will tell you that instead of cabling it again next month. Call (703) 997-9757 or book online.
If the water is rising right now, that is the emergency line, not a form.
