Fix Drains and Buried Sewer Lines
A clog and a broken pipe look exactly the same from the kitchen sink, and one costs about ten times what the other does. So the first job is working out which one you’ve got. A cable or a jetter if it’s a clog, a camera if the line has earned one, and the excavator only when the pipe is really finished.
Family owned
Not corporate.
Local and accountable.
You see the footage
Every camera job, and
you keep a copy.
We line pipe
In house, not subbed
out to someone else.
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Tell us what the drain is doing. We’ll come look before anyone talks price.
If any of this is happening, call us.
You don’t have to work out what’s wrong before you pick up the phone. That’s our job. But here’s what people describe when they call about a drain, and what each one usually turns out to be.
Gurgling when you run water somewhere else
Flush an upstairs toilet and the basement drain burps or bubbles. That’s air getting pushed back at you, and it means the main line, not the sink.
More than one drain is slow
One slow sink is a sink. Two slow drains on different floors are sharing the pipe that leaves the house, and that’s a different job.
A smell that wasn’t there last week
Sewer gas gets out where the line is cracked or a trap has dried out. Worth a call even while everything still drains fine.
Water coming up at the lowest drain
Basement floor drain, basement shower, basement toilet. Stop running water and call. This one gets worse with every flush upstairs.
The same drain, every few months
A line that blocks on a schedule isn’t clogging, it’s regrowing. Roots come back to the same joint they found the first time.
A wet patch in the yard that never dries
That’s the water line, not the sewer, and there’s usually a water bill that jumped in the same month. Different pipe, same trench.
Drains give you warning. That’s the whole opportunity.
Almost nothing down there fails without telling you first. Acting on the warning is the difference between a service call and a weekend with a wet basement.
A clog is cheap. A backup isn’t.
Clearing a line is a few hundred dollars. Sewage on a finished basement floor is a different kind of day, and the policy that covers the mess usually won’t pay to fix the pipe.
A drain that keeps blocking is a pipe telling you something
Four clearings is a down payment on a repair nobody has diagnosed. One camera visit ends the cycle, one way or the other.
Caught early, most lines never get dug up
While the old pipe still holds its shape we can renew it from the inside. Once it collapses that option is gone and the yard comes up.
Not sure which one you’ve got?
Describe it on the phone and we’ll tell you whether it needs someone today, whether it can wait until Monday, or whether it’s something you can sort out yourself in ten minutes. Asking costs nothing.
Real person, not a call center. 24/7 for anything actively backing up.
It’s almost always one of three things.
Everything that leaves your house goes out through pipe you can’t see. So when it stops, the question isn’t who can get here fastest. It’s what’s actually wrong. One of these is an hour under a sink. Another is a week in the yard.
Drain cleaning and water jetting
A cable clears most clogs. High-pressure water is for the ones a cable would just bore a hole through, which is grease in a kitchen line and roots in a main. One fixture, one branch, or the pipe carrying the whole house out to the street. The prices are on the site before you pick up the phone.
Camera and leak detection
A camera turns a guess into a picture: what the blockage is, how far in, how deep, and whether the pipe around it is sound. That last one is the whole ballgame, because clearing a broken line is renting a fix. When a camera earns its keep, and when it doesn’t.
Underground sewer and water lines
The sewer lateral and the water service line, house to the connection at the street. Both are yours, both are buried, and neither one announces itself until it fails. We renew sewer pipe from the inside where it’ll take it, without a trench across the yard, and we dig where it won’t.
One fixture or the whole house? You can tell in five minutes.
No tools, no charge, and it changes what you do next more than anything we could say on the phone. One slow sink can wait until Monday. A blocked main line can’t, because every flush upstairs has to come out somewhere.
Go to the lowest drain in the house
Basement floor drain, basement shower, basement toilet. Whatever sits lowest is where a main line problem shows up first. It always is.
Run water somewhere else entirely
Flush an upstairs toilet. Run the kitchen sink for thirty seconds. Start the washing machine. You’re asking the house to send water past that low fixture.
Watch what the low fixture does
Gurgling, burping air, or water rising in it while you run water elsewhere means the main line. Nothing at all, and only one sink or tub slow, means that fixture’s branch.
Then act on the answer
Main line: stop using water, tell everyone in the house, and call. One fixture: you have time, and pulling the hair off a bathroom pop-up stopper costs nothing to try first.
Clearing a line and fixing a line are two different jobs. Clearing is mechanical: a cable or water goes in, the blockage comes out, water runs, and if the pipe underneath is sound that’s genuinely the end of it. Repair is when the pipe itself has failed, and cabling a broken line buys you weeks rather than years. If we clear your line and it backs up again inside a few months, stop buying clearings and buy a camera inspection. We would rather tell you that now than sell you the fourth one.
What this work costs here.
These are real signed jobs off our own books, not a national average. Yours will be its own number and we work it out after we’ve looked, but you should know roughly where you stand before anybody quotes you. Longer version in the drain cleaning cost guide.
One fixture cleared
Kitchen sink, bathroom sink, tub, shower, a toilet augered. Most land between $200 and $800, and the middle of that is about $430. It takes an unusual one to pass $812.
Main line cleared
The pipe carrying the whole house out to the street. Most run $862 to $1,630, and the middle is about $1,069.
Camera down the main, added to a visit
$89 when we’re already at your house on another call. The cheapest useful hour in plumbing.
Camera or scope visit on its own
Generally $500 to $1,700. The spread is real, because a standalone scope often means clearing the line first so the camera can see anything at all.
Digging a sewer line up
Generally $7,500 to $9,000 here, and rock and clay are most of the reason. That is the number a liner is there to avoid, and the camera is what tells you whether you can.
Northern Virginia is hard on buried pipe.
None of this is bad luck. Three things about this area explain most of what our camera finds under a front yard, and each one has a different answer.
Clay and cast iron under the older neighborhoods
A lot of Northern Virginia went up between the 1950s and the 1980s. Clay sewer pipe comes in short sections with a joint every few feet, and cast iron rusts from the inside until the opening is a fraction of what it was. Both fail predictably, which is the good news.
Trees that are now fifty years into looking for water
Roots don’t break into a healthy pipe. They find a joint that has already shifted, and then they grow. Your sewer line is the wettest, most nutrient-rich thing in the yard.
Rock and heavy clay soil
Ground that doesn’t settle evenly leaves a line bellied, so waste pools in the low spot instead of running downhill and the same place blocks forever. It’s also why digging here costs what it does.
A picture instead of a guess.
All of this happens inside a buried pipe, which is why it’s so hard to picture and so easy to be sold something you don’t need. Here’s the before and the after.
Cutaway illustrations from In-Line Renewal Solutions, who make the lining system we run.
Digging is the last answer, not the first one.
If the camera finds a broken lateral, the next question is whether it has to come up at all. Usually it doesn’t. Here’s the detail, by job and by city:
- Trenchless sewer repair, all of Northern Virginia
- Sewer line repair in McLean
- Sewer line repair in Woodbridge
- Sewer line repair in Loudoun County
The water service line is the other buried pipe, and it’s yours too. It brings clean water in under pressure, so it fails differently: a wet patch in the yard that never dries, a water bill that jumped for no reason, pressure that dropped across the whole house at once. Same excavation equipment, completely different repair. If the pressure went suddenly, start with knowing where your shutoffs are.
Drains and underground lines across Northern Virginia
Based in Chantilly, so most of Northern Virginia is a short run. Houses, townhouses, HOA common lines and small commercial laterals in and around:
What people ask us about drains
Do you have to dig up my yard to fix a sewer line?
Usually not. Where the old pipe still holds its shape, a new jointless pipe is cured inside the old one with ultraviolet light and the lawn stays where it is. We run that equipment ourselves rather than subbing it out, which is why we can look at the camera footage and tell you honestly when it’s the wrong call. How trenchless works.
Cable or jetter, and who decides?
The blockage does. Grease and roots close back around a cable within weeks, so those want water at pressure. A wad of wipes in a branch line wants a cable. If somebody quotes you jetting before they know what’s in the pipe, they’re quoting a machine, not a repair.
What if my house has no cleanout?
A cleanout is the capped access fitting that lets a machine into the line directly. Without one we get in by pulling a toilet or going through a roof vent, which is real added time and shows up in the price. It’s also worth installing one while we’re there.
Do I need a camera before I buy a house?
If it was built before 1980 and there are mature trees between it and the street, yes. A standard home inspection doesn’t include the sewer lateral, and in Fairfax County the lateral is the owner’s all the way to the county main, the run under the street included.
Is the water service line the same thing as the sewer line?
No, and people mix them up constantly. The water service brings clean water in under pressure, so it fails as a wet patch in the yard or a jump in the bill. The sewer lateral carries waste out by gravity, so it fails as a backup. Different pipe, different repair, same trench equipment.
Do you work nights and weekends?
Yes, and it costs more, here and everywhere. If the drain is slow rather than stopped and you can wait until Monday, wait until Monday. If sewage is coming up anywhere, don’t wait.
Are you licensed?
Virginia Class A contractor, license 2705192276, and it’s on the side of every van. Family owned, based in Chantilly.
More on drains and buried pipe
- What drain cleaning costs in Northern Virginia
- Clogged drain or main line? The five-minute test
- Sewer camera inspection: when it is worth it and when it is not
- Sewer line repair and replacement cost: trenchless vs. digging
- Does your house need repiping? Polybutylene, copper pinholes, and how to tell
- Sump pumps and battery backups, before the next rainy season
Find out what it is before you pay to fix it.
If the same drain has backed up twice in a year, you don’t have a clog. You have a pipe, and nobody has looked at it yet. Book the visit, watch the footage, then decide.
Licensed Class A #2705192276 · Based in Chantilly, serving all of Northern Virginia