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What Is a Sewer Line Cleanout?

sewer cleaning inspections

That capped black fitting on your pipe is a sewer cleanout, also referred to as a drain cleanout and a direct sewer line access point from your property.

Finding them around your house can be a struggle, but unclogging drains, pipes, and sewer lines can be much easier when you can access them.

It’s difficult to find their placements around your house without a lot of planning, but here’s how you can locate them without a map.

Key Points in This Article

Where Can I Find My Home’s Sewer Cleanout?

A drain cleanout located outside is connected to your main sewer line, which links your home’s sewage to the city’s sewage system and ensures all your wastewater is disposed of properly.

You can find the outside cleanout of your house by locating the nearest manhole on a public access road.

Once you find the manhole, face your house and walk in its direction. You can find your drain cleanouts outside your house faster, as the link between the municipal sewer line in the manhole and the main sewer line in your house tends to go straight.

Drain cleanouts located inside can be seen directly linked to your home’s pipes. They’re typically found on a Y-shaped pipe fitting at the last mile before sewage exits your house. While lines connect, their drain cleanout has a distinguishable threaded plug fitted with a black, gray, or white square nut

They look like a removable plastic cap covering, providing access to blockages and clogging. Older homes might have a cast-iron cover instead of a plastic or PVC one.

A square nut of plastic or cast iron isn’t always easily removable without proper plumbing tools. You can use metal pliers to twist cast-iron nuts off the cover, but it might be too harsh on PVC materials.

While a sewer line cleanout is meant to grant accessibility, you should leave its management to the professionals.

Is Having a Sewer Line Cleanout Beneficial?

Some homes have them to make their sewer lines more accessible for maintenance and tune-ups. It’s most helpful if a clog in your pipes needs to be cleared.

Only plumbing professionals should go through this access point to prevent causing more clogging that might back up your pipes.

What Is the Main Sewer Line?

Before we go any further, it’s exactly what you think it is. It’s all the pipes involved in handling your household’s sewage.

The drain linked to your toilets is led out of your home through your sewer line. It facilitates waste management correctly, which is essential because human waste carries dangerous gases.

When there’s a clog anywhere in your pipes, waste builds up in your drainage pipes. Clogs constrict sufficient water flow, leading to compounded blockages. Their decomposition within sewer lines can redirect toxic water flow into your plumbing systems. They could come out of your shower drain, toilet, and other plumbing fixtures.

It’s also terrible for its decomposition to result in widespread evaporation. If you smell a funk from your kitchen sink, that’s most likely the smell of your sewage. It’s not only a nasty nuisance, but it’s more dangerous than you think.

Most homeowners don’t know this, but the members of your household aren’t just smelling something filthy from a blocked pipe. You’re all inhaling dangerous gases such as methane.

Methane and other toxic gases are byproducts of your waste’s decomposition. A plumber wears masks and other protective gear before cleaning your drain or main line.

These protocols aren’t just because of the residue they might inhale that results from the industrial solvents they use reacting with your copper drainage lines. Methane and other waste gases are hazardous to inhale in large volumes or chronically in small amounts.

Having a sewer cleanout is most helpful in these cases. While professionals still need to wear protective gear, their risk of exposure is greatly lessened.

However, some homes might not have sewer cleanouts in their home because they have another type of plumbing fixture.

Do All Homes Have a Sewer Line?

While not all homes have a sewer cleanout, everyone has a sewer line. According to building codes, a home built anywhere on a pier, beam, or slab foundation must have a plumbing system fitted with a cleanout.

All that wastewater pumping through the drain line ends up in your plumbing’s septic system. A sewer cleanout is helpful because it provides plumbers with easy access to reach drain and sewer clogs.

If you’ve checked indoors and outdoors and under any lawn decorations without finding any cleanout, you might find another plumbing access point.

Plumbers can clear clogs caught in your pipes more efficiently with their tools and knowledge when they have direct access to your home’s main sewer line.

In Case Your House Doesn’t Have a Sewer Pipe Cleanout

If you live in a building, inspect utility rooms for a double vent house trap installed indoors that may act as a plumbing access point. Their use is obsolete but likely still used in buildings built in 1989 and earlier.

A house trap doesn’t share the same primary purpose as the cleanout. Still, its supplemental effect is catching contaminants that may clog a pipe. However, a double-vented house trap’s primary purpose is to trap hazardous gases such as methane from evaporating or flowing back into your home’s pipes.

Even the smallest clogs in your pipe often lead to backflow and cause harmful risks to areas with floor or sink drains. If you’ve stayed in the bathroom for a prolonged period and started getting light-headed or dizzy, you might need to have your pipes examined by a professional.

Do Septic Tanks Have a Drain Cleanout?

A septic tank may have a drain cleanout. Unfortunately, not all septic tanks come with this accessibility.

More and more plumbing companies encourage homeowners to install a drain cleanout, especially into a septic tank. It will be easier for a plumber to handle your plumbing needs by hastening the removal of a clog but is now also required by building codes in homes nationwide.

Signs There’s Something Wrong With Your Sewer Line

If you notice any of these signs, there might be something wrong with your sewer drain.

  • The smell of sewage in unusual places. (Kitchen, shower area, garden, etc.)
  • Backflow from toilet drain and bathroom floor drain
  • Gurgling noises from the toilet, sink, shower, or hose
  • Inability or slow draining of toilet, shower, or sink
  • Leaking pipe
  • Wet spots on the ceiling
  • Mold around wall corners or on walls of rooms adjacent to half or full bathrooms

You should call a professional plumber as soon as you notice one or more of these symptoms. These can lead to additional risks and damages that may incur increased costs. However, if you’re pinching pennies now, there are preventative and semi-curative measures you can take to address minor clogging.

How To Keep Your Sewer Line From Clogging

Make it a habit to snake your drain. Because toxic gases can also attach themselves to moist particles resting in your pipes, you should run them with warm water to prevent any buildup of contamination, especially mold and mildew.

You can never entirely avoid clogging lines, but by scheduling routine maintenance, you can prevent chronic clogging. You can also ensure you never face severe clogging by observing these habits:

  • Don’t flush food down toilets.
  • Don’t flush grease or oil into toilets or sink drains. 
  • Don’t dispose of cooked or raw food through drain pipes.

How To Clean Your Home’s Drains

All your drainage pipes are connected to a single sewer pipe at the bottom of your house’s piping system that leads to the city’s sewage.

While it isn’t directly linked to the sewer, snaking the drain of your kitchen sink, shower, and bathroom sink can help alleviate any pressure buildup indirectly affecting your sewer.

If you don’t have snaking attachments linked to your drain or have any snaking tools in your toolbox, you might have some everyday household items lying around your home that can be useful.

Non-Toxic Compounds To Clean Out Your Drain

Vinegar, baking soda, and warm water can do your plumbing system wonders.

Create a powerful non-toxic solvent by adding half a cup of baking soda to a cup of vinegar. Run warm water on your sink or shower, and pour your homemade compound down the drain to dislodge or soften impurities clogging your drain. After 10 minutes, flush it with hot water to clean everything out.

Who Should I Call for Proper Installation & Repair of Drain Cleanouts?

If you live in Melbourne, Florida, or surrounding areas, Mac 5 Services can provide expert-quality sewer line installation and all your plumbing needs.

Reach Out to Mac 5 Services

Mac 5 Services has the necessary tools and knowledgeable plumbers to install and execute reliable sewer line repair, upgrade, and maintenance of your plumbing systems. We can help you get things back in line and prevent future problems.

For immediate concerns and questions, call us today at (321) 244-7500.

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