Why are several drains backing up at the same time?

You flush a toilet and hear a gurgle from the shower. Then the shower has an inch of water in it. Then the kitchen sink is slow too. Each fixture drains into its own branch line, and the branch lines join a single main line that leaves the house. When several drains back up together, the problem is downstream of all of them: the main line is blocked.

What to do right now

1. Stop running water. Every fixture in the house shares the blocked line. Water you send down now comes up in the lowest drain, usually a shower or tub, sometimes a floor drain in the garage.
2. Do not flush. Same reason.
3. Do not pour drain chemicals. They will not fix a main line, and they turn the standing water into something the plumber has to handle carefully.
4. Check the cleanout. Most homes here have a capped pipe, three or four inches across, sticking up a few inches from the ground near the front or side of the house, sometimes two of them side by side. If you can open the cap by hand and water is standing in it or pours out, the blockage is between that point and the sewer or septic tank. Stand to the side when you open it. If you cannot open it easily, leave it.
5. Check the neighbors. If several houses on the street have the same problem at the same time, the utility’s sewer main may be surcharged, and the utility has an emergency line for that.
6. Call. This is the part of plumbing that needs a cable machine, a jetter, and a camera, and it does not improve with waiting.

How to read the symptoms

• The lowest drain fills when a higher fixture runs. Classic main line blockage. The tub is simply the first place the water can escape.
• Toilet bubbles when the washing machine drains. The washer pushes a large volume fast; a partial blockage sends the air and water back through the nearest fixture. Often an early warning, weeks before a full backup.
• Sewer smell inside. A dry trap in an unused shower is the innocent explanation. A partial blockage, a cracked line under the slab, or a full septic tank are the others.
• Only one fixture is slow. That is a branch line or a trap, and it is a different, smaller problem.

What blocks a main line here

• Roots. The number one cause in older neighborhoods. Ficus, palms, and oaks find the joints in clay and cast iron lines and grow a mat inside.
• Wipes and paper products that do not break down. “Flushable” wipes are the most common thing we pull out of a line.
• Grease from the kitchen, which cools and hardens in the line and catches everything else.
• Failed cast iron. In homes built before the mid-1970s, a channeled or collapsed section of cast iron pipe is often what a “clog” turns out to be.
• A belly in the line, where the pipe has settled and holds water and solids.
• A full septic tank. If you are on septic, a backup at every fixture with no clog in the line is often a tank that needs pumping or a drain field that has failed.

What the plumber does

Open the cleanout and clear the line, with a cable machine for roots and soft blockages or a high-velocity water jetter for grease, scale, and packed lines. Then run a camera through the cleared pipe to see what caused it. The camera is what turns a repeat clog into a plan: cut the roots on a schedule, jet the grease and change kitchen habits, or repair the section of pipe that keeps catching everything.

Keep it from happening again

• Nothing goes in the toilet but toilet paper and what the body produces. No wipes, no feminine products, no paper towels.
• Grease goes in the trash, never the sink.
• If the camera found roots, plan on a maintenance cleaning before they close the pipe again.
• If you are on septic, keep the pumping schedule.

If drains are backing up in your house right now, call. A plumber answers 24 hours a day, and this is one of the calls we are set up for.