Aurora drains, cleared and checked
Slow drains in Aurora, cleared right the first time.
Kitchen sinks, tubs, laundry standpipes, and main lines opened up by licensed plumbers who put a camera down the pipe before telling you what is wrong with it.
Aurora water is hard, and your branch lines have been drinking it for fifty years.
Front Range water carries a lot of mineral. In a galvanized or cast-iron branch line, that mineral does not pass through. It plates onto the pipe wall.
Give it a few decades and the inside of a two-inch line is closer to an inch and a half, with a rough, gritty surface that grabs every bit of hair, soap, and grease going past it. That is why so many Aurora houses off Colfax, around Del Mar Park, and through the older stretches of the Hoffman and Highline neighborhoods clog in the exact same spot year after year. The clog is not the problem. The clog is the pipe telling you what it has become.
We work Aurora on both sides of the county line, and we would rather find out why a drain quit than knock the blockage loose and drive off. Call (303) 883-9075, or send us the details and we will get you on the schedule. Recent jobs are in the gallery.
- Kitchen sink and disposal lines
- Tub, shower, and lavatory drains
- Laundry standpipe backups
- Basement floor drains
- Main line cabling
- Camera inspection
Roots, clay soil, and old laterals
The ground under Aurora moves, and the pipe moves with it.
Cable or jet? The camera answers that, not a guess.
A drain camera costs you nothing in demolition and settles the argument in about twenty minutes. We can see whether we are looking at grease, at roots at a joint, at scale on the pipe wall, or at a belly holding water. We can see whether the pipe is cast iron, clay, Orangeburg, or plastic. Until somebody looks, everything else is a guess with a bill attached.
When cable is the right call
A soft blockage, a hair-and-soap plug, small roots at a single joint, or any line we have reason to think is fragile. A cable clears a path and gets you running today without stressing the pipe.
When jetting earns its keep
Grease-packed kitchen lines and scaled-up mains, where the whole diameter has to come back. Water at pressure peels the walls instead of drilling a hole through the middle of the buildup.
Here is the part a lot of outfits skip: jetting is the wrong tool on some Aurora lines. A brittle old clay lateral with cracked hubs, or cast iron that has gone thin and flaky, can lose material under a jet head. If the camera shows us pipe in that condition, we say so and we cable it instead. If the line is beyond clearing, that is a sewer line conversation and we will lay out those options separately. Straight answers either way. Call (303) 883-9075 or tell us what it is doing.
One slow drain is a fixture. Three at once is your main line.
If a single sink is draining slow, it is almost always local to that fixture. If the tub gurgles when the washer drains, if the toilet burps when you run the kitchen sink, or if the basement floor drain is the one backing up, the problem is downstream of everything and it is the main. That difference decides which truck and which tools show up, so tell us the whole pattern when you call.
Not sure which one you have? Describe the symptoms to us on the phone at (303) 883-9075. We have heard them all and we can usually narrow it down before we leave the shop. More on how we cover the area is on the Aurora page.
Before you call anybody
Two things worth trying yourself.
We are not going to pretend every slow drain needs a plumber. If you can fix it in ten minutes with a bucket under the sink, do that and keep your money.
- Pull the P-trap on a slow sink. Bucket underneath, loosen the two slip nuts by hand, and pull the U out. Nine times out of ten on a bathroom sink the plug is right there in the trap or in the pop-up stopper linkage. Clean it, put it back, snug the nuts by hand.
- Run hot water at the kitchen sink for a full three or four minutes. On a line that is only starting to grease up, that will sometimes carry it out. If it works for a week and comes right back, it is not working, it is delaying, and the line needs to actually be cleaned.
What we would ask you to skip is the bottle of chemical drain opener. It rarely touches grease, it does nothing at all to roots, and on old metal pipe it can eat what little wall thickness is left. It also makes a mess dangerous for whoever opens that line next, which may well be us. Beyond those two tries, a recurring clog is a line problem and not something you did wrong, so call (303) 883-9075.
Straight answers
What Aurora homeowners ask us about drains.
My drain clogs in the same place every year. Why does snaking it never last?
Because a cable makes a hole through the blockage, it does not clean the pipe. On a scaled or grease-lined pipe the opening packs back up on the same schedule it did before. To break the cycle you have to take the wall back to bare pipe, which is jetting work, or accept that the pipe itself is finished. A camera tells us which one you are dealing with. Call (303) 883-9075.
Do I really need a camera inspection, or can you just clear it?
If it is your first clog in years, we will often just clear it and leave you alone. If it is the second or third time in a year, the camera is what stops you paying for the same visit again. It shows roots, bellies, cracks, and pipe material for certain instead of by guess. Ask us about it when you book.
Is hydro jetting safe on an old Aurora sewer line?
Not always, and we will not run it blind. Brittle clay with cracked hubs or thin, flaking cast iron can lose material under a jet head. That is exactly why we camera first. If the pipe cannot take jetting, we cable it and tell you plainly what the line’s real condition is. See the gallery for the kind of work we document.
Why do tree roots keep getting into my sewer line?
Roots do not drill through sound pipe. They find a joint that has already opened up, usually because the clay soil under Aurora swells and shrinks with moisture and slowly works the line apart. The mature silver maples and cottonwoods in the older neighborhoods have had fifty or sixty years to hunt. We can cut roots out and get you flowing, then show you on camera how bad the joint underneath actually is.
All my drains are slow at once. Is that different from one bad sink?
Yes, and it matters. One slow fixture is local to that fixture. Multiple slow drains at the same time, gurgling toilets, or a backing-up basement floor drain point at the main line serving the whole house. Tell us the full pattern at (303) 883-9075 and we will bring the right equipment the first trip.
Do you handle drains for rentals and small commercial kitchens in Aurora?
We do. Rental turnover and restaurant kitchens near Anschutz and Buckley put a lot of grease into lines that were never sized for it, and those are jetting and maintenance customers more than one-off calls. We can set an interval that keeps you out of an emergency. Reach out with the property details.
Why does my drain slow down when the weather turns cold?
Front Range freeze and thaw keeps working the soil, and an old lateral that drained fine in September can start catching once the ground moves. Roots also crowd toward the warmer, damper pipe. If you notice a seasonal pattern, get it looked at before it is a backup on a holiday weekend.
What does it cost to have a drain cleared in Aurora?
That depends on which line, how far in the blockage sits, and what the camera finds. What we will not do is throw a number at you over the phone and change it once we are in your basement. Call (303) 883-9075, tell us what is happening, and you will get a straight quote before any work starts.
Drain backing up in Aurora?
Licensed, locally owned, answering the phone day or night. We look before we cut, and we tell you straight what your line needs.