What is "Hydro Jetting?"

One slow-draining sink may be a sign that you’ve got a small clog somewhere in your drain pipe, but all of the drains in your home moving slowly, including showers, sinks, and toilets, could point to something even bigger. A clog or blockage in your main sewer lines can have a massive detrimental impact on your plumbing system, including causing pressure buildup, damaging sewer line pipes, and more. In the past, this used to require the expensive and intrusive process of digging up your sewer pipes, replacing them, and then reconstructing your house or yard. But today this process is done quickly, easily, and without disturbing your home through a process called “hydro jetting.”

What is Hydro Jetting?

Hydro jetting is a fairly simple concept: much like a pressure washer uses a fine, high-pressure stream of water to clean off things like your deck or patio, a hydro jetting machine uses multiple high-pressure water streams to demolish clogs in your sewer lines and flush them away. Hydro-jetting also cleans the walls and lining of your pipes to remove any initial clog buildup and flush that away as well, leaving you with clean and clear sewer lines that are almost as spotless as the day they were installed. A hydro-jetted sewer line likely won’t have to worry about clogs or residue buildup for several years once the service is completed.

The Hydro Jetting Process

A hydro jetting service is fairly simple: after your plumber checks your lines with a video inspection tool to locate the clog, they feed a specially-designed hose with several nozzles down your main sewer line pipe, usually found out near the front of your house. The nozzle is located on one end of a long hose, with the other end of that hose connected to a machine that forces water down the hose and out of the nozzles at extremely high pressures.

Once the cleaning head is inside your sewer, your plumber turns on the water, which then starts blasting the walls of your pipe and everything directly in front with high-pressure water, scrubbing away built-up scum and debris and then flushing it down the sewer line. When the specialized jet nozzle reaches the source of your clog, it eventually blasts it away, completely opening the pipe and allowing the line to flow clearly once again. As the cleaning head is removed from the pipe, it does one last sweep of the walls to make sure any dismantled debris is fully flushed out, leaving your plumbing good-as-new.