Your sewer line, or main sewer line, is the final leg of your home’s plumbing system. This is the central underground pipe connecting your home’s drains to the city’s sewer lines. All the used-up water from your home eventually finds its way into the sewer line.
For obvious reasons, according to Property Alexandria Specialists, this pipeline is vital to the proper function of your plumbing and entire home. It removes wastewater from your sinks and appliances. The sewer line also transports raw sewage from the toilet out of your home. Without it, you couldn’t have a modern home.
That is why problems in this vital section of a home’s plumbing can be devastating for the occupants of the building. In addition to the clear sanitary issues, sewer line problems can cause, a malfunctioning sewer line can damage your home and make it unlivable.
To avoid the costly ordeal of a broken sewer line, it is essential to know the early warning signs of an impending sewer line emergency in your home. In this post, we discuss the common signs of sewer line problems.
6 common signs of sewer line problems in your home
Slow drains in your home
A single slow drain in your home should not be taken as evidence of sewer line problems. Drains can become slow due to clogs in the pipes directly connected to a fixture. But if multiple fixtures are affected by the problem at the same time, there may be an issue in your sewer line. Some accompanying signs of this problem are gurgling sounds from your drains or toilet due to trapped air in the sewer line, foul odors from your drains, and water backing up in one fixture when another drain is slow.
Water pooling around your property
A clogged sewer line often occurs as chronic wastewater pooling in strange places on your property. That can happen if tree roots penetrate and block the sewer line, causing its contents to leak. You will also have pooling cases in your yard if a section of the sewer line has collapsed. Sewer line collapse often happens because of aging, shifting soils, and adverse weather conditions. Improper sloping of the sewer line may also result in wastewater settling inside the pipe instead of flowing away. That can cause water to pool in your yard.
The smell of rotten eggs inside the home
Lingering odors around the property and inside the home may signify problems with your sewer line. That is caused by sewer gases leaking out of the sewer line and finding their way into the house. When a sewer line is functional, sewer gases easily find their way to the city sewer lines. But blockages inside the sewer line can trap these gases and force them to find a way out of the sewer line through your drains. A cracked sewer line will also leak foul-smelling gases.
Gurgling noises from drains
Strange gurgling sounds from your drains offer a clue to what is going on inside your sewer lines. Gurgling sounds happen because of blocked or partially blocked drains. This blockage can cause trapped air within the line to force its way out of the drains as bubbles. Your sewer line may also emit strange noises when the system’s air vents are blocked or clogged. Another common source of strange noises in your home’s drains is when the sewer line is damaged, and air enters the line from the outside, resulting in gurgling sounds when you use a plumbing fixture in the home.
Your toilet overflows
An overflowing toilet is not a minor problem; it is an actual plumbing emergency. This issue often happens when you ignore the less severe signs of sewer line problems in your home. A toilet overflows when, after you flush the toilet, water accumulates inside the bowl instead of flowing out. Before your toilet overflows, the problem will first occur as a slow drain. You may also hear gurgling sounds from the toilet. One major sign that the toilet in your home is getting ready to overflow is when you have simultaneous clogs in several drains in the house.
Sewage backup
A sewer backup is the most damaging plumbing emergency that can happen in a home. This is true in terms of the sanitary impact of the problem, the amount of damage it can do to your building and its capacity to disrupt the everyday routines of your family. But before this problem happened in your home, you would have gotten multiple signs of the impending disaster. All the other signs discussed above may be viewed as signs of a possible sewer line backup in your home.
If you find any less damaging signs of sewer line problems in your home, it is essential not to wait until the more damaging signs of the issues start to unfold.
Is your sewer line showing signs of trouble? Please call a plumber today.