Blocked Drains

• If you’ve been following us for a while now you may have seen some of the interesting things we’ve found using our specialised CCTV equipment.
• Richard shares one of his funny CCTV stories.
• Fixing Blocked Drains and Sniffing out the problem all in one go is what we do best. 

Blocked Drains Caused This Basement to Get Flooded

A client from Claremont calls for help as their basement got flooded, squishy wet carpet and all.  Richard headed there and inspected the place. He found out that there were issues with the stormwater drain pipes. The property is around 50 years old and tree roots had already made their way in and became the reason for the clogging. As much as we want to be able to finish work in a day or as fast as possible, there are instances such as this that a few visits are needed to make sure we give quality work. The property is a 4-unit apartment and Richard had to do multiple visits and was able to clear a massive amount of tree roots in the different areas and pipes.

A Final Sneak Peak

As a final inspection Richard used one of our state-of-the-art gadgets, a CCTV drain camera, in all the hopper pipes and make sure that all are free flowing from top down to the ground.  One by one he inspects each apartment pipe and on the last top apartment he encounters an obstruction.  Making his way through the maze of pipes at first, he thought it was a tennis ball. To get a clearer view he used a hosepipe and flushed it with water and what a surprise he found!

Funny Surprise!

After thinking that it was some kind of a ball, it seemed to be the bottom part of a water bottle. He had to make sure of his hunch, armed with a lot of patience and his gadgets he tracked it through the network of pipes. He followed the bathroom pipes down to the walls and ceiling and it led him to one of the lower unit’s laundry area.  When he was able to pin-point where the obstruction is, he cut the pipe near the 90-degree PVC bend and VOILA, stuck upside down a plastic water bottle. How did it get there, no one knows? It’s just one of the funny days in our line of work. You will never know what to expect what comes out of those drain pipes!

When you have problems like flooding in your property always call professionals to solve the problem. Our licensed plumbers can resolve your plumbing issues quickly and efficiently as we are armed with years of experience.  We also make sure that they are fully equipped with state-of-the-art tools for accurate troubleshooting. That’s why we say we have all the gear and every idea!

• Some Commercial Plumbing problems need a plumber to come running!
• It is regulated that grease traps are required for waste pipes for some businesses given the amount of grease that is generated from their daily operations. 
• Did you know that Plumbdog also service Local Perth Businesses?

Plumbing for Commercial Kitchens

It’s regulation to have all waste pipes in a commercial kitchen running through a grease trap as you can imagine just from the sheer fat content in food and dishwashing flowing through the drains on a daily basis.

In this VLOG, one of our priority clients and favourite restaurants to dine gave us a whistle and as always, we came running!

Blocked Drains

When it comes to blocked drains, tree roots are a common cause and we’ve shown a few blocked drain videos now where we have water jetted and cleaned out drains where others couldn’t. In todays video, we visit a busy commercial kitchen in South Perth because off of their plumbing fixtures in the kitchen were backing up and flooding.

CCTV Inspections

Being a commercial kitchen, the grease trap should be regularly emptied so it’s a good sign that the grease trap wasn’t full because it means that the restaurant has been doing the right thing. With that confirmed, Richard used CCTV to quickly identify that the waste pipe was clogged and full of grease.

High Pressure Water Jetters

Our locally custom made high pressure water jetters don’t just cut tree roots like a knife through butter, they cut through grease too.

Have a look at the CCTV footage and you can see what a clean pipe looks like compared to pipes with some grease build up

All the Gear and Every Idea!

We are proud to say we have all the gear and every idea! Our fully stocked vans and specialised equipment means that we are able to get jobs done quickly and efficiently. Imagine if you had a commercial kitchen and had to work through a busy lunch rush with water backing up and flooding. You might even have to close the kitchen down which is never a good thing.

If you’re in the greater Perth area and have any drain cleaning or plumbing needs, give us a whistle!

While you’re watching the YouTube video, don’t forget to check out our other videos too, like, share and subscribe to our channel!

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• Do you know where your main access point or inspection opening is?
• Knowing where your inspection openings are can help save time and money
• Check out more of our VLOGS here.

The Job – Signs of a Blocked Drain

We were called out to this job because the customer reported blocked drains. The symptoms started with a gurgling toilet followed the next day by a laundry that presented with the same issue.

Fortunately, the client knew where the main drain access point was and in this particular scenario, the blockage affecting the property was between the access point and the water corporations main.

Do you know where your inspection openings are?

Every property is different and inspection points are not in standardised locations. In some older properties the inspection points may be hidden away or be fully covered over making it even more difficult to locate. While inspection openings are required and are regulated, they aren’t always raised when necessary to make them easy to find.

Why is it good to know where your access point is?

Knowing where your access point is will save time searching which means money. While we are pretty good at sniffing out access points, the longer we have to spend hunting and digging with our paws, means incurring what could be unnecessary charges. You may have come across your access points in obscure places when doing your gardening or maybe getting a patio installed so this knowledge may come in very handy.

The Video

Our obedient Plumbdog knows his stuff and isn’t afraid to get his paws wet. He gets in with some new and old fashioned technology to get the job done with a combination of the drain shaft plunger followed by our CCTV drain camera equipment to clearly identify the problem where you can clearly see the culprit tree roots. Then using our custom made high pressure water jetters, we get the job done!

Well done to our loyal customer too for knowing where the inspection shaft was saving time and money making it quick an easy to get on with the job of detecting the blockage and fixing the problem.

• This job started as a simple Blocked Toilet
• The blockage was in the main line and it was concrete!
• Check out our jetter at work with the CCTV drain camera
• Watch more of our VLOGS here.

In the video, you’ll notice that our obedient Plumbdog Darius said that he already sorted out the toilet to get it working but when you have a nose for this type of job, he double checked the line for the toilet and found more problems. To the average person or even a less experienced plumber, they would have called it a day which would only cause more problems in the future.

The Plumbing Problem

Concrete in the drains! Now we are used to seeing tree roots, hair and all sorts of usual things creating the need for drain cleaning and drain clearing but concrete is an interesting find. Presumably the concrete entered the drain when the bathroom was renovated.

The Video

In the video, Darius shows us the drain through our CCTV drain camera and gives us a walk through with commentary of the discovery process where he determines where the drain is blocked and why it’s blocked. Then we get to see our water jetter at work clearing through the concrete and dirt.

A couple of interesting points to note which we are always proud to say. Apart from the skills and how easy Plumbdog Darius makes the job look through the camera, our water jetters are custom made locally with power. We’re often called in to take on jobs which others say can’t be done. Imagine being told you had to dig up all the pipes to get this problem solved when we were able to get this done with minimal fuss.

On top of that, notice how far down the inspection opening was for the toilet. We’ve raised it to ground level for easy access in the future which also helps to stop sand getting into the drain. We also found an illegal square junction rather than a Y junction in the drain.

Working With Maintenance Plumbing Specialists

How many times have you called out a plumber only to find that they need to be called back out for the same problem a few weeks later? This would have probably been the same case if someone else was called out to the job saving time and money in the long run and the inconvenience of having to arrange another day off to get the plumbing done at home.

This is why we say we have all the gear and every idea! We are able to sniff out and fix the problems rather than needing to call out other specialists, we are the specialists in our field.