{"id":12072,"date":"2019-02-28T00:15:46","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T08:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asapdrainandplumbing.com\/commercial-grease-trap-cleaning-and-maintenance-copy\/"},"modified":"2021-04-12T15:02:28","modified_gmt":"2021-04-12T22:02:28","slug":"what-is-a-sewer-line-cleanout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asapdrainandplumbing.com\/what-is-a-sewer-line-cleanout\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a Sewer Line Cleanout?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What is a sewer line cleanout? All the drains and toilets in your home or business connect up to a line that runs out to the city sewer system at the street.\u00a0 Technically it&#8217;s called a &#8220;lateral,&#8221; although some people refer to it as the &#8220;main sewer line&#8221; even though that term&#8217;s best reserved for the city&#8217;s main.\u00a0 While drain pipes in homes are typically 1 1\/2 inches in diameter sewer lines are typically 4 inches.\u00a0 And they can be far larger for commercial buildings.\u00a0 So it takes a larger diameter cable and auger to clean them.<\/p>\n<p>The larger equipment can&#8217;t make sharp bends; they need more direct access.\u00a0 That could be through a vertical vent but that means going up on the roof.\u00a0 That could be through a toilet connection, but that means removing the toilet first.\u00a0 So it&#8217;s far better to use something designed exactly for that purpose.<\/p>\n<h2>Sewer Line Cleanout<\/h2>\n<p>And that something is a sewer clean-out.\u00a0 They consist of a short pipe that taps into the sewer lateral and is sealed with a screw-off cap.\u00a0 Made of the same material as the sewer line they&#8217;re most commonly cast iron or plastic.\u00a0 The clean-out cap can be plastic, brass, or cast iron.\u00a0 They&#8217;re often covered with a plastic box or a concrete slab for protection and a better appearance.\u00a0 That cover can be hinged or simply lift off.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;re usually located in the yard, usually within around 3 feet of the building foundation.\u00a0 Or near the property line, often beside a sidewalk.\u00a0 Or both.\u00a0 They stick just a couple of inches above the ground so they&#8217;re often hidden by vegetation or mulch.\u00a0 Some homeowners and landscapers hide them with a rock.\u00a0 And sometimes the clean-out tap is under a concrete cover in the garage.<\/p>\n<p>There can also be clean-outs for a single drain pipe.\u00a0 These are usually visible on an outer wall and can be made of metal, ABS (black plastic), or PVC (white plastic).<\/p>\n<p>When it&#8217;s time for sewer cleaning the cap is unscrewed, with the possibility of an unpleasant back-flow.\u00a0 In addition to using the tap for cabling (drain snaking) a plumber may also use it as an access point for larger advanced sewer cameras to make a video inspection of the line and\/or blockage.<\/p>\n<h2>Tips<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Newer homes usually have a sewer clean-out, but older homes may not.<\/li>\n<li>Since they can be hard to find you can save time and expense by finding yourself\u00a0it ahead of time.<\/li>\n<li>The cap can be jammed so tightly that it simply can&#8217;t be opened.\u00a0 If that&#8217;s the case or there&#8217;s no clean-out, it&#8217;s usually worthwhile to have one installed.\u00a0 That makes the present sewer cleaning go better and can be a big dollar saver for future problems.\u00a0 It also brings the lineup to code for any future home sale.<\/li>\n<li>There are actually two types.\u00a0 A single clean out is a fitting shaped sort of like a &#8220;Y&#8221; with the tap coming off at about 45 degrees.\u00a0 That allows inserting a cable or camera in one direction.\u00a0 A double cleanout looks more like a &#8220;U,&#8221; which has two caps, and allows access in both directions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is a sewer line cleanout? All the drains and toilets in your home or business connect up to a line that runs out to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11601,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asapdrainandplumbing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asapdrainandplumbing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asapdrainandplumbing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asapdrainandplumbing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asapdrainandplumbing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.asapdrainandplumbing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13502,"href":"https:\/\/www.asapdrainandplumbing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12072\/revisions\/13502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asapdrainandplumbing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asapdrainandplumbing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asapdrainandplumbing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asapdrainandplumbing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}