Service
Floor Drain Cleaning
Clearing basement, garage, laundry and utility floor drains, which collect sediment and lint and are usually the first place a main line backup appears.
- Licensed and insured
- Price agreed before work
- A plumber who works your area
A floor drain is usually the messenger
When waste water appears at a basement or garage floor drain, the floor drain is almost never the thing that is blocked.
It sits at the lowest point in the property. When the shared line downstream cannot take away what is arriving, water backs up and comes out at the lowest available opening, which is this one.
So clearing the floor drain is treating the messenger. Stop using water anywhere in the property, because everything that goes down is adding to what is coming up, and deal with it as a main line problem.
The distinction that matters: clean water pooling around a drain is a drainage or capacity issue. Waste water rising out of it is a main line issue.
Dry traps and the smell that follows
Floor drains are the fixtures most likely to smell, for a reason that has nothing to do with blockage.
They often go months without water passing through them. The trap beneath holds a small amount of water that seals the room from the sewer, and over time it evaporates. Once the seal is gone, gas comes up freely.
A bucket of water down the drain refills it. Where a drain dries out repeatedly, a small amount of cooking oil poured in after the water floats on top and slows the evaporation considerably.
Does this sound familiar?
Problems this service solves
- Water standing on a basement or garage floor
- A laundry drain that overflows when the washing machine empties
- Waste appearing at a floor drain when other fixtures are used
- Odour from a drain that is rarely used
- A floor drain that has never been cleared
Signs you need floor drain cleaning
If more than one of these is true, the problem is usually past the point a plunger or a store-bought cleaner will fix.
- Water pools around the drain rather than entering it
- The drain overflows during a wash cycle
- Waste water appears here before anywhere else in the property
- There is a smell from the drain in warm weather
What to expect
How the visit works
Establish what is arriving
Clean water from a washing machine, groundwater, or waste from elsewhere in the property are three different situations, and which one it is decides the job.
Clear the drain and its trap
Floor drains collect sediment, lint and grit over years, and the trap beneath them holds most of it.
Check the main line
A floor drain overflowing with waste water is usually the symptom of a main line blockage rather than a blocked floor drain, because it sits at the lowest point.
Refill the trap
A rarely used floor drain has a dry trap letting odour through, and it is topped up rather than treated as a blockage.
What's included
What you get on every job, whoever we send.
- Clean water and waste water backups told apart immediately
- The trap cleared, where the sediment actually collects
- A main line check when the floor drain is the symptom
- Dry traps refilled rather than misdiagnosed
Questions
Floor Drain Cleaning questions
Waste water is coming up through my basement floor drain. What does that mean?
That the blockage is in the main line, not in the floor drain. The floor drain sits at the lowest point in the property, so when the shared line downstream cannot carry away what is arriving, that is where it surfaces first. Clearing the floor drain achieves nothing because it is not blocked. Stop using water in the property and treat it as a main line problem.
Why does my floor drain smell?
Usually a dry trap. Floor drains often go months without water passing through them, and the small amount held in the trap evaporates. Once it does, nothing stops sewer gas coming back up. Pouring a bucket of water down it refills the seal and the smell stops. In a drain that dries out repeatedly, a little cooking oil on top of the water slows evaporation.
My laundry drain overflows during a wash cycle. Is the drain blocked?
Possibly, but check the volume first. A washing machine discharges a lot of water very quickly, faster than many older laundry drains and standpipes were designed to take, so an overflow can be a capacity problem rather than a blockage. If the drain takes water fine at ordinary rates and only fails on a pump-out, that points at sizing or a partial restriction rather than a full blockage.
Related services
Main Drain Cleaning
Clearing the main line that every fixture drains into, using a cleanout access and camera verification where the blockage keeps returning.
See what this coversClogged Drain Repair
Clearing blocked drains at any fixture, and establishing whether the blockage is local to that trap or somewhere in the shared line downstream.
See what this coversSewer Backup Repair
Dealing with sewage backing up into a property, including telling apart a blockage in your own lateral and the public sewer pushing back.
See what this coversWater Heater Repair
Diagnosis and repair of gas, electric and tankless water heaters, including no-hot-water calls, leaks, pilot problems and sediment flushing.
See what this covers
Get it fixed
Floor Drain Cleaning, handled locally
Call with your ZIP code and what you are seeing. We route you to a licensed plumber in your area who does floor drain cleaning every week.
- Licensed and insured
- Answered 24/7
- Price before work