Clog or main line?
One slow drain is a clog. Several drains acting up together, or the lowest fixture in the house backing up when you use one upstairs, is a main sewer line problem. The main is the one pipe everything in the house drains into, so when it's restricted, the whole house tells you.
The six signs
1. Gurgling from toilets or floor drains when other fixtures run. 2. Sewage or water backing up into a tub, shower or basement floor drain. 3. A soft, sunken, or oddly green strip in the yard along the line. 4. Sewer smell inside or outside. 5. Clogs that come back every few months no matter how many times they're cleared. 6. Foundation or slab cracks paired with drainage issues.
Why older homes here are prone to it
Homes built before roughly 1980 across Fayette, Jessamine, Woodford and Mercer County were commonly plumbed with clay tile or cast iron sewer. Clay joints separate and let roots in. Cast iron rusts from the inside until it's scale and holes. Both eventually collapse, and both are what we find under most sewer repairs in Lexington's older neighborhoods and downtown Nicholasville.
What to do first
Stop running water if anything is backing up — every flush and load of laundry ends up on the floor. Don't pour chemicals in. Call a licensed plumber and describe exactly what's happening; that tells us whether to bring cabling equipment or plan on a repair.
What a repair involves
We locate the problem, then repair the bad section or replace the run, depending on what we find. Most residential repairs are a single trench along the line, not the whole yard. Permits are required — from the state, and in Lexington from LFUCG Division of Water Quality — and we handle those. You get a firm written price after we've looked; not a phone estimate that changes later.
Written by the team at Good Help Plumbing, Nicholasville, KY. Questions about your own house? Call (859) 671-9213 — no service fee for local estimates.