Why an Original Carrollwood Drain Backs Up Again

A tub in Original Carrollwood that drains, then stops again after a week of rain, is usually the old lateral. Those ranches went up from 1955 to 1965. The drain inside is cast iron. The line to the city main is often clay. Live oaks along those streets put roots into every joint that has opened. A cable punches a hole through the roots. The joint is still open, so the stop comes back.

One fixture or the whole house

One bathroom, and the kitchen is fine, can be that tub’s trap or a short branch. The tub, a toilet, and the kitchen together are the building drain. That is the camera, not another bottle of opener. Chemical opener sits in the trap. It does not reach a joint under the yard.

Read the house this way:

• One slow lavatory, and the tub beside it drains. The stop is in that fixture or a short branch.
• The tub and the toilet in the same bath, kitchen still fine. Look at the stack or the wet vent before you dig the yard.
• Kitchen, tub, and a toilet all slow at once. The line leaving the house is the job.
• A gurgle in the tub when the washer drains. Air is trapped behind a partial stop downstream.

A Carrollwood plumber runs the camera from the cleanout before we talk about jetting or digging. Drain cleaning is the right ticket when the pipe is still round and the stop is roots or grease. A line that has gone oval, or a cast iron bottom that has channeled through, is a repair. Jetting that one makes a bigger hole.

What the camera is looking for

On an Original Carrollwood ranch the cleanout is often in the yard, near the foundation, or in the garage slab. We pull the cap and send the camera toward the street, then back toward the house if the first pass is clean.

The footage usually shows one of four things.

• Roots at a clay joint, with the pipe still round on either side. A cable or a jet can clear it. The joint is still open, so put a date on the calendar.
• A belly. The camera dips into standing water and the picture goes dark. Water sits there after every shower. Roots like that spot.
• Cast iron with the bottom eaten out. The invert looks like a trench. A cable will drop into that channel.
• An offset. One length of clay has dropped at the bell, and paper hangs on the lip.

You should see that footage before you approve a dig. A price given over the phone, with no camera, is a guess.

Cable, jet, or a new pipe

A cable is the first pass when the pipe is still a pipe. It opens a hole so the house can drain tonight. It leaves the roots in the joint.

A jet is the next step when the camera shows grease on a PVC section, or a root mat you can see all the way around and the wall is still intact. We run it from the cleanout, at a pressure the old cast iron can take. We do not jet a line whose bottom is already gone.

A dig, or a liner when the geometry allows it, is the job when the camera shows a collapse, an offset you cannot cable past, or cast iron that has channeled. Original Carrollwood yards have oaks, irrigation, and driveways that were poured over the lateral. We mark the path on the grass before anyone brings a shovel.

Rain week on those streets

The oaks drink hard after a storm. Roots that were a film in a dry joint swell, and the tub that was slow on Tuesday stops on Saturday. That pattern, backup after rain and clear for a week after a cable, is the clay joint. It is the same story on the 1955 to 1965 ranches along the older Carrollwood blocks.

Carrollwood Village houses from the 1970s and 1980s usually drain on PVC. Their repeat problem is grease, or polybutylene on the supply, which is a separate visit. Original Carrollwood is the cast iron and clay. ZIP codes 33618 and 33624 cover both. The pipe follows the year the house was built.

The subdivision list is on the Carrollwood plumber page.

Monday through Saturday

The shop is at 8407 N Mitchell Ave, Tampa, FL 33604. We work Monday through Saturday, including overnight, and we are closed Sunday. Call (813) 933-8010. Plumbing license CFC1430231.