Blocked Toilets
Cleared from the pan or from the nearest eye, with a look at whether the fall and the connection are the real reason it keeps happening.
Home / Blocked Drains
Blocked drains in Alberton get cleared quickly enough, but the question worth answering first is whose blockage it is, because the answer decides whether you pay a plumber or log a call with Ekurhuleni. We establish that within minutes of arriving and tell you plainly, even when it means there is no job here for us. Then we clear what is ours to clear.
Tell us which fitting is backing up and whether the gully or manhole outside is running clear. Those two facts usually tell us where the blockage is before we set off.
Clearing a blockage and removing its cause are two different jobs, and after the second call-out on the same drain the second one is the cheaper choice.
Cleared from the pan or from the nearest eye, with a look at whether the fall and the connection are the real reason it keeps happening.
Fat is the usual find. Rodded or jetted back to clean pipe rather than pushed along to block again a metre further down.
The main run from the house to the boundary connection, cleared with the jetting machine where a rod will not reach or will not shift it.
Fine roots at an earthenware joint, which is the classic repeat blockage in Alberton's older streets. Cut out, then the section replaced if it warrants it.
A CCTV inspection when the same line blocks repeatedly, so you spend on the defect rather than on clearing it a fourth time.
Shared stacks, communal runs and grease traps for complexes, restaurants and units in Alrode, on call-out or on a scheduled contract.
Before anybody quotes you to clear a drain, work out which side of the connection the blockage is on, because that single fact decides whether this is a plumbing bill or a municipal call reference. The line runs from your fittings, through the gullies and inspection eyes on your erf, to a connection at or near your boundary. Everything on the house side of that connection is yours. The line under the street and the manholes in it are Ekurhuleni's.
The test takes a minute and you can do it before we get there. Go and look at the gully or inspection eye outside while the fitting inside is backing up. If the gully is running clear and only the lowest fitting inside the house is affected, the blockage sits between the two and it is yours. If the gully itself is surcharging, or a manhole in the street is lifting or overflowing, the obstruction is downstream of your boundary and it belongs to the City. Tell us which you are seeing and you will get a straight answer on the phone.
It is worth knowing that the City is dealing with this at scale. Ekurhuleni attends to about 5,000 sewer complaints in an average month and spends close to R364 million a year on sewer maintenance, and Alberton's waste ultimately drains through the Natalspruit into the Klip River system. A municipal blockage genuinely is their work, and logging it is the right move. What that does not help with is the two thirds of calls that turn out to be inside the boundary.
Inside the boundary, two things cause nearly everything. Cooking fat, which goes down warm and liquid and sets on a cold pipe wall a few metres along, narrowing the bore a fraction at a time until something perfectly ordinary finally catches on it. And wipes, including the ones labelled flushable, which do not break apart the way paper does and knit into a rope that grabs everything behind it. In the older Alberton streets, add roots at the joints of earthenware drainage laid decades ago.
The rule we work to: if the same drain has been cleared twice, the third visit should be a camera rather than a rod. Paying to clear a line that has a root mass, a crack or a belly in it buys you a few months and nothing else, and we would rather sell you one inspection than four call-outs.
Two observations that cut the diagnosis time, and sometimes the bill, to nothing.
Diagnosis before machinery, every time.
Which fitting, which eye, which side of the boundary. Then the right tool comes out.
If rodding will not do it and the jetter is needed, you hear what that costs before it starts.
We run water through and watch it go before we pack up, rather than leaving on the first gurgle.
Third blockage in the same line means a camera goes down it, not another rod.
Cost, the boundary question, and why the same drain keeps going.
It depends almost entirely on where the blockage is and how it has to be cleared. A kitchen waste or a toilet cleared by rodding from an accessible eye is the cheap end. A sewer line that needs the jetting machine, or a blockage that turns out to be a collapsed section, is a different job and a different number. What we will not do is quote you for rodding, arrive, and discover the jetter is needed without telling you what that changes before we start it.
The boundary is the connection between your property's drainage and the municipal sewer, usually at or near your erf boundary. Everything on the house side of that is yours. The municipal line and the manholes in the street are the City's. The practical test is simple: if your gully outside is running clear while waste backs up at the lowest fitting inside, the blockage is on your side. If the gully is also surcharging, or a street manhole is overflowing, it is the City's line and it should be logged with them rather than paid for by you.
Age and roots, in that combination. The older Alberton suburbs were laid out decades ago and a good share of their underground drainage is earthenware or cast iron, joined in short sections. Those joints are exactly where fine roots get in, and once a root mass is established it catches everything passing it. Add mature street trees on established verges and you have the repeat blockage that clears for three months and comes back. Jetting removes the mass. Only replacing the section removes the reason.
Fat and wet wipes, in that order, and neither behaves the way people expect. Cooking fat goes down warm as a liquid and sets cold on the pipe wall a few metres along, narrowing it a little more with every meal until something ordinary finally catches. Wipes labelled flushable do not break down like paper and knit together into a rope. Ekurhuleni attends to roughly 5,000 sewer complaints every month and spends close to R364 million a year on sewer maintenance, and a large share of that is these two things.
Because clearing a blockage and fixing its cause are different jobs, and rodding a line that has a root intrusion, a crack or a belly in it will get you three months of relief and no more. If you have had the same drain cleared more than twice, stop paying to clear it and put a camera down it. A CCTV drain inspection shows you the actual defect and its distance from the eye, which is what tells you whether you are looking at a two metre repair or a re-lay.
Used correctly on sound pipework, no. Used at full pressure on an earthenware line that is already cracked, it can open the crack further, which is one reason we look before we blast. Jetting is the right tool for fat, scale and root mass in a line that is structurally intact. Where a camera shows the pipe is failing, jetting it harder is throwing money at a repair that has to happen anyway.
Stop using water anywhere in the house, because everything you run goes to the same place and makes it worse. Do not keep flushing to test it. If there is an inspection eye or gully outside, look at whether that is also surcharging, because that single observation tells us where the blockage is before we arrive. Then phone rather than fill in a form. Our emergency page covers the rest.
Yes, and shared drainage has its own problem: in a complex the blockage is rarely in the unit that notices it. We work the line rather than the unit, camera it where the same stack blocks repeatedly, and report in a form a managing agent can act on and levy correctly. Scheduled jetting on the main runs is usually cheaper over a year than reactive call-outs, and we will price that either way. See commercial plumbing.
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Blocked drain in Alberton? Send the details through and you will get a price back, or a straight instruction to log it with the City if that is where it actually belongs.