Drain cleaning and camera inspection

There are two different jobs here and the difference matters. Clearing a blockage gets the water moving today. Finding out why it blocked stops you paying for the same visit three times a year. A contractor who clears without looking is selling you the first and calling it the second.

Step one: work out how far the problem is. A single slow fixture is usually a local blockage in the trap or the branch, and it is a small job. Several fixtures backing up at once, or a floor drain surcharging when the washing machine drains, points at the main stack or the lateral to the street. Sewage appearing in a basement floor drain is a main line problem and it is urgent.

Step two: clearing it. A drum auger, commonly called a snake, works through a cleanout or a removed trap and cuts or pulls the obstruction. It is the right tool for soft blockages, grease and most root intrusion of modest size. Hydro jetting uses high pressure water through a directional nozzle to scour the full bore of the pipe, and it is considerably more effective on accumulated grease, scale and fine roots, at the cost of being harder on old or already-failing pipe. An honest contractor will not jet a pipe they have not looked at first.

Step three: the camera. A self-levelling camera on a push rod runs the length of the lateral, usually from a basement cleanout to the street connection, with a locator that marks depth and position on the surface. What it finds, in order of frequency in Ottawa housing: root intrusion at a joint, a sag or belly holding water, offset joints where the clay has moved, scale or grease build-up narrowing the bore, and in pre-1970 housing, clay tile or Orangeburg fibre pipe that has deformed. Ask for the video file rather than a description of it.

Step four: deciding what to do about what you found. Root intrusion at a joint can be cut back and managed on a schedule, or solved by relining or replacing that section. A belly holding water will keep blocking and cannot be cleaned into working properly. An offset joint is a repair. Scale in cast iron can often be jetted and then left alone for years. The camera is what turns a guess into a decision.

How long it takes. A local fixture blockage, thirty minutes to an hour. A main line auger, one to two hours. Hydro jetting a lateral, two to four hours. A camera inspection with a located report, one to two hours. Doing the camera and the clearing on the same visit is normal and usually cheaper than two visits.

What it costs in Ottawa in 2026. Indicative. A local fixture or branch blockage cleared, $200 to $450. A main line augered through a cleanout, $350 to $700. Hydro jetting a lateral, $600 to $1,400. A camera inspection with a locate and a video file, $300 to $650, often credited against the clearing if done together. Excavating and replacing a failed section of lateral, $6,000 to $20,000 depending on depth, length and what is above it, and a driveway or a mature tree over the line moves that number a great deal.

Before anyone digs. Locates are free and they are not optional. Ontario One Call handles buried infrastructure locate requests for homeowners and contractors, and a request has a statutory response period, so book it early rather than on the morning of the excavation (Ontario One Call, information for homeowners). That covers gas, hydro, telecommunications and municipal services. It does not cover your own private buried lines, such as a lawn irrigation system or a line to a detached garage, so tell the contractor about those yourself.

What makes Barrhaven and the south end different. Root intrusion is the dominant Barrhaven failure, and the reason is the street trees planted with the subdivisions of the late 1980s and 1990s, now thirty-five years old with root systems that have found the joints in laterals. Silver maple and willow are the worst offenders. The second factor is the clay: much of the Ottawa area sits on sensitive marine clay that swells when wet and shrinks as it dries (NRC, Geotechnical properties of Leda clay in the Ottawa area), and that seasonal movement is what opens the joints roots then exploit. It is also why a lateral that has been fine for twenty years can start blocking every spring. Newer phases in Riverside South and Half Moon Bay have PVC laterals with gasketed joints, which resist roots far better, so a persistent blockage there is more likely to be a belly from settlement or something that should not have been flushed.

Which credential to ask for. Plumber is a compulsory trade in Ontario under code 306A, requiring a Registered Training Agreement, a Provisional Certificate of Qualification or a Certificate of Qualification, checkable on the Skilled Trades Ontario public register (Skilled Trades Ontario, Plumber, trade code 306A). Drain cleaning is often done by technicians rather than certified plumbers, which is lawful for clearing a blockage but not for altering the plumbing system, and altering it is permit work in Ottawa in any case, since the City's exemption covers only replacing existing fixtures (City of Ottawa, Do I need a building permit). Ask who does what.

What to ask before you hire. Will you camera the line, and will you give me the video file. Auger or jet, and why for this pipe. What material is my lateral, and how old. Where exactly is the problem, in metres from the cleanout and at what depth. Is this a maintenance issue or a repair. If it blocks again within ninety days, what happens. Have you booked locates if any digging is proposed.