Find Your Sewer Cleanout Before the Day You Need It

A sewer cleanout is a capped opening on the main drain line that gives direct access for a cable, a jetter or a camera. When we arrive at a backed-up house, the first thing we look for is the cleanout, because with one the job starts in minutes. Without one, the access is through a roof vent or by pulling a toilet, both of which take longer and make more mess.

What it looks like

On most homes in Rockwall, Collin and Dallas counties built since the 1980s, the cleanout is a white PVC pipe, three or four inches in diameter, sticking up a few inches from the ground with a threaded cap on top. The cap usually has a square lug or a raised handle for a wrench. Some are set flush in a small round or rectangular box with a lid. Older homes may have a cast iron cleanout with a brass plug, sometimes set into the foundation wall or the floor of the garage.

Where to look

1. Along the front of the house, within a few feet of the foundation, roughly in line with where the bathrooms are. The line usually leaves the house toward the street on the shortest path.
2. Near an outside hose bib or the water main entry, because the plumber who set the water line often set the sewer on the same side.
3. In a flower bed near the front corner, often buried under mulch or overgrown by shrubs. Probe gently with a screwdriver.
4. For homes on a septic system in Hunt, Kaufman or rural Collin County, between the house and the tank.
5. In the garage floor or an exterior wall on older homes, particularly in East Dallas, Garland and Mesquite.
6. There may be two: one at the house and one near the property line where the lateral meets the city main. Both are useful.

What it tells you during a backup

If the main line is blocked and you open the cleanout cap carefully, one of two things happens. Water and sewage well up or are already standing in the pipe, which means the blockage is downstream of the cleanout, between it and the city main. Or the pipe is empty, which means the blockage is upstream, inside the house side. That single observation cuts the diagnosis in half before anyone arrives, and it lets you relieve the house by leaving the cap loose so the line overflows into the yard rather than the tub.

Houses without one

Some older homes never had a cleanout installed, and some have one that was buried during landscaping or a driveway extension. If yours has none, we recommend installing one. It involves excavating to the sewer line near the house, cutting in a fitting with a riser to grade, and capping it. It is a modest job in the scheme of things and it makes every future drain problem faster and cheaper to deal with. It is also required in most municipalities for new sewer work, so if the line is ever repaired you will get one anyway.

Keeping it useful

• Keep the cap on and tight. An open cleanout lets in soil, debris and rainwater, and in a heavy storm it can surcharge the line.
• Do not bury it under a raised bed, a patio or a driveway. If landscaping changes, extend the riser to the new grade.
• Replace a cracked cap. Sewer gas from an open or damaged cleanout is a common source of a smell near the front door that nobody can trace.
• If the cap will not come off, do not force it with a pipe wrench; the riser can shear. We have tools for that.

Family-owned in Rockwall, licensed and insured. TX Master Plumber TXM11693. (469) 338-5533.