Drain Cleaning in Fayetteville, NC

Haymount and the neighborhoods around downtown have homes from the 1900s through the 1940s, many on crawlspaces with clay laterals under oaks and longleaf pines.

Postwar neighborhoods across Fayetteville were built from the 1950s through the 1970s for military families and workers, many with cast iron or Orangeburg fiber laterals.

West Fayetteville, toward Fort Liberty and Hope Mills, has grown since the 1980s with subdivisions of PVC-plumbed homes, many of them rentals owned by investors.

Fayetteville sits in the Sandhills, where sandy soil drains quickly but laterals can settle, and longleaf pines send their roots a long way.

Large parts of Cumberland County outside the city use septic tanks, including many homes around Hope Mills and Spring Lake.

Fayetteville Public Works Commission, known as PWC, provides sewer service within the city. Much of unincorporated Cumberland County is on septic. Whether your waste goes to a PWC main or a tank in the yard, the pipe leaving your house is yours to keep clear.

Summer PCS season, when military families move, brings move-in and move-out clogs as homes change hands.

Hurricanes Matthew in 2016 and Florence in 2018 flooded parts of Fayetteville along the Cape Fear River. Summer storms bring heavy rain.

Thousands of Fort Liberty soldiers and their families rent in Fayetteville, Hope Mills and Spring Lake, and orders move them every two or three years. That turnover means each house has a long list of previous tenants and no record of what any of them flushed. The smartest move-in checklist includes walking the yard to find the sewer cleanout, filling a tub and draining it while flushing a toilet, and emailing the manager about anything that gurgles. Landlords who have the main jetted during the week between leases avoid most of the calls that come in the first month.

Haymount, on the hill above downtown, is Fayetteville's oldest residential neighborhood, with homes from the early 1900s on crawlspaces under big willow oaks and longleaf pines. Clay laterals there have had a century to fill with roots, and some run down steep lots toward the street. Owners who clear the roots and then line the pipe get a smooth, sealed lateral without digging up the old yards and brick walks.

Neighborhoods like Massey Hill, Terry Sanford's surrounding streets and the subdivisions off Raeford Road and Murchison Road were built from the 1950s through the early 1970s to house workers and military families. Many have laterals of Orangeburg, a tar-and-fiber pipe that softens and sags over decades, or cast iron that has rusted thin. A camera inspection shows which you have and how bad it is.

Fayetteville sits on the edge of the Sandhills, an ancient line of dunes covered in longleaf pine. The sandy soil drains rain quickly, but it also shifts and settles, so laterals laid in it develop low spots over the years. Pine roots travel far through that loose sand looking for water. A camera with a locator finds both the bellies and the root entry points.

In July, an Army family arrives from Germany and moves into a 1990s rental off Skibo Road. On the fourth day, flushing the kids' toilet sends gray water up through the master shower. The plumber opens the cleanout by the side gate and brings back a knot of wipes wrapped around a plastic dinosaur, something left by the last tenants. The manager adds a pre-lease jetting to the turnover checklist.

Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Florence two years later sent the Cape Fear River and Cross Creek into neighborhoods that had never flooded. Water pushed sand and silt into cleanouts and floor drains. If your home took on water and the sewer line was never jetted afterward, that sediment may still be sitting in a low spot, catching paper every week.

Outside the PWC service area, many homes in Hope Mills, Spring Lake, Eastover, Stedman and rural Cumberland County use septic. Sandy soil absorbs drain field water easily, which makes these systems forgiving, but the tank still fills with solids. Pump every three to five years, keep grease and wipes out and watch for lush green stripes or soggy ground over the field.

Restaurants along Skibo Road, Bragg Boulevard, Ramsey Street and downtown's Hay Street serve soldiers, families and travelers off I-95 at all hours. Kitchens running fryers from breakfast to late night need interceptors pumped on a short schedule and lines jetted regularly.

A lot of Fayetteville households have toddlers, and toilets in those homes catch everything from bath toys to hairbrushes. A toilet lock and a small trash can by each toilet go a long way.

Say which part of town you're in or the nearest cross streets, roughly when the house was built and whether you rent or own. Mention whether the home is on PWC sewer or a septic tank, whether you just moved in and whether the yard flooded during Matthew or Florence.