Drain Cleaning in Greensboro, NC

Fisher Park, Westerwood, College Hill and Sunset Hills have homes from the 1900s through the 1930s, many on crawlspaces with clay laterals under oaks and maples that now tower over the streets.

Mill villages around the former Cone Mills plants, such as Revolution, White Oak and Proximity, have small frame houses from the early 1900s that were sold off to residents decades ago. Their laterals are old, shallow and often shared in ways that aren't on any map.

Postwar neighborhoods across Starmount, Kirkwood, Lindley Park and the east side were built from the late 1940s through the early 1970s, when Orangeburg fiber pipe was common and cheap.

Northwest Greensboro and the areas toward Lake Brandt and Summerfield were built from the 1980s onward with PVC drains, and some outlying homes on larger lots use septic.

UNC Greensboro, NC A&T, Guilford College, Greensboro College and Bennett College fill rental houses near their campuses.

The City of Greensboro Water Resources Department provides sewer service. The homeowner maintains the building sewer from the house to the city's connection.

Spring and summer storms soak the clay and push water into cracked laterals. Roots grow fastest in the warm, wet months, which is when most Fisher Park and Sunset Hills mains finally block.

Winter ice storms and hard freezes can stop crawlspace drains. August move-in fills college rentals across the city.

Fisher Park, Westerwood and Sunset Hills were Greensboro's first fashionable suburbs, laid out with curving streets and big shade trees. A century later, the oaks and maples are enormous, and the clay laterals beneath them are full of roots. Many owners line their laterals during restorations to protect both pipe and trees.

Cone Mills built entire villages for its workers, and those cottages around the old Revolution, White Oak and Proximity plants are now privately owned. Their sewer lines were laid quickly and sometimes shared between neighbors. When two houses back up at once, a camera with a locator can show where the lines join and who is responsible for what.

Starmount, Lindley Park, Kirkwood and many east side neighborhoods were built after the war with a black, tar-soaked fiber pipe called Orangeburg. In red clay, it softens over the decades, flattens and blisters until paper snags on every bump. It can't be lined in most cases; bursting a new pipe through it or replacing it are the usual fixes.

Rental houses around UNCG along Spring Garden and Tate Streets, and near NC A&T on the east side, see heavy use, often with four or five students in a house built for one family. Hair, grease and wipes build up fast in old clay laterals that already have roots. Owners who jet the main every summer and leave hair catchers in every shower avoid most August emergencies.

After a rainy April week, a family in a 1956 ranch in Lindley Park finds water rising in the tub every time the toilet flushes. The plumber clears the main from the front cleanout and runs a camera that shows fiber pipe squashed into an oval about thirty feet out, with roots growing through the blisters. The family schedules pipe bursting.

Neighborhoods toward Lake Brandt, Lake Jeanette and Summerfield were built from the 1980s onward with PVC drains and cleanouts close to the driveway. The pipe holds up well. What brings a plumber out is usually a kitchen line slick with fat, a teenager's shower full of hair or wipes in a kids' bathroom. Beyond the city limits, many homes on larger lots use septic systems, and a slow house there may point to a full tank.

Greensboro's red clay soaks up water during storms and shrinks during dry spells. Laterals settle and joints open, and rainwater seeps into cracked pipe. A line that's fine in a dry October may back up in a wet spring.

South Elm Street, the Lewis Street area and the restaurants near the Carolina Theatre, the Tanger Center and First National Bank Field sit in buildings from the early 1900s with old sewer lines. Busy kitchens there need interceptors pumped on a regular schedule and lines jetted before events like the North Carolina Folk Festival bring crowds downtown.

Greensboro gets a real winter now and then, with ice storms that bring down limbs and knock out power for days. Crawlspace homes lose heat quickly, and drain and supply lines along the foundation can freeze. Close crawlspace vents in the fall, insulate exposed pipe and let faucets on outside walls drip during a hard freeze.

Give your neighborhood and the home's age, whether it's a mill house, a ranch or a rental, and whether big trees are near the sewer path. Mention if a neighbor is backing up too and whether the trouble started after rain.