Drain Cleaning in Pearland, TX

Old Pearland, near Main Street and the railroad, has a handful of homes from the early and mid-1900s, some with cast iron or clay laterals under old live oaks.

Most of Pearland was built after 1990. Large master-planned communities such as Silverlake, Shadow Creek Ranch, Southern Trails and Country Place filled former rice fields and pastures with slab homes on plastic drains.

The land is almost perfectly flat and low, with Clear Creek and its tributaries winding through. Heavy rain floods streets quickly, and Harvey in 2017 flooded thousands of homes.

Gumbo clay swells and shrinks with the weather. Even new slabs move, and PVC fittings under the floor can crack.

Many neighborhoods are served by municipal utility districts with their own lift stations and mains, which matters when several homes back up at once.

The City of Pearland provides sewer service to much of the city, and many neighborhoods, especially in the west, are served by municipal utility districts. The homeowner maintains the line from the house to the main.

Hurricane season and spring storms bring heavy rain that floods streets and overloads sewers. Homes that flood may have silt in their lines.

Hot, dry summers shrink the clay and can crack pipes under slabs. Thanksgiving fry-ups, Christmas dinners and big holiday gatherings bring grease clogs.

Shadow Creek Ranch, Southern Trails and the communities west of Highway 288 were built mostly after 2000. Builders there put PVC under every slab and cleanouts in easy reach. Clogs there come from grease, wipes, toys and laundry lint. Many of these neighborhoods are served by MUDs, so if several houses back up at once, the problem may be a lift station.

Silverlake and the neighborhoods along Broadway, Pearland Parkway and Country Place were built in the 1990s and 2000s. Their plastic drains rarely fail on their own, but live oaks and ornamental trees planted when the homes were new are now big enough to reach lateral joints, and twenty-five years of slab movement has cracked fittings here and there. If a Silverlake home starts clogging after a dry summer, a camera inspection usually shows roots or a separated joint.

The original town near Main Street, Orange Street and the railroad has Pearland's oldest homes, some from the 1940s through the 1960s, with cast iron or clay laterals under big oaks. Roots, scale and bellies are common, and many of those lots have been redeveloped with new homes tied into old pipe. Scoping the lateral before a remodel or rebuild saves trouble later.

Pearland is flat and low, and Clear Creek and its tributaries rise fast in heavy rain. During Harvey, thousands of homes flooded. After a flood, silt and debris can stay in drain lines for months. A camera inspection and a jetting after any flood clear them out.

During a June storm, a family in Silverlake finds water rising in the downstairs shower. The plumber waits for the rain to ease, then clears the main and finds silt and wipes packed in a low spot. The family installs a backwater valve.

The gumbo clay under Pearland is the same black, sticky soil that makes Houston-area foundations famous. It swells after rain and shrinks in long dry spells, enough to move slabs that are only a few years old. PVC fittings under the floor can crack at elbows and tees, leaking quietly into the soil. A soaker hose around the foundation during summer helps, and a sewer smell inside or new cracks in tile are reasons to test the drains.

On flat land where mains surcharge in storms, a backwater valve is one of the best protections a Pearland homeowner can install. It lets wastewater out but stops it from coming back in, and it needs a quick check and cleaning once a year so it closes when it should.

Pearland's homes are full of young families, and kids find creative things to flush. Toys, toothbrushes, wipes and wads of paper cause many toilet clogs, while grease from family meals and hair in shower drains cause most of the rest. A trash can beside every toilet, hair catchers in the showers and a grease can by the stove prevent most calls.

Flat land means gravity alone can't carry sewage far, so Pearland's subdivisions rely on lift stations that pump wastewater uphill to the next main. When a lift station loses power in a storm or a pump fails, every home upstream can back up at once. If your neighbors are having the same problem, call your MUD or the city before paying for a plumber; the fix may be on their side.

Give your neighborhood and the home's age, whether you're in a MUD and whether the trouble started during a storm. Mention whether the home has flooded before, whether neighbors are having the same problem right now and whether young kids might have flushed something.