Have a gurgling sound coming from your toilet, or gurgling from the bathroom drains, these could be signs that you are having an issue with your main sewer line. A blockage in the main sewer line could impact your whole home, costing you a significant amount of money and damaging your home. There are many factors to take into account when you have clog in your sewer line. The age of the home, the type of piping in the home, and the location of your sewer main. Sometimes due to the moisture in the ground from a sewer line tree roots can infiltrate a main sewer line causing serious back ups. In this case it is usually recommended to find the section of pipe that has been compromised and replace it altogether. Now if you have a blockage that's only affecting a specific fixture say, a kitchen sink, or a toilet, there is a good chance you can unclog it yourself. For any blockage, the location will dictate the solution. For a toilet you may start out with a plunger, if that fails you could go to your local hardware store purchase a "closet auger" (plumbing snake) which is designed to travel through a toilet drain and remove a blockage. If that fails it is usually recommended that you call a plumber to better diagnose the cause of the leak. When the kitchen sink is clogged you can check if the garbage disposal is stuck and if that's the case you can unplug the garbage disposal and use the small garbage disposal wrench that came with the disposal and manually turn it from the bottom trying to un-jamb it. If the disposal still seems to clog then it could be time to replace it as repairing a disposal is a very temporary fix and in most cases the disposal will still need to be replaced in the near future. For any other sinks you can use small snakes designed for hair and small blockages, if that fails then the plumbing underneath the sink may need to be replaced. When you have a main sewer line blockage then you will most likely notice that not one but all of your fixtures in your home will struggle to drain. Many companies sell chemical and enzyme active substances (some can take months of continued use before they begin to work) that are designed to "unclog" drains, however, if you aren't sure what type of plumbing is in your home or what's the cause of the blockage then it's usually safer to avoid any chemicals and call a plumber who at the very least can tell you the type of plumbing in your home and provide you with options to tackle the blockage. It's important to understand that any blockages to your sewer system specifically those that affect the main line can pose serious issues, they can lead to floods, damage expensive appliances (washing machines, dishwasher) and cost you thousands of dollars. The best practice is to be aware of what wastes you are putting into your system and if they are designed to degrade, and if you being to notice slow draining followed by odds sounds then its always best to be proactive with a sewer issue.
