Why the same drain keeps clogging
A cable pushed through a clog only carves a slot. Water drains for a while, yet the crust left clinging around that slot keeps snagging more waste until the line closes. That is why the camera comes before the tool. On the screen, grease looks nothing like hair, mineral crust, roots or a cracked section of pipe. A soft blockage near a fixture is cable work. Grease, roots and crust go to the jetter. A break or a sag is a repair, and cleaning it again will not change that.
Valley homes give the camera plenty to look at. On the Valley side of Los Angeles, 57 percent of homes went up in the 1950s, 1960s or 1970s, so a lot of drain lines and laterals have carried wastewater for half a century or longer. Mineral content adds to the buildup: LADWP's three Valley sources averaged between 6.0 and 8.2 grains of hardness per gallon in 2025, which LADWP's own scale puts at medium-hard to hard. Jets angled to the rear of the nozzle pull it forward while they scour the pipe on every side, slice roots at the joints where they force their way in and wash the loosened debris toward the main. What the footage shows decides how much pressure each pipe gets.
Inside the City, LA Sanitation runs the public sewers, and flows from the north and west Valley go to the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant on Woodley Avenue, which serves about 1.1 million people. The owner's share is the lateral from the property line to the main, root blockages beneath the street included, and that is where we work: cleaning it, filming it and repairing it. The Bureau of Engineering offers a simple test. If yours is the only house on the block with a sewer problem, the problem is in your lateral. You keep the video from the first pass and the last, so the clean pipe can be set beside the clog you watched at the start.
With every Valley drain call
- Every drain job done under C-36 license CSLB #1131308
- 24-hour emergency response as soon as sewage comes up indoors
- No cleaning until you have signed the written price
- The written workmanship warranty that comes with our work
Signs a line is closing up
- A tub or shower still emptying long after the water is off
- Several fixtures slowing down together, lowest one first
- A toilet that burbles when the washer or a nearby sink drains
- A drain that was cleared recently and is sluggish again
- Sewer odor indoors, at a floor drain or at the cleanout in the yard
- Big trees growing along the path of an old lateral
The camera goes in first
The monitor sits where you can see it. As the camera head moves along, the clog shows up, along with how the pipe looks before and after it.
Cable or jet, by cause
A soft clog close to a fixture gets a cable. Grease, roots and mineral crust get the jetter, set to a pressure the pipe can stand.
Checked again on video
Once the cleaning is done, the camera runs back through to confirm the whole circle of the pipe is open, not just a channel down the middle.
How to keep it flowing
We finish with a short list of what never belongs in a sink or toilet, and with a maintenance interval if big trees or a restaurant kitchen sit along the line.
How we clean drains in the Valley
From Canoga Park we answer drain calls across Los Angeles County. A pipe that is only partly cleared closes up again, so four habits are part of every job.
Video at both ends of the job
The opening footage shows what blocked the line; the closing footage shows it open. Nobody has to take our word for the outcome.
Pipe walls scoured, not punched
The jet strips grease, roots and crust from the full circumference of the pipe. A cable leaves most of that behind and only opens a path through the middle.
Plain water, no harsh chemicals
The jetter runs on water alone. For upkeep we point you to enzyme products rather than caustic openers, which are hard on older pipe and fittings.
Broken pipe called out, not cleaned twice
When the video turns up a crack, an open joint or a sag that keeps snagging waste, we tell you so, and we do not sell a cleaning that will not last.
What sets the price of a drain job
Getting in is the first factor. Under a kitchen sink, or at a cleanout cap in the yard, the work starts at once. Where a lateral was never given a cleanout, we go in from the roof vent or by lifting a toilet off its flange, and that takes more setup; Hidden Hills, for one, recommends that owners add a cleanout and a backflow preventer to the lateral. In a condo or townhome, the clog may sit in a line several units share, and the association may need to sign off.
Then the method and the length of line. Clearing a single bathroom basin with a cable is a far smaller job than jetting a lateral end to end. Lots in Hidden Hills are mostly an acre or more, so laterals there run long, and hillside homes south of Ventura Boulevard can add steep runs. A break found on camera becomes a separate repair; in the City, lateral repairs take a Bureau of Engineering S-Permit, and any work in the street or sidewalk must be done by a Bonded Sewer Contractor.
After the video, the figure goes on paper, and the work waits for your decision.
Drain cleaning across the county
We are based in Canoga Park and clear drains on the Valley side of Los Angeles, in the cities to its west and north, and in every other city of Los Angeles County.
Canoga Park and the west Valley
Kitchen lines and laterals under the 1950s and 1960s ranch houses of Canoga Park, Winnetka, West Hills, Reseda and Woodland Hills, plus the older Owensmouth core, where homes date from 1913 to 1939.
North, central and east Valley
Northridge, Granada Hills, Porter Ranch and Chatsworth to the north, the postwar tracts of Panorama City, Pacoima, Arleta and North Hills, and the east Valley around North Hollywood and Studio City, which the Los Angeles-Glendale plant serves.
Hidden Hills, Calabasas, Agoura Hills and Westlake Village
Long laterals on one-acre Hidden Hills lots, and owner laterals that reach under the street in Calabasas and Agoura Hills, all draining to public mains the County Sewer Maintenance District looks after.
Malibu, Santa Clarita and beyond
Malibu homes on septic, where the line out to the tank clogs like any other, and Santa Clarita's Valencia, Saugus, Newhall and Canyon Country, plus the rest of the county's cities.
Drain questions, answered
Sound pipe takes jetting without harm. Pipe that is crumbling does not, and the first camera pass is how the two are told apart: a thinned wall or a separated joint is marked for repair rather than jetted.
Think of a cable as a drill and a jetter as a pressure washer. The drill makes a hole that the next load of grease can close; the washer removes the grease itself, which is why jetted lines tend to stay open for much longer.
Older cast iron and clay generally handle jetting once the camera has confirmed their condition, and the pressure comes down where the wall looks thin. A joint that roots have split open gets repaired instead.
No two drain calls cost the same, because the line, the access point, the tool and the time spent hunting for the clog all differ. The camera pass comes first, the written figure second, and the cleaning only after you agree to it.
Scheduled jetting is not something most homes need. Restaurants do, so do buildings where many units drain into one pipe, and so do houses with large trees above the lateral. Hidden Hills owners are expected to keep their laterals clear of roots and grease, and a yearly or twice-yearly cleaning does that.
24/7 Emergency Plumbing
Split hoses, leaks under the floor and backups, answered by a person around the clock.
Water Heater Repair & Installation
Tank heaters repaired, or replaced with two seismic straps and a permit.
Sewer Repair & Repiping
Broken laterals repaired or relined, and worn water lines repiped.
Leak & Gas Leak Detection
Hidden water leaks and gas piping leaks found and pressure tested.
Sewage in the tub at night: call us
A person answers at every hour. When sewage is coming up into a house anywhere in Los Angeles County, that is a 24-hour emergency response call, and we come from Canoga Park.