Slow sink, backed-up tub, a toilet that won’t clear, or a main line that’s gurgling. We clear it — and then tell you whether it was a one-off or a symptom of something that’s going to keep happening. Fixture drains $150–$350; main lines $250–$550.
The half that saves you money is knowing why it clogged. Most people pay for the same drain three times before anyone tells them the real reason, so here it is:
We cable and auger fixture drains and main lines through cleanouts, and clear toilets without cracking the porcelain — which is a real risk with the wrong tool and a heavy hand. Drop cloths down, bucket under, and the area put back the way we found it.
In older Lakes Region houses we go carefully with cast-iron waste lines. A lot of the housing in Laconia, Franklin, Tilton, Ashland, and Wolfeboro village still has original cast iron, and the bottom of an old stack is often thin. Aggressive cabling in a pipe that’s already corroded from the inside is how a clog turns into a broken pipe under a basement floor and a $6,000 day. If what we’re into is a failing pipe rather than a blockage, you’ll hear it plainly, with the repair option and the replace option and the honest difference between them.
Camps get a particular version of this. A house that sat for five months has traps that may have dried out, drains that collected debris, and in some cases a line that shifted with frost. If a drain isn’t right on opening weekend, it’s worth diagnosing rather than living with all summer — small drain faults in seasonal buildings tend to be structural rather than a clump of hair.
Clearing a single fixture drain typically runs $150–$350. A main line clearing through a cleanout runs $250–$550 depending on access and severity. If access is bad — no cleanout, a pulled toilet needed to get in — it costs more, and you’ll know before we start. If it turns out the problem is a full septic tank or a failed pipe rather than a clog, we stop and tell you instead of running the bill up on the wrong fix. Benchmarks for everything are on the cost page.
We’d rather you didn’t, especially in an older house. Caustic drain openers sit on a clog and generate heat, they can damage aging cast iron and some plastics, and they make the job genuinely hazardous for whoever opens the line afterward. On a fully blocked drain they mostly just sit there in the standing water. Mechanical clearing is safer and it actually works.
When multiple fixtures back up together the problem is downstream of all of them — the main line, or on most Lakes Region properties, the septic tank itself. Before paying for repeated drain clearings, find out when the tank was last pumped. A full tank produces exactly these symptoms and no amount of augering fixes it.
Almost always grease. It goes down warm and liquid, cools on the walls of the horizontal run, and builds a layer that catches everything after it. If it comes back within weeks of a clearing, the line likely has too little fall or a partial collapse, and it needs a look rather than another cabling.
It can, in the wrong hands, on old cast iron that’s already thin. That’s why we ask about the age of the house and look at what we can see in the basement before deciding how aggressive to be. In a hundred-year-old Franklin or Laconia house, going gently and diagnosing accurately beats forcing it.
Tell us which fixtures, whether it’s one or all of them, and how old the house is. That usually tells us the answer before we get there.
Describe what’s happening and where the property is. We’ll come back with a straight answer on what it likely is, what it should cost, and when we can be there. If it’s an emergency, say so in the first line.
We reply to every request within 2 business hours.
