How To Unblock an Outside Drain
Has your drain outside become blocked or clogged? You’ve probably noticed a bad smell coming from the drains or you may have even witnessed them overflowing – especially when it’s been raining. It’s easy to overlook your drains outside if you run a tight ship indoors, but outside drains need your attention in order to keep the whole system running properly.
Don’t worry, because this month we’ll talk you through the steps you need to take to both diagnose the drain and unblock it, as well as a few tips on how to prevent them from becoming blocked in the first place.
Diagnosing the blockage
The first thing to do when you’re noticing your outside drains becoming blocked – either because they’re overflowing or because there is a more prominent smell coming from them – is to find out the cause of the blockage. Here are a few basic steps you can take yourself:
- If you can do so safely, lift the lid of the drain
- Can you see the blockage? If you can, and it seems like a simple job, move on to our ‘tackling the blocked drain’ section
- If you can’t see the blockage or work out what it’s made up of, call in the professionals for a CCTV drain survey
A drain survey will allow a professional technician to use specialist equipment to locate the source of the issue. This means you get a proper diagnosis and you may even have unknown issues which are contributing to the blockage.
Tackling the blocked drain
If the blockage in your drain is visible to you and you can flush it away or remove it easily, then hopefully that’s the problem solved. However, many blockages run deep into the drain itself – it’s both messy, tough and often unclear how to remove stubborn blockages.
With the right tools and preparation, it might be something you feel comfortable at tackling yourself, but it’s recommended that you bring in the professionals. Through drain jetting and cleaning services from a professional team like the one at Power Rod, you won’t need to wrestle with tricky equipment or risk getting covered in sewage water and muck.
If you do decide to tackle the blocked drain outside your home yourself, you could not only cause more damage to the drain, but you also run the risk of injuring yourself or others – so always be certain you know exactly what you’re doing before you begin.
You’ll want to make sure you have good protective clothing, gloves and shoes, and you will probably need to invest in drain rod equipment. Chemical solutions – usually a caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) – are sometimes recommended on the internet, but you should always use extreme caution when handling and deploying these solutions. Again, you’ll want to be 100% certain you know you have the right chemicals and protective equipment before trying to tackle a drain blockage.
How to prevent your drain from becoming blocked
There are plenty of reasons why you might find the drains outside your property becoming blocked, especially in winter. We even provided a guide to winter issues in our last post which you can read here for more information.
Typically, you can do a number of things to prevent your outside drains becoming blocked, including:
- Regularly clearing away debris, such as branches and leaves
- Use a cover or shield to stop debris getting into the system altogether
- Avoid throwing oils and fats down your drains – these solidify and cause blockages further along in the system outside
- Clean your drains with bleach solution on a regular basis to prevent any blockages
Outside drain unblocking from Power Rod
Are you facing a blocked drain outside your home and wondering how to unblock it? Make life simple by contacting our professional team at Power Rod. We have a range of services to help restore your system in no time, from a CCTV drain survey to find out what the issue is and how far it goes, to simple drain jetting and drain unblocking.
Call today to arrange a drain unblocking appointment or, if it’s urgent, let us know, we provide emergency call-outs for when you need us in a hurry!
