Water at the basement floor drain can be a clog in your lateral, a storm overloading the sewer or groundwater under the slab. We clear it, camera it and show you which.
The basement floor drain is usually the lowest opening in a house's plumbing. Kitchen, bathroom and laundry water, and often the foundation drains, pass it on the way to the street, so when waste cannot get out, it shows there first.
Timing tells us a lot. Grey water rising as the washer empties on a dry day is a blockage. Dirty water in a downpour that sinks away afterwards is usually the sewer. Clear seepage in the spring melt is groundwater.
AquaTec Plumbing, licensed and insured plumbers in Holland Landing, is a 24/7 sewer backup plumber for York Region and North York. Floor drain backup repair is part of our clogged drain cleaning service; if every fixture is slow at once, see main sewer line clog clearing.
Dry weather, only your house, water rising while fixtures run. A clogged basement floor drain or lateral usually holds grease, wipes, roots at a clay joint or debris in a sag.
Heavy rain, several houses at once, dirty water that drains away as the storm eases. Typical in North York, on the low Newmarket streets and in Holland Landing near the river.
Clean, odourless water seeping at the wall joint, a crack or the drain body after wet weather. It builds over days, and it is a sump question rather than a sewer one.
Low ground can get both in one storm, so we clear and camera the line in dry weather to rule the blockage in or out.
On the phone we ask you to stop the washer, dishwasher, showers and flushing, and keep everyone out of the water.
The cap comes off slowly, pail ready. Water standing inside means the stoppage is toward the street; a dry cleanout means it is inside the house.
A cutter sized to the pipe runs out until the cleanout drains and the floor drain stays dry with fixtures running. You see what it pulls back.
The camera follows from the same cleanout. A transmitter in its head lets us find the problem from above, read its depth and mark the spot.
You watch the screen as the head travels under the slab and out to the sewer main, with a counter logging the distance to each joint.
Clay laterals in Thornhill, North York and old Newmarket often show tree roots growing in at the joints. Lines in Bradford marsh soil and Vaughan clay more often show settling: a belly holding water or a joint pulled apart.
Price depends on cleanout access, how far out the problem sits, whether roots or grease need hydro jetting and a second camera pass, and for broken pipe, its depth and what covers it. Sewer line repairs are quoted in writing from the footage.
Often a cast iron drain beside where the main leaves, sometimes with weeping tile tied in, and often the only way into the pipe.
Often a plastic trap, a separate cleanout and foundation drains piped to a sump. Little water reaches the floor drain, so its trap dries out.
Trap water is the seal against sewer gas, and in a basement nobody uses it evaporates. A jug of water restores it; a trap primer keeps it.
We look for a missing cleanout plug, a cracked trap, an unused shower or rough-in with a dry trap, or a failing vent.
Surcharge needs a backwater valve on the main drain. It closes when the sewer pushes back, and while it is closed the house cannot drain, so hold off on water until the storm passes.
We camera the drain before cutting concrete, because a valve set in cracked cast iron or rooted clay will leak. Foundation drains joining upstream of it mean adding a sump pit and pump.
For groundwater we check the pit, float, check valve and discharge; a discharge into a laundry tub feeds the overloaded sewer. See sump pump installation and battery backups.
Valve cost turns on drain depth, concrete, flooring and any added pit. For basement flooding subsidies, check with your municipality, and ask us about municipal subsidy programs.
Willowdale, Bayview Village and Don Mills have clay laterals under old trees and sewers that surcharge in summer storms. See North York drain cleaning and plumbing in North York.
Low streets by the Holland River surcharge, and roots reopen clay laterals near Main Street South (Newmarket drain cleaning, plumbing in Newmarket). Holland Landing homes toward the river can get sewer water and a high water table together (plumbing in Holland Landing).
Roots return to clay laterals under Royal Orchard and Thornhill Village trees, so repeat backups are often one joint. See Thornhill drain cleaning and plumbing in Thornhill.
Lines settle into bellies in marsh soil and heavy clay (plumbing in Bradford, plumbing in Vaughan). On low Keswick streets the melt raises the water table and heavy rain can surcharge the sewer (Keswick drain cleaning).
Related drain services and the other towns we cover.
Stop running water and call. Tell us if it is raining and whether the neighbours have water too.
