Is your toilet making strange gurgling noises? Maybe your drains are moving slower than usual? These problems might seem like minor annoyances, but they could point to something much bigger hiding underground. Your house might be giving you signals about a serious plumbing issue right beneath your feet.
How are these problems related to your sewer line? Believe it or not, tree roots can puncture through your pipes and cause big-time problems for your home’s plumbing system. It’s up to you to know what to look for so you can call the pros before a small issue turns into a costly disaster.
How Tree Roots Enter Your Sewer Line
Tree roots naturally seek out water and nutrients to sustain growth. Your sewer line presents an ideal target, as it’s full of water, organic material, and oxygen. Here’s how roots make their way into your plumbing system:
- They detect moisture vapor escaping from tiny cracks, joints, or connections in your pipe.
- Roots grow toward even the smallest openings. They can infiltrate gaps as small as a hairline crack.
- Once inside, they find the perfect growing conditions — warm, moist, and nutrient-rich.
- Roots expand and branch out inside the pipe, creating blockages and causing further damage.
- The growing root mass catches passing debris, creating bigger clogs over time.
- Continuous growth can eventually crack, break, or completely separate pipe sections through their expanding pressure.
Clay or concrete pipes in older homes face higher risks since they have more joints and are more susceptible to cracking than modern PVC or copper pipes. The worst part? This entire process happens silently underground until your plumbing starts showing the symptoms listed above.
Slow Draining Fixtures Throughout Your Home
When water takes forever to drain from your sinks, showers, and bathtubs, tree roots might be the culprit. Tree roots create blockages that narrow your pipe’s pathway, making it harder for water to flow freely.
Think of it like a clogged artery — the narrower the passage gets, the slower everything moves. You might notice this starts gradually but gets worse over time as roots continue growing and collecting debris. Regular drain cleaner won’t fix this problem because the blockage isn’t inside your home. It’s deep in your sewer line where only professional equipment can reach.
Gurgling Toilets and Drains
Hear strange gurgling sounds coming from your toilet or drains? This noise happens when air is trapped in your plumbing system because tree roots are blocking the normal flow of water and air in your sewer line.
The sounds typically occur when you’re using water elsewhere in your house. For example, your toilet might gurgle when you’re taking a shower, or your kitchen sink might make noise when you flush the toilet. These weird sounds mean water is struggling to navigate around root blockages, creating air pockets that bubble up through your fixtures. This is your plumbing system crying for help before bigger problems develop.
Frequent Clogs That Regular Methods Won’t Fix
Are you plunging your toilet more often than you’re checking social media? When clogs become a regular part of your household routine, tree roots might be to blame. What makes these clogs different is how stubborn they are. Your trusted plunger or store-bought drain cleaner just won’t work anymore.
Root-related clogs happen because debris gets caught on the tree roots that have infiltrated your pipe. You might temporarily clear enough space for water to flow, but the underlying root problem remains, ready to catch the next wave of debris coming through.
Sewage Backups or Water Pooling
Finding sewage backing up into your tubs, showers, or basement floor drains? When roots fully block your pipe, wastewater has nowhere to go but back into your home. When roots crack or separate pipes, water leaks into the surrounding soil. This creates unusually green or lush patches of grass, soggy areas in your yard even during dry weather, or actual puddles that never seem to dry up. This definitely shouldn’t be the case.
Foul Odors Inside or Outside Your Home
If you’re noticing sewer gas smells wafting through your home or yard, know that tree roots might have damaged your sewer line. When pipes crack or separate due to root intrusion, sewage leaks out and gases escape.
Sometimes the nose knows best, and these smells are unmistakably foul and similar to rotten eggs. You might detect them coming from drains, in your basement, or in specific areas of your yard where damaged pipes lie below. Your home should never smell like sewage. If it does, take it as a serious warning that something’s wrong with your sewer system.
Unusually High Water Bills
A sudden increase in your water bill without changing your usage habits could signal a sewer line leak caused by root intrusion. When tree roots crack your pipes, they let sewage out and let water escape too. These leaks waste tremendous amounts of water without you ever seeing it happen. The water simply seeps into the soil around the damaged pipe instead of making it to the municipal sewer system. Your meter tracks this wasted water, and you pay for every drop.
We’re Here to Clear the Way
Thankfully, Henley’s Plumbing & Air provides plumbing services for your sewer and main water lines. With trenchless repairs, we can fix the problem spots in your sewer lines easier than ever, often without digging up your yard.
Our service areas include: Corona, Norco, Eastvale, Yorba Linda, Placentia, Anaheim, Riverside, Rancho Cucamonga, Ontario, Upland, Fontana, San Bernardino, Redlands, Highland, Yucaipa.
Call today to schedule a look at your sewer line if you suspect tree roots to be the root of your problems.
