Why Is My Floor Drain Backing Up?

Nothing disrupts a good day quite as quickly as stepping in a puddle of cold (please, oh please be clean) water slowly coming up through your basement’s floor drain. Whether you notice the standing water on your basement floor before you find it with your foot or not, any floor drain backup can feel baffling and leave you wondering what could possibly be wrong with a floor drain? The honest answer? Probably nothing. The cause of this backup most likely lies in another area of your plumbing system.

Sewer Line Clogs.

There is a portion of sewer that runs under your private property from your home to the municipal line. All of the grey water attempting to exit your house from every drain, toilet, shower etc needs to pass through this sewer line to leave your plumbing system and enter the city’s sewage system. When clogs occur in this sewer line, your home is extremely vulnerable to back ups.

This is because all of that water is suddenly trapped and unable to exit your plumbing system. The waste water builds up in the pipes until there’s so much water that it backs up all the way to your floor drain (the lowest part of your plumbing system) and begins to overflow.

Remember that the sewer line is a shared responsibility between Calgary homeowners and the city. If the clog is in your part of the line, it will be your responsibility to find a reputable, Calgary plumber to fix the problem.

Drain Line Clogs.

In many houses, the basement drain is simply the first place wastewater can escape when it’s unable to go anywhere else. The good news is that means that a floor drain backup can be caused by a relatively small clog in a minor drain line, which should be easy to repair or replace.

Your plumbing system is a vast network of small drain lines which feed a larger main drain line which empties into the sewer line. Clogs in any of these smaller drain lines or in your main drain line may lead to a floor drain back up.

Our friendly Calgary plumbers can deduce which drain line is causing the problem by turning different fixtures on and off. Then, we can perform a camera plumbing inspection to pinpoint the exact location of any clogs and remove them.

Sewer Line Damage.

If you’re unlucky, your floor drain backup could be caused by something less trivial than a clog. Your sewer lines run underground where they aren’t protected by your home from invasive tree roots or the elements. With time, the sewer line degrades, and it may become cracked or broken. The line may also begin to sag or fully collapse from age, or tree roots may have misaligned the line. Sewer line damage is bad news, and it often requires more work to fix.

Is your basement flooding? Whether you think your floor drain backup is caused by a small clog or from sewer line damage, the trusted Calgary plumbers at Plumbing Heating Paramedics are here to help! Call us today at (403) 452-2911.