Slow Drains

As a home inspector slow drains are something we all look for. The problem is that slow drains can be a simple fix, or can be an indication of a serious and expensive problem.

Here is an example of plumbing questions I receive;

“We live in a slab home that was built in the early sixties. We are on a public sewer system. We have lived here for ten years and up to this point we have never had a problem with slow drains. The weird thing is that the drains work fine, until we wash a lot of clothes, or take several baths in a row, and then every thing backs up”.


Judging from the age of your house and the symptoms you described, you have a clogged or collapsed yard drain. The drain line for the sewer runs from your house to the street, where it connects to the public sewer system. These lines can be crushed from tree roots or maybe just clogged. The reason that the drains only clog when you use a lot of water is because the lines are not completely clogged, but partially blocked. So after the lines drain, under light use, you have all of the lines to fill before it starts to back up. With heavy use, the lines fill faster then the partially clogged drain can drain.
For a temporary fix you can buy some drain line cleaning crystals, that you can flush down the toilet. But the best way to fix this is to have a plumber clean and scope the drain. If they tell you that you have “Orangeburg” pipe, you will need it replaced.

In this case it was Orangeburg pipe and it was crushed in the middle of the yard.