Licensed plumbers, written pricing, serving Yonkers
A kitchen sink that drains slower every day, a tub that stands full, a basement floor drain that gurgles when the washer empties: Action Construction clears all of it for Yonkers, NY homes and businesses. Our licensed plumbers diagnose where the blockage is, clear it with a cable machine or high pressure water jetting depending on what is in the pipe, and give you a written price before the work starts.
A single slow fixture with no other symptoms is often a local clog you can live with for a few days. Call sooner when the pattern spreads: several fixtures on the same side of the building draining slowly at once, a gurgle in one fixture when another one drains, water rising in a tub when the toilet flushes, a sewer smell near a floor drain, or any backup that reaches the floor. Those signs mean the blockage is further back in the system and getting worse, and a main line that has already backed up onto the floor is an emergency plumbing repair.
The timing tells you something too. A drain that clogs a few days after every clearing points at grease or scale narrowing the pipe. A drain that backs up only when the washing machine dumps or several people shower in a row points at a partial main line restriction that cannot handle volume. A drain that has slowed steadily over years is usually cast iron scaling closed from the inside.
For main line blockages, recurring clogs, and lines with grease or hard scale coating the pipe wall, we use high pressure water jetting. A jetter runs a hose with a back facing nozzle at several thousand psi and scours the full diameter of the pipe, pulling the debris back to the cleanout, rather than punching a single hole through the clog that closes again in weeks.
Access is its own problem in Yonkers. Many prewar homes and multifamily buildings were never fitted with an accessible exterior cleanout, so the machine has to go in through a pulled toilet, a roof vent stack, or an interior cleanout buried behind a finished wall. Part of the visit is finding the best entry point, and where a building keeps needing service we will often recommend adding a proper cleanout at grade so the next clearing is faster and cheaper.
When a main line clogs again and again, that usually points to a structural problem in the sewer lateral rather than anything you are putting down the drain. We can run a video camera through the line to confirm root intrusion at a joint, a cracked or offset section, or a belly where the pipe has sagged and now holds water and solids so every use leaves a little behind. That inspection and any resulting repair are covered on our sewer line repair and replacement page. Paying for a camera once is cheaper than cabling the same line every few months and never getting ahead of it.
Older Yonkers homes and multifamily buildings with original cast iron waste lines are more prone to recurring buildup because the inside of the pipe roughens and scales with age, so material catches where it used to pass clean. Tall stacks in the prewar apartment buildings collect scale and rust flakes that drop and lodge at the base. Kitchen lines in buildings without a properly vented trap run slow and clog because the drain cannot pull air behind the water. And restaurant lines in the downtown and South Broadway corridors build grease on a schedule no matter how careful the kitchen is.
Scheduled drain maintenance for a restaurant or a multi tenant building is handled under commercial plumbing services, and the full service list is on our Yonkers plumbing services hub.
A single fixture drain is typically the low end of the range, a branch line is moderate, and a main line clearing costs more because it needs a larger machine and roof or cleanout access. Jetting a grease or scale coated line is priced above standard cabling. We give you the price for your specific situation before any work starts.
Caustic chemical cleaners can damage older pipe, especially aging cast iron and some plastics, they often only bore a small channel through the clog rather than clearing it, and they leave a hazardous slug of chemical in the trap for whoever opens the line next. Mechanical clearing is safer and more complete.
For a slow drain, hot water and a mechanical drain stick or a small hand auger are safer and more effective than chemicals. If the drain is fully blocked or backs up into the fixture, it needs to be cabled, and a chemical cleaner sitting in the trap just makes that job hazardous for the plumber.
Repeated main line clogs usually indicate root intrusion, a pipe belly, or a cracked section in the sewer lateral. A video camera inspection shows the exact cause and location so the line can be fixed once instead of cleared over and over, and the camera fee is small next to a year of service calls.
Most food service kitchens do best on a quarterly jetting schedule, and some high volume kitchens need it monthly. A planned interval costs far less than an emergency backup during service and a health inspection problem, and we set the schedule to your line size and your volume rather than a generic calendar.
Licensed & Insured | Residential & Commercial | Serving CT & NY