Why Does My Sewer Keep Backing Up?

Guides / Drain Cleaning

The mistake almost everyone makes

When a line backs up, the natural instinct is to get it flowing again. A cable goes down, water drains, everyone's relieved. But a cable bores a channel through the obstruction — it doesn't remove the thing that caused the obstruction to form. Which is why the call comes again in three months, then two, then six weeks.

Fixing a recurring backup means answering a different question: what is in this pipe that keeps catching waste? There are five common answers.

1. Tree roots at the joints

This is the number one repeat cause in older Colorado Springs neighborhoods — the Old North End, Patty Jewett, the Westside, Ivywild, and much of Manitou Springs. Clay tile and cast iron have joints every few feet, and in a dry climate a sewer line is the most reliable water source in the yard. Roots find the joint, thread in as hairs, and grow into a mat that behaves like a strainer.

Tell-tale sign: gradual slowing over weeks, then a total stoppage, on a seasonal rhythm. Fix: mechanical cutting followed by hydro jetting to strip the remaining root hair, then camera verification of joint condition. Severe intrusion with displaced pipe becomes an excavation repair.

2. Grease and soap buildup

Kitchen waste cools and solidifies on the pipe wall, and soap scum layers over it. The pipe's effective diameter shrinks year after year until a normal amount of waste won't pass. Restaurants and any home that pours cooking fat down the sink live with this — see commercial drain cleaning.

Tell-tale sign: kitchen line specifically, slow but steady degradation, foul smell. Fix: jetting. Cabling through grease just makes a tunnel.

3. Scale in old cast iron

Colorado Springs water is hard, and hard water plus decades of cast iron produces tuberculation — a rough, mineral-crusted interior that snags everything. A 4-inch pipe can be functionally 2 inches.

Tell-tale sign: pre-1970 house, everything drains sluggishly all the time. Fix: jetting with a descaling head, or replacement if the wall has gone thin.

4. A belly (sag) in the line

Colorado's expansive clay soils shift. When a section of lateral settles, it forms a low spot that holds standing water. Solids drop out there and accumulate. No amount of cleaning changes the slope.

Tell-tale sign: reliably recurring backup at the same footage mark every time. Fix: excavation and re-grading of that section. Jetting keeps it functional in the meantime, and honestly, that's a legitimate strategy for years if the sag is mild.

5. Broken, offset, or collapsed pipe

Cracks, offset joints where two pieces have shifted apart, and partial collapses all create a lip that catches waste. Soil and gravel also enter through the break, which is its own problem.

Tell-tale sign: gravel or soil in the water that comes back, cable snagging at a consistent spot, sinkholes or unusually green grass in the yard. Fix: repair or replacement of the failed section.

What we do on a repeat-backup call

1. Open the line so you have working plumbing again.
2. Camera the full lateral to the city main and locate the cause by footage and depth.
3. Tell you plainly whether this is a maintenance situation, a jetting situation, or a repair situation.
4. If maintenance, set a realistic interval — see how often a sewer line should be jetted.

If the sewage is backing up right now, don't wait on the diagnosis — emergency service is available 24/7 across Colorado Springs and the surrounding areas.

See our drain cleaning service in Colorado Springs →