Drain snaking clears a tunnel through a blockage. Hydro jetting scrubs the pipe wall back to bare metal or PVC. That is the whole difference, and it is why a jetted line stays clear three to five times longer than a snaked one in Vancouver service.

Our hydrojetter is a trailer mounted Spartan Warrior pumping 4,000 PSI at 18 gallons per minute. Pressure and flow rate both matter. Too much pressure with too little flow scours the metal but does not move the debris. Too much flow with too little pressure rinses the line without cleaning it. 4,000 at 18 is the sweet spot for residential laterals in 3 inch to 6 inch pipe and commercial branch lines up to 8 inches.

Three Vancouver jobs dominate our jetting queue. Restaurant kitchen stacks are the first. Fats, oils and grease build at the trap to stack joint every six to ten months on the busy Commercial Drive and Main Street kitchens. A quarterly jet on a maintenance contract keeps the line clear and prevents the backup that lands in the middle of dinner service.

Root invaded residential sewer laterals are the second. Cedar, maple, willow and Norway spruce roots get into clay tile and old cast iron at the joints right across pre-1970 East Van. Cabling cuts the root mass but leaves the root hairs behind, and those grow back. Jetting blasts the hairs out and washes the joints clean, which buys three to seven years instead of the six to twelve months cabling alone gives you. Our drain cleaning page has the cable versus jet comparison in full.

Drain tile silt is the third. The 4 inch perforated pipe around your foundation silts up over decades with the fine sand and clay that washes in through the perforations. A hydrojet flush restores the capacity without excavation. See the drain tile repair page for what happens when flushing is no longer enough.

Cabling is faster and cheaper for a one off clog, so the question is when the difference is worth paying. Four cases answer it. Repeat clogs on the same line since the last cable clean, because the cable approach clearly is not holding. Grease, because a cable cuts a hole through it and the grease re-coats around the hole within weeks. Mineral scale in old cast iron, which hardens on the inside wall over thirty years or more and narrows a 4 inch pipe closer to 3, and which a cable cuts through without ever removing. And root intrusion past the first cut, where the cutter pulled the mass out but the hairs are still in the joint. For a lateral that keeps failing on roots, the honest answer is jet it now and plan trenchless lining as the permanent fix.

One thing we will not do is jet a pipe that is structurally compromised. Jet pressure can blow out a cracked clay tile joint or punch straight through a collapsed cast iron section. Camera scope first, jet second. If the scope shows structural damage we cable the line to get it open and quote the repair instead, and we will tell you plainly which one you are looking at.

Every jetting job ends with a camera scope, before and after, so you see the pipe wall condition restored. The footage is emailed to you as an MP4. Dispatch runs 24/7.