Hydro Jetting

How jetting works

A jetting machine pushes water through a flexible hose at high pressure. The nozzle on the end has one forward jet to break into the blockage and several rearward jets that drive the hose forward and scrub the pipe wall as it travels. When we pull the hose back, the rear jets flush the loosened material downstream toward the city sewer.

The result is a pipe close to its original inside diameter, rather than a narrow tunnel through old buildup.

Grease and scale

Commercial kitchens are jetted routinely, and long residential kitchen runs benefit for the same reason: grease coats the full circumference. Cast iron develops a crusty scale on its inner surface that catches waste. A cable cuts a channel; jetting removes much more of the coating. Jetting also handles fine root hair that a cutting head tends to leave behind.

When not to jet

Jetting is not gentle. We do not use it on:

• Pipes the camera shows are cracked, collapsed or badly offset
• Very thin, heavily corroded cast iron, which can blow through
• Lines with an unknown blockage that may be a foreign object stuck in a fitting
• Old clay with missing pieces, where water can wash out the soil around the pipe

In those cases a cable clearing followed by a repair plan makes more sense.

Pairing with a camera

We prefer a camera look before jetting a line we have not seen, and again after, to confirm the walls are clean and nothing was damaged. The before-and-after footage also shows you what you paid for, which is more than you get from a cable machine and a hopeful smile.