Hydro Jetting

How jetting works

A hydro jetter pumps water at pressures from about 1,500 to 4,000 pounds per square inch on residential equipment, and far higher on the truck-mounted units used for mains, through a hose to a nozzle at the far end. The nozzle has rear-facing jets that pull the hose up the pipe and scour the wall behind it, and often a forward jet that breaks up the blockage ahead. Different nozzles do different work: a penetrating nozzle to get through a clog, a flushing nozzle to carry debris back to the access point, a rotating or chain-flail head to cut roots, a descaling head with carbide chains for cast iron. The hose goes in from a cleanout, a manhole or a catch basin, is worked to the end of the run and withdrawn slowly, and what it strips off is flushed back to the access point and removed. Water does the work, so nothing abrasive is left in the pipe.

What jetting removes

• Roots: cut back to the pipe wall with a rotating or chain head, which is more thorough than a cable's blade and does not score the pipe.
• Grease: the coating that narrows a restaurant line or a multifamily kitchen stack, emulsified and flushed rather than pushed downstream.
• Scale: the rust tubercles that reduce old cast iron to half its diameter, removed with a descaling head before lining or coating.
• Sediment: sand, silt and gravel in storm pipe and in sanitary lines with open joints, flushed out so the camera can see the wall.
• Debris from a previous collapse or a careless repair, mortar, concrete and construction waste.

Jetting as maintenance

For a line that is sound but dirty, jetting is the whole job. A grease line on a quarterly schedule, a storm system cleaned before the rainy season, a cast iron building drain descaled every few years, a root-prone clay lateral jetted annually: each stays in service without a liner because the problem is what is in the pipe, not the pipe. Jetting also tells the truth about which it is. A line that is clean after jetting and still slow has a belly or a collapse; a line that fills with roots again within months has open joints that need sealing, which is where lining comes in.

Jetting as preparation for lining

Every cured-in-place liner, point repair and spin-cast shell bonds to the host pipe, and it bonds only to clean material. The lining day therefore starts with the jetter: roots cut back, grease and scale removed, sediment flushed, and the camera sent through a second time to confirm that the wall is exposed and the pipe is what the estimate assumed. On cast iron, descaling is a job in its own right, with carbide chain heads working the rust down to bare metal. Skipping or shortcutting this step is the most common cause of a liner that fails early.

What jetting will not do

Jetting cleans; it does not repair. It cannot close an open joint, seal a crack or restore a pipe's shape, and on a pipe that is already fragile, a collapsing clay tile or Orangeburg gone soft, the pressure can finish the job a root started. A competent operator runs a camera first on any line that has not been seen, chooses the nozzle and pressure for the material, and stops when the footage says the pipe is failing rather than merely dirty. A line that needs jetting every few months is telling you the joints are open, and the honest recommendation is to look at lining rather than to keep cleaning.

What it costs

Residential jetting is priced by the hour or by the run, and is included in the scope of any lining job. Commercial and municipal jetting is priced per foot by diameter, with the debris disposal itemized. For a property that has lived on an emergency cable call every few months, a scheduled jetting usually costs less over a year than the calls it replaces, and a camera run with it answers the question of whether a liner would end the cycle entirely.

Getting a line cleaned

Your state page says whether a verified installer is listed where you are; all of them jet as part of their lining work and most offer it as maintenance. If none is listed, the national line locates a qualified contractor near you and makes the introduction at no charge.

Estimates are free. Call now. (855) 804-1434