Hydro Jetting

A cable's job is to get something in the way out of the way — hook it, break it, or push it along. That works well for a discrete clog but does little for buildup coating the inside of a long pipe run, which is why a line cabled clear one month can be slow again a few months later. A jetter sends water through a nozzle at pressure high enough to cut through grease and scale and scour it off the pipe wall on the way back out, restoring something closer to the pipe's original diameter rather than just reopening a channel through the middle of the blockage.

Jetting is not the right first move on every line. Old, brittle clay or cast iron with cracks or separated joints can be damaged by full-pressure jetting, and a line nobody has looked at with a camera is a line where you do not yet know what state it is in. That is why jetting on an unfamiliar main line is usually paired with a camera inspection first — to confirm the pipe can take it before running high-pressure water through it.

What this usually involves

• Grease buildup along kitchen lines
• Main lines with buildup a cable keeps re-clogging
• Pipe wall scouring rather than punching a single channel
• Camera check before jetting an unfamiliar or older line
• Not recommended on pipe already known to be cracked or offset

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