Real projects. Proven results.

Hydro Jetting to End Sewer Backups

How quarterly hydro jetting stopped recurring mainline backups at a 48-unit central Phoenix property

The Problem

For over two years, this central Phoenix apartment community was stuck in a cycle familiar to a lot of multifamily properties: the sewer line would back up, a technician would come out and cable it clear, and a few weeks or months later it would happen again.

Some of these were routine, single-unit clogs — hair in a tub drain, grease in a kitchen line. Those are normal wear and tear. But mixed in were larger events that pointed to a bigger problem: the shared mainline itself. At one point, the line backed up badly enough to push sewage into the parking lot, affecting the whole property. Months later, a mainline backup near the same area required a generator and a 20-foot cable run to clear.

The breaking point came in February 2026, when the property’s clubhouse restrooms backed up twice in the same week. The first visit cleared roughly 65 feet of blockage from the mainline cleanout by the dumpster. Three days later, the same clubhouse bathrooms and maintenance shop were backing up again.

What We Found

This wasn’t the first time hydro jetting had come up. During a camera inspection more than a year earlier, our technician had already flagged a section of the mainline holding standing water — likely from grease buildup and a back-pitched section of aging clay pipe — and recommended jetting the line from the cleanout. A one-time jetting was performed shortly after, but a single service wasn’t enough to break the cycle; backups continued over the following months.

By the time of the February 2026 clubhouse incidents, the pattern was clear: this property needed an ongoing maintenance schedule, not one-off emergency responses.

The Solution

In April 2026, the property signed on for quarterly recurring hydro jetting across all four buildings on-site. On the same visit, we also repaired a damaged exterior cleanout on the east side of the property, ensuring technicians have proper access to the mainline for every future service.

The Results

In the roughly two months since the recurring program began, the property has had zero mainline or common-area backups — no more clubhouse shutdowns, no more parking lot overflow. The one service call during that window was a single kitchen sink clog in one unit, the kind of isolated, tenant-side issue that no maintenance program can fully prevent, and unrelated to the shared line.

For context on what that replaces: in the two-plus years before the recurring agreement, this property averaged a backup-related service call roughly every ten weeks, plus a run of larger emergency repairs — mainline cabling, camera diagnostics, and excavation work to replace failing sections of pipe. Taken together, reactive plumbing costs at this property were running well into five figures annually. A quarterly hydro jetting program costs a fraction of that — and shifts the spend from cleaning up emergencies to preventing them.

We’ll keep tracking this property’s service history as the quarterly program continues, but the early signal is exactly what a recurring maintenance agreement is supposed to deliver: fewer surprises, less disruption for residents and on-site staff, and a lower total cost of ownership over time.