We clean and restore drain and sewer lines across Littleton — downtown, Ketring, Columbine, Ken Caryl and everywhere in between. Our technicians are in Littleton most weeks of the year, and we’ve put a camera down enough of its sewer lines to have a fair idea what’s down there before we open the clean-out.
Before you replace that sewer line, let us show you what’s wrong
A line packed with roots and scale looks alarming on a camera. So does a line that has genuinely failed. They are not the same thing, and they do not cost the same to fix.
We put a camera down the line before we touch it, and again after we’ve cleaned it.. If it needed cleaning, you see the difference. If it needs replacing, you see that too — and you will see why, not just be told.
We don’t do repairs
There’s a saying in our trade: if you do maintenance and repair, you cannot stay honest. We took it seriously. We only do maintenance — cleaning, jetting, milling out scale, cutting roots and camera inspection. We don’t replace sewer lines and we don’t dig.
So when we tell you your line doesn’t need replacing, we aren’t turning down work. We never had it to sell. And you don’t have to take our word for it either way — you see the camera footage before and after, and you keep it.
If it really does need replacing, we’ll show you why on camera and point you to R.C Pipeline (303-597-8396), who do underground sewer repair and replacement. BBB accredited, A+ rated. We don’t take a referral fee.
What’s usually under a Littleton house
The line changes material at least twice. A stretch of plastic near the foundation where somebody made a repair, cast iron under the slab, then clay for the last run out to the main. We see that sequence in Littleton more than any other.
The clean-out is usually in the basement. Often behind the furnace or the water heater, sometimes in a corner nobody has looked at since they moved in. If you don’t know where yours is, we’ll find it.
The runs are long. Eighty to a hundred and twenty feet from the clean-out to the main is normal here. We have cabled past a hundred and seventy. A company that carries seventy-five feet of 3/8-inch kitchen cable will not reach the blockage, and may tell you the line is beyond cleaning when the truth is they simply stopped short.
What’s Actually on the Truck and how far it reaches →
Cast iron scales and clay lets roots in at the joints. Both are normal for pipe of that age. Neither means the line is broken. Carbide flex-shaft milling takes scale back to bare pipe, and root cutting clears the joints — at a fraction of what a replacement costs.
The last defect in this Littleton line was at ninety feet
Here’s a real one, so the paragraph above isn’t just us saying it. A Littleton house — a hundred and six feet from the basement clean-out to the city tap.
Cast iron for the first thirty-five feet, heavily scaled and full of buildup. Plastic the rest of the way. And down that plastic, five things worth writing down:
- A belly at 54 to 57 feet, holding an inch — 25%
- Two spots where the bottom of the pipe is deformed by less than half an inch, at 57 and 66 feet — under 10%
- A belly at 78 to 80 feet, holding half an inch — 12%
- A belly at 90 to 97 feet, holding an inch — 25%
Now count on your fingers. A company that carries seventy-five feet of cable never saw the last thirty feet of that line. They never saw the belly at ninety feet. They could not have told this homeowner what was down there, because they never got there.
And here’s what we told them
The report says it plainly: three minor bellies, all under twenty feet in length. Under twenty feet and holding an inch, a sag is a maintenance item, not a defect — it’s a place where debris settles, and you clean it out on a cycle. The two deformed spots are under ten percent. None of that is a reason to dig up a yard.
The recommendation was to mill the cast iron with a carbide chain knocker to take the scale back to bare pipe wall — and then camera it again to see what the pipe looks like underneath. Because until the scale is off, nobody can honestly tell you what the first thirty-five feet of that line is made of.
Five findings, a hundred and six feet, and the answer was a cleaning and a second look. How long and how deep a belly has to be before it matters →
Every job gets a camera. Before and after.
We are NASSCO certified, so the inspection comes with a written report and video you keep. That matters in Littleton, where a lot of our calls come from people mid-sale who have been handed an inspector’s report recommending a replacement. A proper report showing a clean line has settled more than one of those disputes.
White Tarp Service
We cover your carpet and stairs with clean white canvas tarps before we start. No dirty footprints, no greasy equipment marks, no sewage tracked through your house. We have found it is much better to cover up than clean up.
What it costs, before we start
Estimates are free and our prices are published. The three we quote most often in Littleton:
- Cable clogged drains and sinks — up to 1 hour, 75 ft of cable — $175
- Maintenance mainline cleaning — up to 1 hour, 150 ft of cable — $225
- Camera inspection — NASSCO certified, report and video included — $175
- Hydro-jetting — up to 2 hours, 500 ft of hose — $475
See the full price list — every service, every rate, no membership required.
What our customers say
Absolutely amazing service. We’ve used this company a few times over the past 4 years. Very transparent, kind, punctual, and informational. Our house is older and the plumbing shows it. That being said, couldn’t imagine using any other company. Someday we may need to change out the sewer line (ours is over 50 years old) and I’m sad that this company doesn’t offer replacement — I’d rather give a good company like theirs the $20,000.
Phillip Adams — Google review, Littleton
One rule
Our Drain and Sewer Company is family owned and operated, and we run it on exactly one rule for customer service: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That is why we will tell you when you don’t need the work.
Mon–Fri 8:00am–5:00pm. Free estimates across Littleton and the Denver metro area.