I just had a blocked line. I called the guy (Rufus) who came with his big machine, pulled a toilet and snaked out the line with a $600 charge. I have no cleanouts (unless they are "secret" or buried). He told me that with a cleanout, the fee would have been $200 and the job would have been much easier. I seem to need this kind of visit every 3 years or so. This is perhaps the 4th "ream out" in the 12 years I have lived in this house.
He quoted me $3300 to install cleanouts. Wow! After researching this a bit, it seems clear to me that I can buy the parts for around $100 (certainly under $200). So I am paying $3000 for the digging and a bit of labor to cut my line and install the parts.
Rufus was a nice enough guy, from Drainmasters. I called another outfit who did some work for me. They quoted me $600 to install a cleanout if I did the digging and exposed the pipes. I ended up doing more than that (see below). I'll also note that Benjamin Franklin plumbing seems to in general charge half or less of what Drainmasters does.
Here is a great video of a guy installing cleanouts at his house. He spent $180 for the PVC parts (at Lowes). I may consider ABS. He says the pipe is likely to be 30 inches or so down.
Here is another excellent video of a guy replacing his water line from the street. People in the comments mention quotes of $5000 for this kind of job. It hardly looks like he uses $500 in parts. With a $5000 budget you could buy any nice tools you might need and still save a lot of money.
He also mentions the flume water meter, which I find is legal in Tucson: I bought a flume on Black Friday on Amazon, but have not yet installed it. Tucson is moving toward a system that will allow you to get data and alerts from their own meter monitoring setup.You cannot buy solid ABS pipe anymore. The only thing available is foam core ABS, which is known to be less durable. One claim is that plumbers use it so they get return business. I returned what ABS I bought and got PVC instead. You are going to use Fernco couplers to mate the cleanout to the ABS, so that is fine, and solid schedule 40 PVC is strong and durable.
A great way to cut PVC pipe nice and square is to use a chop saw. I have one! I'll use it next time I make cuts.
The big discovery is that the line I was going to install a cleanout in, is just the line from the shower! A bit more digging exposed a bigger (3-inch line) it joined to. And discovering where that line was exactly enabled me to find an ancient cleanout buried under gravel in the "compound" where my cooler and air conditioner live.
The parts to do my cleanout (in 2 inch line) would be about $100. Compare that to the $3300 quote from Drainmasters and the $600 quote from Benjamin Franklin. Paying the guys from Ben Franklin the $600 seems almost reasonable since that includes the $100 parts, yet $500 labor is still a lot for that job. $3300 is absurd.
Main bathroom sink - nice flow observed Main bathroom toilet - flow flushed away "test debris" Bird bathroom sink - nothing observed Bird bathroom toilet - nothing observedThe test debris I used was a couple of croutons dropped down the cleanout that landed where I could observe them. Also at this time the bird bathroom toilet would not flush (It gave one flush in the morning then gave up).
However, everthing fixed itself by Monday 4-6-2026. A load of wash was run, so maybe that had an effect? Now I can flush the bird bathroom toilet 5 times in quick succession without problem. I run tests again and watch for flow in the cleanout:
Kitchen sink -- nice flow Guest house bathroom sink -- nice flow Bird bathroom sink - nice flow Bird bathroom toilet -- flow flushed away test debrisThis is quite a change from just 2 days before when things went down the bird bathroom drains with no evidence whatsoever at the cleanout. It is a dark mystery where the water goes in such a case, and what the cause of the intermittent blockage could be. No solid waste is flushed down the bird bathroom toilet.
Tom's Home repair pages / tom@mmto.org