A working home sewer system is easy to take for granted since it seems to work magically to whisk away water and waste - until the day that it suddenly stops working. When you see bubbles rising through a toilet that won't flush or sewage backing up into the tub, you definitely need to figure out what's going on inside the pipes.

Large homes set back a good distance from the street can have dozens of feet of sewer main pipe stretching under the ground. Combine this with the potential for the clog to occur higher up within the home's drainpipes and pinpointing the exact problem becomes far more complicated.

Even if the plumber knows where the clog is by how it affects the home's plumbing, this doesn't guarantee that only one clog has caused the problem. A grease and hair deposit may be a problem early on in the sewer line that only hides a further collapsed section or root intrusion.

With such a variety of clogs forming within sewer lines, guessing which unclogging process to try first might be hard. Hydro jetting that can knock fat or hair loose won't necessarily move tightly knotted roots, while even root cutters fail if the pipe has collapsed entirely.

The most basic approach to sewer pipe cleaning involves punching a hole through the middle of a clog so water can flow again. However, a quick approach like this won't remove the residue clinging to the sides of the pipe, resulting in further accumulating of new material so a clog eventually re-forms in the same spot.