Drain Cleaning in Orem, UT
Orem’s nickname is “Family City USA,” and the housing tells the story — a huge wave of construction through the 1960s, ’70s, and into the early ’80s built out the grid you see today between State Street and the foothills, with a median build year sitting right around 1983. That means a lot of Orem’s roughly 98,000 residents live in homes with 40-plus-year-old drain and sewer systems that are hitting the age where the original plastic or cast-iron work starts giving out.
We get a steady stream of calls from the older central Orem tracts — the neighborhoods that grew up around the original State Street corridor and the blocks near what used to be Geneva Steel before UVU’s footprint and the surrounding development took over that stretch of the city. Those homes were largely built in the ABS plastic and cast-iron transition years, and both materials have their own failure signatures we’ve learned to spot fast.
Whether it’s a kitchen line backing up in a rambler off 800 North or a main line gurgling in a split-level near the mountain-side neighborhoods, we run drain cleaning trucks into Orem regularly and know the housing stock block by block.
Why Orem Drains Clog the Way They Do
Orem’s construction boom happened right as the plumbing industry was shifting from cast iron to plastic drain pipe, which means block by block you can find either — sometimes both, spliced together from a remodel decades ago. Cast-iron sections corrode and scale up from the inside, narrowing the pipe until normal household waste can’t clear it. ABS pipe from that same era, while more root-resistant than clay, was often installed with looser code enforcement than today’s standards, and we regularly find bellied sections where the pipe has sagged under decades of settling clay soil common throughout Utah Valley.
The older, mature landscaping in central Orem’s established neighborhoods is another factor — decades-old trees along residential streets have had 40-plus years to find any weak joint in the line.
Our Approach
We don’t guess on a 40-year-old line. A camera inspection tells us in minutes whether Orem’s classic bellied-ABS problem is at play, whether it’s cast iron scaling down to a fraction of its original diameter, or a straightforward grease clog. From there we use hydro-jetting to fully clear pipe walls rather than punch a temporary hole through the blockage, and we’ll show homeowners the video before recommending any repair or replacement.
Why Orem Homeowners Call Us
Action Plumbing runs licensed, insured crews with 24/7 emergency availability and more than 6,054 Google reviews from real Utah customers. We know Orem’s aging housing stock — from the original Family City neighborhoods to the newer development pushing up toward the bench — and we show up with the right equipment the first time.
FAQ
Q: My Orem home was built in the early 1980s — what kind of sewer pipe should I expect?
A: It’s genuinely a toss-up between cast iron and ABS plastic, and sometimes both in the same line if there’s been a partial repair. A camera inspection tells us exactly what we’re dealing with before we recommend anything.
Q: Why does my kitchen sink back up every few months even though I have it snaked regularly?
A: Repeated snaking clears a path through a clog but doesn’t remove buildup from the pipe walls, so grease and scale rebuild fast. Hydro-jetting scours the full diameter and typically buys much more time between calls.
Q: Are Orem’s older neighborhoods more prone to root intrusion?
A: Yes — the established central neighborhoods have mature trees that have had decades to find any loose joint in an aging ABS or cast-iron line.
Q: Do you offer emergency drain service in Orem on weekends?
A: Yes, we run 24/7 emergency service throughout Utah County, including Orem.
Office serving this page: SLC — Gladiola St, Salt Lake City, UT