A Clog That Always Comes Back
A line cleared three times in a year is not a blockage problem. Something structural is catching debris, and cleaning it again will not change that.
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OUR SERVICES
Camera diagnosis and permanent repair for broken, cracked, and collapsed drain lines in Urbandale. Spot repairs, section replacement, and full lateral work.
OVERVIEW
Drain repair starts where drain cleaning stops. When a line keeps blocking no matter how often it is cleared, the pipe itself is the problem, and clearing it again rents a solution rather than buying one. We camera the line in Urbandale first, identify exactly what has failed and where it sits, then repair that and nothing more.
Drinking water comes through the Urbandale Water Utility, its own board serving about 18,500 accounts across 225 miles of main, purchased from the regional producer. The private lateral from your building out to the district system remains the property owner responsibility.
All work is performed in compliance with the 2024 Uniform Plumbing Code as adopted by the State of Iowa.

WHEN A LINE NEEDS REPAIR
Cleaning fixes blockages. These symptoms say the pipe itself has failed.
A line cleared three times in a year is not a blockage problem. Something structural is catching debris, and cleaning it again will not change that.
A belly, meaning a low section holding water, shows clearly on camera. Waste settles there instead of flowing, and it will keep doing so.
A leaking lateral feeds the lawn above it. A green stripe across an otherwise ordinary yard is worth investigating properly.
A line leaking under a slab washes out the material supporting it. That becomes a structural problem long before anyone calls a plumber.
Sewer here belongs to two sanitary sewer districts rather than the city, and people lose days phoning the wrong desk.
A lot of Urbandale homes were built in the same window, which means their original equipment tends to reach end of life at the same time.
DRAIN REPAIR SERVICES
From a single failed section to a full lateral replacement.
Every repair starts here. We find the fault and mark its position and depth from the surface before anyone picks up a shovel.
Where one section has failed and the rest of the run is sound, we replace that section rather than the whole line.
Cutting roots restores flow but leaves the opening. Repairing the joint they came through is what stops them returning next season.
A low section holding water has to be re-laid to proper fall. Cleaning it only empties it until the next time water runs.
When the camera shows failure along the length of the pipe rather than at one point, replacing the run is the honest recommendation.
Many older lines have no accessible cleanout. Adding one makes every future service call faster and less invasive.
WHY CLOG BUSTERS
Find the fault precisely, repair only what has failed, and verify it afterward.
We put a camera through the line and mark the fault from the surface, so any excavation sits over the actual problem rather than a guess.
Crack, offset joint, belly, root intrusion, or collapse. Each has a different repair and a different cost, and you are told which before anything starts.
Urbandale permits this work through Building Services in Community Development at 3600 86th Street, with water heater and sewer service line permits both named on the city fee schedule.
A spot repair where one section has failed, a longer replacement where the pipe is failing along its length. We do not default to the larger job.
A second camera pass confirms grade and flow before anything is closed up, then the site is backfilled and put back.
FAQ
Still stuck? Call the Des Moines shop at (515) 259-1991.
A camera answers it in one visit. If the line is sound and simply blocked, cleaning is the fix. If the footage shows a crack, an offset joint, a belly, or missing pipe, cleaning only buys time.
Not always, and never before the fault is located precisely. Where excavation is needed we open the smallest area that reaches the failure rather than trenching the whole run.
A straightforward spot repair is usually a single day. A full lateral replacement depends on length, depth, and what sits above it, and you get that estimate after the camera work rather than before.
If the recurring clog is caused by the fault we repair, yes. That is exactly why we camera first, so the repair addresses the cause instead of the symptom.
It depends on the pipe. Lining needs a host that is structurally continuous. Where a line has collapsed or lost its bottom there is nothing to line, and that section has to be replaced.
The Urbandale Water Utility, which is its own board rather than a city department, serving roughly 18,500 accounts across about 225 miles of main with water purchased from the regional producer.
Urbandale spans Polk and Dallas counties. It makes no difference for permitting, because the city issues them regardless of which side your address falls on.
Not usually by itself. Median build year here is around 1992 and that material is generally sound. Accumulation over three decades of use is the more common cause of trouble.
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