Hydro Jetting vs. Drain Snaking: Which Method Does Your Line Need?

What Snaking Does

A drain snake (or cable machine) feeds a flexible metal cable through the pipe and cuts or pushes through the obstruction. It's fast, affordable, and perfect for soft clogs — hair, food, grease blobs, or a toy your kid flushed.

What it doesn't do is clean the pipe walls. Whatever caused the clog often leaves a residue behind, which is why the same drain can clog again weeks later.

What Hydro Jetting Does

Hydro jetting sends highly pressurized water (we run up to 4000 PSI) through a specialized nozzle that scours the entire inside of the pipe. It strips grease, sludge, mineral scale, and even living tree roots off the walls and flushes them out.

The result is a pipe that's essentially restored to near-new flow capacity. For recurring clogs or before a camera inspection, jetting is the difference between treating the symptom and treating the cause.

Which Do You Need?

Use snaking for a one-time, simple clog with no history of backups. Use hydro jetting when drains clog repeatedly, when you suspect root intrusion, before a major camera inspection, or in commercial kitchens where grease buildup is constant.

A camera inspection tells us which is right. We won't sell you jetting you don't need — if a $69 snake clears it, that's what you pay for.

Is It Safe for Older Pipes?

Jetting is safe for sound pipes — cast iron, PVC, ABS, and clay. If a pipe is collapsed or badly cracked, jetting won't fix it and we'll catch that on camera before recommending it. That's why we inspect first whenever there's any doubt.