Reston's planned neighborhoods were built mostly from the 1970s through the 1990s, and many of those homes now have drain lines old enough to collect stubborn buildup. A plumber can clear the blockage and tell you whether it was in your private lateral or the county sewer. Call the number on this page to be connected with a local plumber in Reston.
Reston drains in brief
Reston was founded in 1964 as a planned community, and the median home dates to 1983. Village centers like Lake Anne and South Lakes are surrounded by townhouses and single-family homes set under a heavy tree canopy, and those mature trees are a common reason a building sewer clogs again and again. Fairfax County owns the public sewer mains; the lateral from the house to the main is the owner's responsibility.
What to do right now
- Stop running water, flushing toilets and doing laundry if more than one drain is affected.
- Check the lowest drain in the house, usually a basement floor drain or lower-level shower, for rising water.
- If sewage is backing up while nothing is running, call Fairfax County's 24-hour line at 703-323-1211 so crews can check the county main.
- Find the cleanout if you can, typically a capped pipe in the basement or near the foundation outside.
- Move rugs, boxes and anything stored near the floor drain out of the way.
- Skip chemical openers; they rarely clear a main line and make the work hazardous.
Symptoms and likely causes
| What you notice | Likely cause |
|---|---|
| One sink or tub is slow | Hair, soap or food in the trap or branch line |
| Toilet gurgles when the tub drains | Partial blockage downstream or a venting problem |
| Basement floor drain overflows | Clog in the main building drain or lateral |
| Same line clogs every few months | Roots, a sag or buildup on the pipe walls |
| Sewage smell near an unused drain | Dry trap letting sewer gas through |
What affects the cost
- Whether the problem is one fixture or the whole house
- Access: an open cleanout is faster than removing a toilet
- Root cutting, jetting or camera inspection added to basic cabling
- Townhouse layouts where the cleanout is hard to reach
- After-hours or weekend timing
Routine clearing is service work. If a broken section of drain has to be replaced, Fairfax County Land Development Services handles the permit. In Reston's townhouse clusters, ask the plumber to note where your lateral meets any shared line, since that helps if the backup turns out to involve a neighbor's side or the county main. A short written note of what was cleared, how far the cable went and what the camera showed is worth keeping for the next time.
Drain Cleaning questions in Reston
Can tree roots work their way into a sewer lateral?
Why does a basement drain we rarely use smell like sewer gas?
Who handles sewage overflowing from a manhole in the street?
What should I do while I wait for the plumber?
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