Commercial Hydro Jetting in Phoenix & Scottsdale, priced before we start.
Fryer oil and dishwater leave a kitchen hot and meet a drain pipe running under a slab at whatever temperature the ground happens to be. The fat cools. It thickens. Mixed with food solids and the calcium in Valley water, it turns into something between soap and candle wax, and it sticks to the only surface available: the inside of your pipe.
That is why grease lines don’t clog so much as close. The deposit builds evenly around the pipe wall, layer on layer, until a 4-inch line is carrying water through an opening not much wider than a garden hose. Nothing looks wrong until the day one piece of food can’t get through.
A drain cable was never built for this. It bores a channel through the middle of the deposit, the kitchen drains again, and the rest of the grease stays on the wall to grow back. That is the restaurant with a plumber on the calendar every six weeks and no idea why. Jetting works differently. A nozzle with rear-facing jets pulls itself up the line and scours the full circumference, cutting deposit loose and flushing it toward the cleanout. It costs more than cabling per visit. On a grease line it is also the only method that leaves the pipe at its original size, which is the whole point of paying anyone to touch it.
Pressure is a tool, not a virtue. Sound cast iron and PVC handle it well; cast iron that has rusted thin, or ABS with a cracked joint, can be made worse. So every job starts with a camera inspection, and the nozzle and pressure are chosen from what the footage shows. Roots in an old lateral want a cutting head. Scale in a mid-century stack wants patience.
Most of this happens while the building is closed. A single kitchen line usually takes a few hours, and once it is clean, a scheduled drain maintenance interval keeps it that way for a fraction of the effort it took to get there. The dining room never knows it happened, which is the best review a plumbing visit can get.
When a commercial line needs jetting, not cabling
The backups arrive on a schedule
If the kitchen staff can guess when the next one is due, the pipe wall is the problem and cabling is only renting you time.
Several fixtures slow at once
When the prep sink, the mop sink, and a floor drain all drain slowly, the restriction is in the run they share, not in any one trap.
A smell no amount of mopping fixes
Grease decomposing inside the line sends odor up through the floor drains. Cleaning the floor can’t reach it because it isn’t on the floor.
Is the grease interceptor filling faster than it used to?
A change in how quickly the interceptor fills often means flow upstream has changed. It is worth a camera look before the next pump-out.
Roots in an older lateral
Mesquite, palo verde, and ficus all find the joints in older clay and cast iron sewer laterals. A cutting head clears them; the camera shows whether the pipe needs more than that.
Decades of scale in a multi-family main
Apartment and condo mains carry dozens of kitchens’ worth of grease plus years of hard-water scale. Cabling one is like sweeping a parking lot with a toothbrush.
How a jetting visit goes
- 01
Camera before pressure
We look at the line first. A pipe that shouldn’t be jetted gets a repair recommendation instead of a pump, and you hear about it before anything runs.
- 02
A nozzle chosen for the deposit
Grease, roots, and hard scale each want a different head and a different pressure. One nozzle for everything is how pipes get damaged.
- 03
Working from upstream toward the cleanout
Deposit is cut and flushed out of the system, not packed further down the line where it becomes the next tenant’s backup.
- 04
Same section, filmed twice
You get before-and-after footage of the same stretch of pipe. If the difference isn’t obvious on screen, the job isn’t finished.
- 05
The next date, in writing
We recommend a maintenance interval from what came out of the line. Some kitchens need quarterly visits. Some can go a good deal longer.
What it typically runs
$450 – $1,800
One accessible kitchen line sits near the bottom of the range. Long runs, several lines, a building main, or overnight scheduling move it up. Camera work is included rather than added afterward, and the price is agreed before the hose comes off the reel. Request a quote and we’ll schedule the look first.
Financing is available on larger jobsGrease always gets paid for. The only choice is whether the invoice arrives during dinner service or before breakfast.
Hydro Jetting: questions we get asked
Straight answers, the same ones we give on the phone.
