When a drain stops up, you want it moving again today — not a lecture and a guess at the price. Hunter Plumbing Services clears clogged drains, cleans main sewer lines and finds what is really causing the backup for homes and businesses across Myrtle Beach and Horry County. Licensed master plumbers, upfront pricing, and a real person on the phone whenever you call.
Most drain problems give you warning before they turn into a mess on the floor. If you are seeing any of these, it is worth having someone look:
One slow sink is usually a local clog. Two or more fixtures acting up at once almost always means the main line, and that is a different job with a different fix.
Kitchen sinks, bathroom sinks, tubs, showers, toilets, floor drains and laundry standpipes. We cable the line with the right size drum machine and cutter head for that pipe — a kitchen line packed with grease and a shower line full of hair are not the same job, and using the wrong head is how pipes get damaged.
Once it is flowing we tell you what came out, because that is usually the whole story. Grease means a kitchen habit worth changing. Roots mean a crack somewhere. Wipes mean a conversation about what goes in the toilet. Clearing the clog without explaining it just means we will see you again in three months.
When the whole house is backing up, the blockage is in the main line running from your home out to the city sewer or septic tank. We pull the cleanout and run a sectional or drum machine the full length of the lateral, cutting through roots, grease and packed debris rather than just poking a hole in it.
A lot of Myrtle Beach homes built before the mid-1980s still have clay or cast iron laterals. Those lines develop joint separations that roots find, and they are the ones that need attention every year or two until the bad section gets replaced.
If a line clogs repeatedly, cleaning it again is treating the symptom. We run a video camera down the pipe to find the actual cause — roots through a joint, a crack, a belly holding water — so any digging goes in one spot instead of across the whole yard.
More on sewer camera inspection in Myrtle Beach.
Some lines cannot be cleaned back to health. When the camera shows a collapsed section, a bad belly, or roots coming in every few feet, cleaning it again is money down a hole — and we will tell you so plainly rather than selling you another cleaning.
More on sewer line repair and replacement.
A main line backing up into the house is not something that waits until Tuesday. Call us and we will get you on the schedule as fast as we can — usually the same day. Our phone is answered by a real person at any hour, day or night.
While you wait: stop running water anywhere in the house, including the dishwasher and washing machine, and do not keep flushing. Every gallon you add has to go somewhere, and right now it does not have anywhere to go.
More on emergency plumbing.
We do not quote drain work over the phone, because the honest answer depends on which line is stopped up and how far down the blockage sits. What we can tell you is how we price it: we look at the job, give you a firm number, and you approve that number before any work begins. No hourly meter running while you watch.
Sometimes we get in there and find more than a clogged drain — a line that needs a camera, a broken section, or a stoppage that turns out to be a much harder job than it looked from the cleanout. When that happens we stop, show you what we found, and give you a new number to approve before we go any further. The price can change if the job changes. What will not happen is you finding out about it on the invoice.
Plumbing here works against a few things at once, and it is worth knowing which one is likely causing your problem.
Sewer lines move waste by gravity, and gravity needs slope. The Grand Strand is about as flat as land gets, so our laterals run at a shallow pitch with very little push behind them. Add a water table that sits close to the surface and rises after a storm, and groundwater finds its way into any cracked joint it can reach. If your backups track with heavy rain, that is the usual reason.
Sand does not hold a pipe in place the way clay soil does. Over the years the ground under a sewer line settles unevenly and the pipe develops low spots — bellies — where water pools and solids drop out. That is why some houses here clog in the same place over and over no matter how well the line gets cleaned.
A rental with new guests every weekend takes more abuse in one summer than a family home takes in years. Flushable wipes are the single biggest cause of main line clogs we pull out of rental properties, and they are not flushable. Paper towels, cotton pads and grease poured down the kitchen sink do their share too. If you manage rental property along the Strand, a camera inspection between seasons costs a great deal less than a backup during a booked week.
Live oaks and mature landscaping send roots toward the easiest water they can find, which is a leaking sewer joint. Neighborhoods with clay or cast iron laterals get this most, and cutting the roots buys time until the cracked section gets replaced.
Some drain problems are nobody’s fault — a settled pipe or a root in a joint was going to happen eventually. Plenty of others are avoidable, and none of this requires buying anything special:
It depends on which drain is stopped up and how far down the blockage sits. A single slow sink is a much smaller job than a main line backing up into a tub. So we look at it first and give you a firm number to approve before any work starts. If we get into it and find the job is bigger than it looked from the cleanout, or that the line needs a camera or a repair rather than a cleaning, we stop and give you a new number before going any further. The price can change if the job changes, but never without you agreeing to it first.
For most Myrtle Beach homes, every 18 to 24 months is plenty. Cleaning more often makes sense if you have had a backup before, if there are mature trees over the line, if the house is a vacation rental with heavy guest turnover, or if the lateral is old clay or cast iron. If your drains have never given you trouble, there is no need to put it on a schedule.
A minor sink or tub clog is often something you can handle with a small hand auger. A main line clog usually is not. The tell is whether more than one fixture is affected at once. If flushing the toilet backs water up into the shower, or the washing machine draining makes the toilet gurgle, the blockage is in the main line and a store-bought snake will not reach it. That is also the point where a wrong move can push the clog further or damage an old pipe, so it is worth a call.
The coast gives us three things working against a sewer line at once: a high water table, sandy soil that shifts and lets pipes settle, and very flat ground, which means our lines run at a shallow slope with little help from gravity. When groundwater rises after a storm it can seep into cracked joints and push debris along until it packs up at a low spot. If your backups line up with heavy rain, that is a strong sign of a crack or a sag in the line rather than something you put down the drain.
A belly is a low spot where the pipe has sagged and no longer runs downhill the whole way. Water and waste pool in that dip instead of flowing through, so solids settle out and the line clogs there over and over. It is common in sandy coastal soil where the ground under the pipe settles unevenly. You cannot see it from a cleanout, which is why a camera matters: cleaning a belly gets you a few months, but only regrading or replacing that section actually fixes it.
Usually, yes. A backed-up main line gets treated as urgent and we do our best to get someone out the same day, though we will not promise a slot we might not have. Someone answers our phone at any hour, so you will always reach a real person rather than a machine. Regular service runs Monday through Friday 8am to 6pm and Saturday 6am to 4pm.
Toilet paper and nothing else. The single most common cause of main line clogs we see in Myrtle Beach vacation rentals is flushable wipes, which are not flushable in any meaningful sense: they do not break down and they catch on any roughness in the line. Add paper towels, cotton pads, grease poured down the kitchen sink, and the occasional sand-filled beach towel rinse, and a rental line takes more abuse in one season than a family home takes in five years. A sign in each bathroom helps more than most owners expect.
From residential homes to vacation rentals and businesses, Hunter Plumbing Services is the trusted choice for drain cleaning in Myrtle Beach and beyond.
Don’t Let Clogged Drains Slow You Down
Call Hunter Plumbing Services today for fast, affordable drain cleaning in Myrtle Beach.
📞 (843) 685-6840 | 📩 info@hunterplumbingservices.com
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