Hear from Our Customers
When the same drain backs up every few weeks, the problem isn’t the clog you can see — it’s everything coating the inside of the pipe that keeps giving new debris something to grab onto. Hydro jetting doesn’t poke a hole through the blockage. We blast the entire pipe wall clean at up to 4,000 PSI, removing grease, mineral scale, root fragments, and years of accumulated buildup in a single service. Most customers go from calling every couple of months to not thinking about their drains for a year or more.
For Camino homeowners specifically, that matters more than it does in a lot of other places. You’re at 3,000-plus feet, surrounded by mature apple orchards, pine forests, and Christmas tree farms — and those root systems don’t stop growing toward moisture just because we’ve snaked the line twice already. If your property runs on a private sewer system, there’s no municipal crew to call when it backs up. The problem is yours, the cost is yours, and the fix needs to actually work.
Hard water from private wells also plays a role most people don’t think about. Over years, mineral deposits narrow your pipe interior and create a rough surface that catches everything passing through. Hydro jetting scours that scale off the pipe walls in a way that no chemical or mechanical method can replicate. You end up with a cleaner pipe than you’ve had in years — and a drain that behaves like it should.
We’ve been serving Camino and the surrounding El Dorado County area since 2009. Our base of operations is Placerville — about ten miles west of Camino on US-50 — which means when you call, you’re not waiting for a Sacramento crew to make a long haul out to the foothills. We know this area: the older housing stock, the tree root pressure from orchard properties, the well-water mineral buildup, and the rural property layouts that come with living up here.
Murray Plumbing is family-owned and fully licensed under California’s C-36 Plumbing Contractor classification — License #916322, verifiable through the CSLB if you want to look it up. There are no franchise layers, no call-center dispatchers, and no pressure to upsell you on something you don’t need. The price you’re quoted before work starts is the price on the invoice. That consistency is what’s built a 4.7 out of 5 rating across 93 Google reviews — and why a lot of customers in the El Dorado County area keep coming back.
It starts with a camera inspection — every time, without exception. Before any high-pressure water goes into your pipes, we run a camera through the line to locate the exact blockage, identify what’s causing it, and assess the condition of the pipe itself. This step isn’t optional. For Camino properties with older cast iron, galvanized, or clay pipes, it’s what determines whether hydro jetting is the right tool or whether a different approach is needed. Skipping it is how a routine service turns into a repair bill.
Once the inspection confirms the line can handle it, the hydro jetting begins. Water at up to 4,000 PSI is pushed through the pipe with a specialized nozzle that cleans forward and backward simultaneously — cutting through root intrusions, dissolving grease, and scouring mineral scale from the pipe walls. For properties on private sewer lines that run across larger parcels, the process typically takes two to three hours depending on the length of the run and what’s in the line.
After the jetting is done, there’s a second camera pass to document the results. You can see the before and the after. The pipe is clear, the walls are clean, and you have documentation of the work that was done — not just a technician’s word for it. For rural El Dorado County homeowners managing their own private systems, that kind of verification matters.
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We provide hydro jetting service for residential and commercial drain and sewer lines throughout Camino and El Dorado County. On the residential side, that includes kitchen drains, bathroom drains, main sewer lines, and private sewer runs on rural parcels. Pricing for residential hydro jetting runs $450 to $900 depending on the severity of the blockage and how accessible the pipe is — and that range is given upfront, before any work begins.
For Camino’s Apple Hill farms, bakeries, cideries, and wineries, commercial kitchen drain lines are a different category of problem. Peak season grease output from a busy October weekend can push more buildup through a drain than a full-service restaurant generates in a week. We handle commercial sewer pipe cleaning and can schedule preventive hydro jetting before Apple Hill season opens — so a blocked kitchen drain isn’t what shuts down a Saturday when the parking lot is full.
All work is performed under California C-36 licensure, with Workers’ Compensation and General Liability insurance in place. Because Camino is an unincorporated CDP in El Dorado County, plumbing work falls under El Dorado County Building Department jurisdiction and the California Plumbing Code — and we operate fully within those standards. Emergency hydro jetting is available around the clock, including for rural properties and seasonal commercial operators who can’t afford to wait until Monday morning.
Yes — and it’s one of the most effective methods available for root intrusion specifically. Hydro jetting at 4,000 PSI can cut through root intrusions up to about a quarter-inch in diameter and flush the debris out of the line completely. Snaking can punch a hole through a root mass, but it leaves the root fragments and the surrounding growth attached to the pipe wall — which means the next blockage forms faster because there’s already an anchor point.
For Camino properties surrounded by apple orchards, Christmas tree farms, and mature pine forests, root intrusion is rarely a one-time event. The root systems on those trees are extensive and they actively seek moisture, including from the small gaps at sewer pipe joints. We remove what’s there now and scour the pipe wall clean, which slows re-establishment. For properties with significant tree coverage, annual maintenance jetting is often worth scheduling to stay ahead of it rather than waiting for the next backup.
It depends on the pipe, and that’s exactly why the camera inspection happens before any jetting begins. Hydro jetting is safe for structurally sound pipes — PVC, copper, and intact cast iron all handle it well. The concern is with pipes that are already compromised: severely corroded cast iron, cracked clay, or any section with pre-existing fractures. High pressure applied to a damaged pipe can make the problem worse.
Camino has a mix of housing stock that spans several decades, and some older homes in the area have cast iron or clay sewer lines that haven’t been looked at in years. The pre-jetting camera inspection is what tells our technician what they’re working with. If the pipe condition doesn’t support full-pressure jetting, we calibrate the pressure down or recommend a different approach. The goal is to clear your line without creating a new problem — and that starts with actually knowing what’s in the ground before the water goes in.
For residential properties, our hydro jetting service runs $450 to $900 depending on the severity of the blockage and how accessible the pipe is. That range is given upfront before any work begins — there’s no diagnostic fee layered on top, and the quoted price is what you pay.
For Camino properties specifically, a few factors can affect where a job lands in that range. Private sewer lines that run across larger rural parcels tend to take longer to clear than a short residential line, and a line with significant root intrusion or years of mineral scale buildup takes more time and pressure than a straightforward grease clog. The camera inspection at the start of the job is what gives our technician an accurate picture of what’s involved — which is also what allows for an accurate quote before work starts rather than a number that changes once we’re into it.
The clearest indicator is whether the problem keeps coming back. If you’ve had the same drain snaked once and it’s been clear for a year, snaking did the job. If the same line is backing up every few weeks or every couple of months despite being snaked, snaking is treating the symptom without addressing what’s on the pipe walls — grease buildup, mineral scale, root fragments — that keeps giving new blockages something to grab onto.
A few other signs point toward hydro jetting rather than snaking: multiple drains backing up at the same time (which usually means the blockage is in the main line, not a branch line), slow drains throughout the house rather than just one fixture, or a persistent foul odor from the drains even after cleaning. For Camino homes on private sewer systems, multiple slow drains are especially worth taking seriously — a partial blockage in a private main line that gets ignored long enough can become a full backup, and on a rural property, that means sewage surfacing in the yard or backing up into the house.
Yes — we offer 24/7 emergency service, including for commercial properties. Apple Hill’s fall season runs from late August through December, with October weekends drawing the heaviest visitor traffic. A blocked commercial kitchen drain during that window isn’t something you can schedule around for a few days. Emergency hydro jetting is available around the clock, including weekends and evenings, for exactly that kind of situation.
The better approach for Apple Hill operators is preventive scheduling before the season opens. Commercial kitchens that run high grease volume through their drain lines during peak season benefit from a hydro jetting service in late summer — before the traffic picks up — to start the season with clean lines. That’s a much easier conversation than an emergency call on a Saturday afternoon in October when the lot is full. We can work around your operating schedule to get preventive drain blockage removal done before it becomes a problem.
For most residential properties in Camino, once every one to three years is a reasonable maintenance interval — but the right answer depends on what’s driving the blockages on your specific property. A home with minimal tree coverage and a relatively modern sewer line might go several years between services without any issues. A property surrounded by mature apple trees or pines, or one with older pipes and hard well water, is going to accumulate buildup faster and benefit from more frequent attention.
If your property has a history of root intrusion specifically, annual hydro jetting is often the most cost-effective approach. Roots regrow after being cleared — the question is how fast. Annual maintenance keeps the line clear before roots have a chance to re-establish enough to cause a backup, which is a lot less disruptive than waiting for the emergency. The post-service camera inspection we do at the end of each job also gives you a clear baseline — so at the next service, you can see exactly how much has changed and make a more informed decision about timing going forward.
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