If you’ve had the same drain snaked three times in a year, the clog isn’t really the problem — it’s the buildup the snake keeps punching through. Hydro jetting cleans the whole pipe wall, not just a hole through the middle. We run high-pressure water through the line until it’s back to bare pipe. Think of it as the difference between poking a straw through a milkshake and actually washing out the glass.
Texas Premier Plumbing has been jetting drain and sewer lines all over Houston for years — grease lines behind Montrose restaurants, root-choked laterals under old oaks in Garden Oaks, cast iron that’s been narrowing since the Nixon administration. Call 713-955-1919 and we’ll tell you straight whether jetting is the right fix for your line, or whether you just need a regular drain cleaning.
What hydro jetting fixes that a snake can’t
Houston drains fail in predictable ways. Kitchen lines choke on grease — it cools and hardens on the pipe wall in layers, and a cable just drills a hole through it that closes back up in a few months. Sewer laterals get invaded by tree roots hunting for water, which is half the service calls in older neighborhoods like The Heights, Braeswood, and Meyerland. And houses built before about 1970 usually still have galvanized or cast iron drains with decades of scale narrowing the pipe a little more every year.
Jetting handles all three. The nozzle cuts roots off at the pipe wall, strips grease down to bare pipe, and flushes scale, sand, and silt out to the city main. After a bad storm season we also get lines packed with silt — jetting is about the only thing that moves it.
Jetting or snaking — which one do you actually need?
Honest answer: sometimes a snake is all you need, and it’s cheaper. A one-off clog near a fixture, first time it’s ever happened — snake it and move on. We do that every day.
Jetting earns its keep when the problem repeats. If the same line backs up every few months, if two fixtures gurgle at once when you run the washer, or if a camera shows the pipe walls coated, jetting resets the line to clean pipe instead of buying you a few weeks. Most of our jetting jobs start as a “this is the third clog this year” phone call.
Commercial hydro jetting in Houston
Restaurants are a big share of our jetting work. Grease lines in commercial kitchens need scheduled jetting, not emergency jetting — once a line backs up during Friday dinner service you’re already losing money. We set up recurring maintenance for restaurants, cafeterias, and food halls across Houston, and we can work after close so you don’t lose a shift.
We also jet for property managers and HOAs: apartment laterals, office parks, storm drains, parking garage drains. We carry nozzles from small-line heads for a 2-inch kitchen branch up to main-line heads for 6-inch laterals, so one crew handles the whole property in a visit. Commercial jobs get a camera run after the jetting — you keep the footage.
What does hydro jetting cost in Houston?
It comes down to three things: how long the line is, how bad the buildup is, and how easy it is to reach a cleanout. A straightforward residential kitchen or laundry line sits at the low end. A hundred feet of main line full of roots with no cleanout access is a bigger job. Around Houston you’ll see jetting quoted anywhere from a few hundred dollars up past a thousand for a rough main line. We look at your line first, give you one number before any work starts, and that number doesn’t change. Most residential hydro jetting jobs in Houston run somewhere between $400 and $700 — main sewer lines with heavy roots or years of grease can go higher, and we’ll tell you exactly where yours lands before we turn the water on.
When jetting is the wrong call
High-pressure water in a broken pipe makes a broken pipe worse. If your home still has original clay tile sewer line, or a camera shows cracks, offsets, or a belly holding water, jetting can blow out a section that was barely hanging on. That’s why we run a video camera inspection on any line we’re not sure about. It saves you from paying to jet a pipe that actually needed sewer repair. If that’s what we find, we show you the footage and walk through the options — no scare tactics.
Hydro jetting questions we hear every week
Will jetting damage my pipes?
Not if the pipe is sound and the operator knows the equipment. We match pressure and nozzle to the pipe size and material, and on older lines we camera first. The horror stories almost always trace back to somebody jetting a pipe that was already broken.
How long does it take?
Most residential jobs run one to two hours start to finish. Commercial grease lines take longer depending on footage and how long it’s been since the last service.
How often should a restaurant jet its grease line?
For a busy kitchen, every three to six months. A slower operation can stretch it to once a year. If you’re calling us in a panic more than once a year, you need a schedule, not a rescue.
Does jetting really remove tree roots?
It cuts them off clean at the pipe wall. But roots got in through an opening, and they’ll find it again — so we camera the line afterward, show you where they entered, and you can decide whether a spot repair is worth doing now or later.
Do you jet outside the Loop?
All over the metro — Katy, Sugar Land, The Woodlands, Bellaire, Missouri City, and everywhere between. Same trucks, same crew, same one-number quote.
Get a straight answer on your line
Whether it’s a kitchen drain that keeps coming back or a grease line that needs to get on a schedule, call Texas Premier Plumbing at 713-955-1919. Family-owned since 1989, Master Plumber License #16188, and we answer the phone 24/7.