The total mileage of sewer and drain pipe running underground in the U.S. can boggle the mind. Still, some people can go their entire lives without suffering a clogged pipe. Others seem to have drain cleaners on speed dial. What’s the difference?
According to Rod Tarbox, owner of Mt. Washington Sewer and Drain Cleaning in Berlin, New Hampshire, luck, the engineering of fixtures and even malice are factors in determining when a pipe becomes blocked. Rod says he has seen enough examples of clogging over the past 21 years of running his company to have reached some conclusions about blocked pipes.
Rod compares the flushing experience in homes and businesses to the spinning of a roulette wheel. If a person gambles that a small baby wipe or a wadded paper towel tossed in a toilet won’t cause blockage, the person may or may not be proven right. But keep doing it and the odds of blockage increase dramatically.
Rod also blames toilet designs for some of the blockage problems. A half century ago, tanks on toilets were designed to flush waste using 3.5 to 5 gallons of water. Since then, ultra-low-flow and high-efficiency toilet systems have been introduced to cut back on water use.
“There’s sometimes not enough water going through the whole system to push waste from point A to point B,” Rod says of the lessened volume of water. So the toilet waste ends up in the line instead of being fully emptied into a sewer or septic tank.
“And some people use the kitchen sink and garbage disposal, but they never fill their sink with enough water to properly flush the lines,” he adds. Same result.
But the most egregious failure is when people consciously clog lines. Rod is thinking about Airbnb and similar home rentals in those cases.
“I’ve been on jobs where the Airbnb unit was clogged on purpose (probably to give the property a low rating and get a refund),” he says. “I’ve pulled stuff out of those drains that otherwise just don’t make sense.”
Read more about Mt. Washington Sewer and Drain Cleaning in the February 2026 issue of Cleaner magazine.
