It’s a Sunday night. The toilet is slow again, the shower is draining like it’s thinking about it, and the floor waste gurgles every time the washing machine empties. You had this exact drain cleared in autumn. Now it’s back.
That pattern (cleared, fine for a while, blocked again) is the signature of tree roots in sewer pipes. It’s one of the most common jobs we do along the older streets of Liverpool, Fairfield and Cabramatta, where the drains are 1960s clay and the street trees have had fifty years to get comfortable. If you would rather hand it to a licensed blocked drains plumber, no call-out fee, ring 0455 222 292 and Paul answers.
Tree roots get into sewer pipes through open joints in old clay pipes and cracks in PVC, then grow into a mat that catches paper and blocks the line. Jet blasting clears it for a few months. The lasting fixes are pipe relining (no digging, dearer per metre) or excavating and replacing the section (cheaper when shallow and accessible). A CCTV inspection tells you which you need. Blocked right now? See blocked sewer drains.
Why tree roots get into sewer pipes in the first place
A sewer pipe is the best-watered, best-fed spot in the yard. Tree roots in pipes don’t smash their way in; a root hair finds a hairline gap, follows the moisture and thickens. A year or two later there’s a root mass like a horse’s tail in your pipe, and every sheet of toilet paper that goes past gets caught in it.
Old earthenware pipes and clay sewer pipes
Most homes built before the 1980s around here were drained in earthenware pipes: glazed clay in short lengths, with a mortar joint every metre or so. Mortar cracks. The ground moves, the joint opens a millimetre, and that millimetre is an open door.
Clay sewer pipes themselves are tough. It’s the joints that let the team down.
Cracked PVC and builder shortcuts
PVC has glued joints and long lengths, which is why the new estates out our way don’t see much of this yet. But a cracked sewer pipe is a cracked sewer pipe, whatever it’s made of: ground movement in clay soils, a shallow pipe crushed by a trailer, a joint pushed together without glue on a Friday afternoon. Give it fifteen years and a tree.
The trees that do it
Figs are the worst offenders, then the big eucalypts, willows and poplars. The tree doesn’t need to be over the pipe; roots travel a long way for a drink, and I’ve never met one that respected a property boundary.
The tell-tale signs of tree roots in your drain
Tree roots in drain pipes don’t announce themselves. They creep. What to look for:
- Recurring blocked drains. Cleared, then blocked again within a year. This is the big one.
- Gurgling from the toilet or floor waste when the washing machine drains.
- Everything slow at once. One slow basin is local. Toilet, shower and laundry all slow means the main line.
- The overflow relief gully overflowing. That’s the grated outlet near the bathroom wall. Water in it means a blocked sewer is backing up and the gully is letting it out there rather than in your hallway.
- A wet patch or a suspiciously green stripe of grass over the line in a dry spell. That’s not your lawn care paying off; that’s a leaking pipe feeding the tree.
- A sewage smell in the yard that comes and goes.
The general blocked drain article covers the simpler causes; this one is alive and growing.
How a plumber confirms it: CCTV sewer inspection with a locator
I can make a good guess from the age of the house and the tree on the nature strip, but a guess is not a quote.
A drainage plumber will clear the line with a jetter so the camera can see, then run a CCTV sewer inspection through the overflow relief gully or an inspection opening. On screen you see the roots, the joint they came through and, most importantly, the condition of the pipe around them.
The camera head carries a transmitter, so with a locator I can mark the exact spot and depth on the surface. That one mark decides half the quote: roots at 600 mm under lawn are a different job from roots at 1.8 metres under the driveway.
Ask for the footage. It’s yours.
Your options, from cheapest to most permanent
Think of it as a ladder. Know what each rung actually does.
Root cutting and jet blasting
A high-pressure jetter with a root-cutting head chews the roots back to the pipe wall and flushes them out. Cheap, fast, and the drain works again by lunchtime.
What it doesn’t fix is the way in. Roots grow back, because that’s their whole thing, and cutting them is essentially pruning, which trees respond to with enthusiasm. Expect six to eighteen months.
For a one-off blocked drain, or as a first step before the camera, it’s the right call. As a lifestyle, it’s an expensive subscription.
Root foaming and treatment
After the roots are cut, a foaming herbicide pumped through the line kills the root tissue inside the pipe and slows regrowth without hurting the tree. It needs redoing every year or so, and it doesn’t seal the joint.
It earns its keep when the pipe is sound, the tree is protected or much loved, and you want to buy time.
Pipe relining
Pipe relining is a no-dig sewer pipe repair. A resin-soaked liner is fed into the existing pipe, inflated and cured hard, leaving a smooth new pipe inside the old one with no joints for a root to find. It’s brilliant for long runs and for pipe under driveways, slabs, pools and established gardens; your lawn stays a lawn.
The pipe relining cost is quoted per metre, and per metre it’s dearer than digging in easy ground. The other honest limit: a liner needs a pipe to go through, so it can’t fix a collapse, and it won’t fix a bellied pipe (one that’s sagged and holds water) because it just follows the sag.
Sewer excavation and replacement
Dig it up, cut out the bad section, lay new PVC with proper fall and bedding, backfill. Sewer pipe replacement is the definitive fix: often cheaper than relining when the pipe is shallow and in open ground, dearer when it’s deep, under concrete or tangled with other services.
We own a Komatsu PC18 mini excavator, so sewer excavation is done by us, not a subbie we’re waiting on. It fits down the side of most houses, and the dig, plumbing and reinstatement are one crew and one conversation.
Side by side
| Option | What it fixes | Rough cost | Lasts | Disruption |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Root cutting / jet blasting | Clears the blockage, not the entry point | $: $180-$450 standard clear, $400-$1,025 with CCTV and jetting | 6 to 18 months | An hour or two, no digging |
| Root foaming | Kills roots inside the pipe, slows regrowth | $ to $$, on top of the cut | About a year | None |
| Pipe relining | Seals joints and cracks so roots can’t re-enter | $$$ per metre, quoted on inspection | Decades; most liners are rated around 50 years | Low; usually a day, no trench |
| Excavate and replace | Everything, including collapsed and bellied pipe | $$ shallow and accessible; $$$ deep or under concrete | Decades; it’s a new pipe | A trench, reinstated after |
Those numbers are from Sydney 2026 price guides, not our price list, and every job is quoted on inspection. What plumbers charge in Sydney covers the broader picture.
Relining vs replacing: how I actually decide
Three questions, in order.
Is the pipe still a pipe? A collapse, or a belly holding water, takes relining off the table. That’s a dig.
What’s on top of it? Lawn, with the pipe under a metre, and I’ll usually recommend digging: cheaper, and you get brand-new pipe. Driveway, slab, pool or a garden someone has spent twenty years on, and relining wins even at a higher per-metre price, because you’re not paying to break and rebuild the surface.
How long is the bad section? One cracked joint under the lawn is a small dig. Thirty metres of 1970s clay with roots at every joint is a long trench or a full-length reline, and I would rather tell you straight which one suits the block before anyone quotes it.
And cutting the tree down? It stops that tree, but the joint is still open and the neighbour’s fig hasn’t gone anywhere. A street tree belongs to council anyway, so put the chainsaw down.
Sydney Water sewer responsibility: who owns which pipe
Sydney Water owns and maintains the sewer main. You own the private sewer pipes on your property, up to the point of connection. Roots in the main are Sydney Water’s problem; roots in your line are yours, even if the tree is on the nature strip.
Sydney Water can supply a sewer service diagram showing where your private drainage runs and where it connects; their website has the details, and it’s worth ordering before anyone digs. Older diagrams are hand-drawn and occasionally optimistic, but they’re a start.
Stormwater gets them too
In stormwater pipes tree roots have an even easier time: they’re shallower, and older ones were laid without much care at the joints. The signs are different (downpipes backing up in a storm, water bubbling out of a pit, puddles on paving) but the fixes are the same ladder, and we handle both on the sewer and stormwater side.
Old streets, big trees, clay drains
A lot of the older homes around Liverpool, Fairfield, Cabramatta and the older parts of Camden went up in the 1960s and 70s on earthenware drains, and the streets were planted at the same time. Fifty years on, the trees are magnificent and the mortar joints are not.
The new estates out our way are a different story: PVC pipe, sapling trees, and when we do get a call it’s usually a builder defect (a shallow, crushed or unglued pipe) rather than a tree. Different cause, same camera.
If you’ve ended up here by typing “sewer plumber Fairfield” into your phone at 11 pm, I understand. Fairfield through to Liverpool is our patch, and so is Camden.
Tree roots in pipes: how they get in
Roots do not break into a sound pipe. They follow the moisture escaping from a weeping joint or a hairline crack, push a fine tip through the gap, and thicken until the joint is prised open and the pipe is full of a root mat that catches every bit of paper going past. Earthenware lines with a joint every metre are the easiest target, which is why the older streets suffer most. As the sewer plumber in Liverpool and sewer plumber Fairfield calls on most, we see the same 1950s to 80s clay lines every week.
Tree roots in drains: stormwater as well as sewer
Roots love stormwater lines too, because they are shallow and always damp at the downpipe connections and the pits. The signs are different: a yard that floods in rain, a downpipe that overflows at the top, silt and root hair in the pit. Jet blasting blocked drains clears roots from both systems, and where a stormwater line has failed, replacing it is usually cheaper and better than any no-dig fix because it is shallow. For the sewer, sewer pipe repair and replacement with our own excavator is how we fix the entry point for good.
When to call a plumber
Here’s my rule, and I’d stick to it even if I weren’t the one you were calling: if the same drain has blocked twice in a year, stop paying for jetting and get the camera down it. The footage costs less than the third clear, and it turns a recurring mystery into a decision with a price on it.
Call sooner if the overflow relief gully is spilling, sewage is coming up inside, or the ground over the line has gone soft. In NSW, sewer and drainage work has to be done by a licensed plumber, and you can check a licence with NSW Fair Trading. It’s one of those rules I’m glad exists.
If it’s blocking again and you want a straight answer about what’s down there, give us a call or book online and we’ll put the camera down it.
Related guide: CCTV drain inspection.
Need it sorted? Ring 0455 222 292 any hour or book online. Monarch Civil & Plumbing is a blocked drains plumber, no call-out fee, across Liverpool, Fairfield, Campbelltown and Camden, and the rate is the same after hours.
Blocked drain in Liverpool, Fairfield or Campbelltown?
The local pages say what is usually wrong in your suburb and what Paul does about it: blocked drains Liverpool, blocked drains Fairfield and blocked drains Campbelltown. Everywhere else within about 20 km of Austral, the blocked drains page covers how a job runs and service areas lists every suburb. No call-out fee anywhere, and the camera goes down before anything is quoted.
Frequently asked
How do I know if tree roots are in my sewer pipes?
The classic sign is a drain that blocks, gets cleared, and blocks again a few months later. Add gurgling from the toilet or floor waste, several fixtures slow at once, the overflow relief gully spilling, or a wet or unusually green patch over the pipe run. A CCTV camera inspection is the only way to confirm it and see how the roots got in.
How much does it cost to remove tree roots from sewer pipes in Sydney?
Sydney 2026 price guides put a standard blocked drain clear at $180 to $450, and a clear with CCTV inspection and jetting at $400 to $1,025. That removes the roots but not the entry point. Pipe relining is priced per metre and excavation depends on depth and what's on top, so both are quoted after the camera inspection rather than over the phone.
Can tree roots be removed from sewer pipes without digging?
Yes. A high-pressure jetter with a root-cutting head clears the roots through an existing access point, and pipe relining then seals the joints and cracks from the inside with no trench. The exception is a pipe that has collapsed or sagged badly. A liner can't pass through a collapse, so that section has to be dug up and replaced.
Is pipe relining better than replacing a sewer pipe?
Neither is better everywhere. Relining wins when the pipe runs under a driveway, slab, pool or established garden, or when it's deep or long, because you avoid the cost of digging and reinstating. Replacement wins when the pipe is shallow and in open ground, or when it has collapsed or bellied, which a liner can't fix. The camera footage usually makes the choice obvious.
Who is responsible for tree roots in sewer pipes, me or Sydney Water?
Sydney Water owns and maintains the sewer main. The property owner is responsible for the private sewer pipes on their property up to the point of connection, and that includes root damage, even when the tree is a council street tree. Sydney Water can supply a sewer service diagram showing where your private pipes run and where they join the main.
Does copper sulphate or root killer work on tree roots in drains?
It can kill the fine roots it touches, but it doesn't reach a dense root mass evenly and it does nothing about the open joint they came through, so the blockage returns. Anything you tip down the toilet ends up in the sewer system too. A plumber-applied foaming treatment after root cutting is the better version of the same idea, and relining is the fix.
Licensed plumber and drainer based in Austral, 13+ years in the trade, working across Liverpool, Fairfield and the Macarthur region. About Paul