Drains, sewers & 24/7 emergency plumbing — Burnaby & Vancouver
We camera the line before we price it, hand you a flat rate in writing, and only then pick up a tool. No hourly meter running while you watch, no “while we’re in there” surprises at the end.
Why homeowners stop trusting plumbers
The one who quoted $180 on the phone and $640 once the van was in the driveway. The one who ran a snake for twenty minutes, said “that’ll hold you,” and never mentioned the roots that put you back in the same spot by November.
A number quoted over the phone means nothing once someone is standing in your basement holding the only tool that will fix it. That is exactly when the price moves — and exactly when you have no leverage left.
Snaking a blocked main without scoping it first is a coin flip. The cable punches a hole through the blockage, water drains, everyone leaves happy — and nobody has any idea what is actually wrong with the pipe.
If your kitchen line or main backs up every autumn, it is rarely grease. In East Van character homes it is usually root intrusion at a joint in an old clay or Orangeburg lateral — a structural problem a snake can never solve.
Supply lines let go on statutory holidays and hot water tanks split on Sunday nights. An answering service that promises a callback “first thing Tuesday” is not an emergency plumber. It is a voicemail box.
What we do
We scope the line with a colour camera, locate the fault to the metre, then clear it properly — hydro-jetting to strip grease and scale back to bare pipe, mechanical root cutting at intruded joints, and spot repair or full replacement when the camera shows a collapsed clay or Orangeburg lateral. You get the footage before and after.
Book a free camera inspectionBurst supply line, split tank, no water, sewage backing into a basement suite — a licensed plumber answers the phone, not a call centre. We talk you to your shut-off while the van is already moving.
Call the emergency lineTank swaps done the same day, wall-hung tankless conversions sized to your actual fixture count and gas line, and whole-home repipes in PEX or copper when galvanised finally gives up. We also fix the things that quietly wreck plumbing: a failed pressure regulator hammering your fixtures at 120 psi, a sump pump nobody has tested since the last atmospheric river, backflow devices due for certification.
How a BlueLine job runs
A two-hour window, a text when we leave the shop, and the name of the plumber who is coming.
We scope and locate before we price. You watch the screen with us and hear what the pipe is actually doing.
Options priced in writing — clear it today, or clear it and fix the cause. Nothing starts until you pick one.
After-footage, permit and inspection sign-off where required, warranty in writing, floors left clean.
“Nobody should have to guess what a plumber is about to charge them while standing in six inches of water.”— The BlueLine flat-rate promise
Drains cleared across the Lower Mainland
Live emergency line, holidays included
Average emergency response time
Average homeowner rating
Sample figures shown for demonstration — replaced with your real numbers.
Recent jobs
Concept imagery — replaced with your project photographyA 1948 character home off Victoria Drive that had been snaked every spring for six years. The camera found it in four minutes: an Orangeburg lateral gone oval at 11 metres, packed with cherry roots at the joint. We locate-marked the run, spot-excavated a 4 metre section, replaced it in PVC with a new cleanout, and had the city inspector sign it off before backfill.
Concept imagery — replaced with your project photographyNine o’clock on a November Sunday, water rising in a finished crawlspace. We were on site in eighty minutes, pumped it down, then scoped the perimeter drain tile and found it silted solid on the north elevation. Hydro-jetted both runs, flushed the sumps, and replaced a pump that had been failing quietly all autumn.
Concept imagery — replaced with your project photographyA fifteen-year-old 189 litre tank let go into a laundry room at 6 AM. Rather than drop in the same unit, we sized a condensing tankless against the home’s three bathrooms, confirmed the gas line and vent run would carry it, and permitted the swap. Same-day hot water, and about a square metre of floor space back.
A real scope of your main — not a sales visit with a flashlight. We run the camera the full length, show you what is down there while we are doing it, and send you the footage whether you hire us or not.
It depends on access and what is causing it — a kitchen line cleared from a cleanout is a different job from jetting a root-packed main from the property line. What we will commit to: you get one flat number in writing before we start, it covers the whole job including the camera, and it does not change while we are working. If we hit something the scope did not show, that is our estimating error, not a change order.
Camera first on every main-line call, and again after the clear so you can see the difference. We locate the fault with a sonde so you know the depth and distance rather than a vague “somewhere out front.” The video file is emailed to you the same day — take it to another company for a second quote if you want, it is your pipe.
Almost always structural. Pre-1960s homes across East Vancouver and Burnaby were built on vitrified clay or Orangeburg laterals; clay joints open up and let cherry, maple and cedar roots in, and Orangeburg deforms into an oval and eventually collapses. Snaking cuts a channel through the mass and buys you a season. A camera tells you whether you are looking at annual root cutting, a spot repair at one joint, or a full replacement — and which of those is actually worth your money.
Two hours on average across Burnaby, Vancouver and the inner Lower Mainland, day or night. A plumber answers the emergency line directly and will walk you to your main shut-off — usually where the supply enters the basement or in a crawlspace box — while the van is on the way. Turning that valve in the first ninety seconds saves more drywall than anything we can do after.
Tankless earns its money in a house with two or more bathrooms and long showers, and it hands you back the floor space. But it only works if the gas line and vent run can carry it — plenty of older Burnaby homes need a line upsized before a tankless is even legal to install, and that cost belongs in the comparison. If you are a two-person household with a fifteen-year-old tank, a straight tank swap is often the honest answer, and we will tell you so.
A licensed plumber answers, not an answering service