Start with the drain, not with a price

There is no phone tree here and no ticket number. Describe the problem in a few lines and it reaches a sewer contractor working your blocks, who comes back to you about looking at the line. The estimate is free, it is written, and it commits you to nothing.

Get a free estimate Who you are contacting

Free estimate

Send the details

Takes about a minute. Nothing is pre-selected and only three fields are required, because a form that demands a service you have not chosen yet asks the wrong question first.

What is your name?

What number should we call?

Which of these is closest?

Sewer repair Pipe lining Pipe bursting Camera inspection

What is the drain doing?

Photos of the cleanout or the drain

A short stub of white plastic drain pipe standing a few inches out of the grass beside a brick foundation, a screw-in plug in the top of it

This is a cleanout: a short capped pipe stub, usually in the basement floor, the gangway or the front lawn near the wall. It is where a camera or a rod goes in. A photograph of yours, and of the drain that is playing up, saves a visit. If you have never found one, say so and skip the field.

Add a photo Optional. A photo of the cleanout usually saves a visit.

We only use your number for this request. Nothing here is added to a mailing list.

When a request gets read

Requests sent during the day are read the same day. The tracked number takes a message outside those hours, and the transcript is read the following morning along with anything that came in overnight.

You will hear from the contractor rather than from us, which is worth knowing so the call is not a surprise. They will want to arrange a look at the line before quoting anything, and on most jobs that means a camera.

If water is coming up right now

A form is the right way to ask for an estimate and the wrong way to report water on a floor. Stop running water in the building, which includes the washer and the dishwasher, and get somebody on the phone rather than waiting on a reply here.

If the problem is in the street rather than in your own line, the City takes sewer reports directly through 311, and that route is free. The private drain program guide explains which stretch of pipe is which, because the answer decides who pays.

Where we work

Chicago, and five suburbs whose rules are different enough to have their own pages: Oak Park, Evanston, Skokie, Berwyn and Elmhurst. Outside that ring, send the address anyway and you will get a straight answer either way.

Chicago Trusted Trenchless passes requests to a local sewer contractor and does not carry out the work. There is more of it on the about page, and the legal version in the terms of use.

The form is back at the top

Three things make a reply useful: where the building is, roughly what year it went up, and how the drain has been misbehaving. A photograph of the cleanout helps and is not required. Nothing on this page books a visit or fixes a price.

Back to the form

Free, written, and no obligation. We answer requests the same day.