Drain Cleaning in Irvine

Two things, and neither takes long. Roughly when the house was built, because in this city that changes the answer more than anything else. And what the OTHER fixtures did when you used them — that settles branch or main in about thirty seconds.

Run something else. If one fixture is blocked and the rest of the house drains normally, it is that branch. If using a sink brings something up elsewhere, or the lowest fixture in the building backs up, it is the main and every gallon used is making it worse.

Usually not. A washing machine empties its drum in under a minute, which is more water faster than anything else in the house puts into a drain — so the laundry standpipe is where a restricted line shows itself first. If it overflows while the machine pumps out but every other fixture behaves normally, the line beyond it is restricted and merely coping with slower flows. Clearing the standpipe will not fix that. There are two genuine laundry causes: lint bound with detergent residue where the standpipe meets the branch, which is cheap and common on modern plumbing; and, in older houses, a machine plumbed into drainage laid long before anybody owned one.

It depends which half of this city you are in, which is the honest answer rather than a hedge. On modern plastic, a slow drain is usually a partial obstruction that will either clear itself or become a full blockage, and waiting costs you nothing except inconvenience. On an old clay lateral it is different: slow means the bore is already restricted, and the thing restricting it is still growing. That one is worth dealing with in September rather than in the first week of sustained rain, because it is the same work at the standard-hours price rather than the out-of-hours one.