A cable pokes a hole. A jetter cleans the whole pipe.
If your drain keeps slowing down every few months no matter how many times it gets snaked, you're not imagining it, and nobody's ripping you off. A snake punches a hole through the clog, water flows again, everybody goes home. But the years of grease, soap, and buildup coating the pipe walls never left, and in La Mesa's older neighborhoods, where a lot of drains have been collecting since the trolley days, that coating grabs everything that comes through. The hole the snake made closes right back up.
Hydro jetting works differently. Instead of drilling through the mess, a high pressure stream of water washes the pipe walls down, all the way around, top to bottom, and carries the buildup out of the line entirely. Think of it like the weeds in a yard. Snaking is mowing over them, they look gone for a week. Jetting pulls them out by the roots. When it's done, the inside of that pipe is about as close to new as old pipe gets, and the every few months problem usually just stops.
Now, is jetting always the move? Honestly, no. Some clogs are one time events and a snake handles them fine. The technician looks at what's actually happening in your line, tells you straight what he sees, and makes his recommendation. You make the decision. That's how it works here, every time.
"We'd cabled that line twice a year for ages. One jetting and it finally stopped backing up."
