Drain question

[steuard]

I think I've mentioned before that the drain for our driveway and rear walk sometimes has trouble, well, draining. This was a problem yet again last night, and I'm tired of that little stream of water flowing through our basement when the lake forms against the back wall. It's pretty clearly more than just the grate getting clogged that's to blame, but I've exhausted my limited ability to investigate and fix the problem myself.

So: what kind of contractor should I be calling for this? It sounds vaguely plumbing related, but it falls a bit outside of my vague mental model of what plumbers do. Should I be looking instead for the sorts of folks who could repair the cracked sidewalk nearby at the same time? (And, er, who are they, exactly? I've not yet had to have any serious structural work done around the house.) Advice would be appreciated!

Comments

[stereotype441.livejournal.com]

Here in Portland it's common to have a "sewer scope" done during the inspection period before buying a house. They take a long hose with a camera on the end of it, and shove it unceremoniously down your sewer to see if there's anything blocking your drain on the way to the city sewage system. I had such a problem in my house, and the plumber who did the sewer scope was able to recommend a contractor to tear up part of the driveway and fix the problem. Lucky me, I got the sellers to pay for it.

Not all plumbers have the technology to do a sewer scope. I would look in the yellow pages for plumbers that mention sewers in their ad, and then call them up severally* and ask whether they can do a sewer scope. Or at that point once you have somebody on the phone, maybe just describe the problem and see what they recommend.

*I was at a Shakespeare reading last night; my vocabulary is still recovering.