The three jobs
A fixture branch. One sink, one tub, one toilet. Everything else in the house drains normally. The blockage is within a few feet of the fixture, and clearing it is the shortest call in this trade.
The building drain. Several fixtures on the same level, usually the lowest ones. Water leaves one fixture and appears at another — the classic case is flushing a toilet and watching the shower fill. The line is shared, the blockage is downstream of the branch, and access is normally through a cleanout rather than through the fixture.
The lateral. Everything backs up, or the cleanout at the property line is standing full. This is the pipe under your yard and the strip to the street, and it is also the one where the local rule below decides the size of the bill.
The San José cleanout rule, which is the money
The lateral is the property owner's pipe. But the City's sewer guidance says that where an approved property-line wye cleanout is in place — a four-inch access point brought to the surface, within five feet of the sidewalk — the City will maintain the lower portion from that cleanout out to the main as a courtesy. City crews perform the repairs on that section.
If you do not have one, installing it is a permitted job: the Building Department issues the permit on (408) 535-3555, the work has to be inspected before anything is backfilled, and the Department of Transportation answers questions about the approved cleanout and its fee on (408) 794-1900. A single-family owner may do the work themselves under permit, or hire it out.
It is worth understanding that sequence before an emergency, because the moment you are standing in a backup is the moment nobody reads the fine print.
Access, which decides the price as much as the blockage
Where a line can be entered from changes the job. A cleanout at the house means a cable goes in at ground level and the work stays outside. No cleanout means pulling a toilet or going through a roof vent — more time, more risk to the fixture, and a different number on the invoice. It is the least glamorous question anyone asks on the phone and the one that moves the price most.
What clearing costs here
Published local figures: $150–$350 for a standard drain clearing, up to about $650 for the harder ones; main line work $500–$1,000+; lateral work from around $800–$1,100+ when the line to the street is the subject. Add $100–$300 if a camera is used to see what is actually there.
What to send
The fixtures that are backing up, photographed in the state they are in. The cleanout beside the house with the cap off if you can reach it safely, and the one at the property line. Any wet or sunken ground along the run to the street. And the sequence — what backs up when what is used.
The numbers above are other firms' published prices, shown to describe the local market. Cleanout and permit rules paraphrase the City's published guidance — confirm both on the lines listed before you rely on them.