The Sneaky $2 Mistake That Ended in a $12,000 Home Repair

There really is no such thing as a truly flushable wipe — despite what the packaging might say. In fact, brands like Costco, CVS, Procter & Gamble, Target, Walgreens, and Walmart have settled multi-million-dollar lawsuits for deeming wipes “flushable” and causing damage to homes and entire city plumbing systems.

James Stanley, the owner of Midwest Plumbing Co., says the so-called flushable wipes you see on store shelves “don’t break down like toilet paper and tend to build up in pipes.” They’re especially harmful in older houses or homes with roots in the sewer lines. So even though flushable is in the name, “even wipes marked as septic-safe or biodegradable can still cause major blockages,” he says.

You might be able to tell your home is damaged from flushable wipes if you notice backups or flooding. Also, if you hear gurgling or notice slower draining, you should immediately call a plumber to avoid exacerbating the issue. Bystrika says wipes in pipes “clump together and cause slow drains, backups, or even full clogs in main sewer lines.” 

My husband and I used to use flushable wipes, but we stopped flushing them 2 1/2 years ago after we moved. Now, we dispose of wipes in a small, bag-lined bin next to the toilet instead of flushing them to avoid potentially costly repairs. And I’m talking really, really costly.

Take it from these horror stories of flushable wipes costing homeowners thousands — they might convince you to think twice before buying or using the product (or, at least, flushing them). 

Igor Bystrika, the owner of Rx Plumbing & Drain, says that if you end up with a toilet clog that you can’t plunge yourself, you’ll typically pay between $250 and $350 depending on the severity, your location, and whether you need help after hours to fix it. But when flushable wipes enter the picture, “It can easily turn into a huge, unexpected, and preventable bill,” he says.

Some of Stanley’s customers, homeowners who lived in a 2,200-square-foot home built in the 1980s, had been flushing wipes they deemed safe for their pipes for over two years without any issues, until it hit them: Sewage flooded their basement, and it needed an urgent $12,000 (!) repair for the plumbing alone. “Unfortunately, the excess corrosion made it so we did have to replace the pipes,” Stanley says, adding it was the most costly repair he’d ever seen. 

Clients of Aaron Adams, a master plumber with Aaron Services, had a similar, but not quite as costly, experience with a broken sewer pipe outside their circa-1999 home. Waste had backed up into their house and caused significant damage to the bathroom. “When we ran our drain cleaning cable, we pulled back many flushable wipes,” Adams says. The repair project cost around $4,000 to dig up the line and cut out the broken and clogged pipe sections. 

The deeper the clog, the higher the damage (and bill), and that all depends on how long you’ve been flushing wipes for, how old your home’s plumbing is, and the number (and type) of wipes you were using. 

Eventually, the wipes mix with waste and get stuck, resulting in a tangled, matted mass combined with things like diapers and rags and other non-flushable finds. As Bystrika mentioned, this often requires heavy-duty machinery to clear out. And while it’s being cleared, it can disrupt other parts of your home you use in your day-to-day life at home, too, like your yard. 

Depending on how far down the pipe is clogged, whether or not the clog includes other debris (such as roots or grease), and how big the mass is, the more expensive it can be. “All of these factors impact what tools, machinery, and manpower we need to get rid of the clog effectively,” Adams says. 

Some jobs may even require a sewer camera to locate the blockage and heavy machinery to clear out pipes.

For Stanley’s clients, “The repair required excavating the front yard, replacing a 40-foot section of pipe, and installing a clean-out access,” he says. The homeowners had to move to a hotel for several days, and their insurance only covered a portion of the repair cost. In short, the plumbing repair bill isn’t often the total cost. 

“Generally, everything that is touched by water from a sewer backup needs to at minimum have a complete dry out and oftentimes needs to be completely replaced,” Adams says. These add to an extra expense, often not included in the plumber’s fees, as a contractor must do the replacement.

Like Stanley’s customers, Adams’ clients didn’t get much help from their insurance company. “Unfortunately for the homeowners, the insurance company did not cover the damage caused by the sewage backup, as most policies do not cover wastewater damage caused by sewer line breaks,” Adams adds.

Everyone has their preferences when it comes to bathrooms, so if I haven’t scared you away from using flushable wipes (and I haven’t even touched on the environmental impact — wipes cause water pollution and even “biodegradable” wet wipes don’t really degrade!), I recommend keeping a small covered trash can in the bathroom for disposal, like my husband and I do. 

If you’ve already flushed wipes down your toilet, there really is no way to turn back the clock, but Bystrika recommends using an enzyme cleaner (you could try this or this) once a month. “That won’t dissolve wipes, but it will break up organic waste like food particles and grease,” he says, meaning that a clog is less likely to form. 

And if you’re anti-toilet paper and now anti-wipes as well, perhaps a bidet might be your go-to. Here’s everything you need to know about buying a bidet.