British Columbia Cost Guides · North Vancouver
How Much Does Hydro Jetting Cost in North Vancouver, BC?
Typical cost in North Vancouver
$700
$400 low · $2,800 high
Per jetting visit: crew, jetter time on one line & flushing the debris out · Updated July 2026
Hydro jetting a drain line in North Vancouver costs $400 to $2,800 installed, and most homeowners pay around $700 for one residential line in a standard house. Hydro jetting is high-pressure cleaning, not repair. A hose with a reverse-thrust nozzle pulls itself up the pipe and strips grease, scale, and root hair off the wall, which is what separates it from a cable that only bores a channel through the middle. Almost every BC contractor wants a camera down the line first, because water at that pressure will find any weakness the pipe already has.
North Vancouver carries some of the highest drainage rates in the province, in Vancouver's band, so a standard residential jetting call runs the top of the $350 to $800 range and a main sewer on an older hillside house lands nearer $600 to $2,500. The local twist is that jetting here is as often about foundation drainage as sewer: flushing a house's perimeter drains is quoted at $600 to $1,000 in the Vancouver area, and it is cheapest when the truck is already in the driveway.
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By the PlumbingCosts.ca team — we track published contractor rates, supplier pricing, and permit fees across Canada because you deserve to know a fair price before anyone's in your basement.
Price by Job Type in North Vancouver
| Job | Low | Average | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard residential line, Lower Mainland | $400 | $650 | $900 |
| Same job in Kelowna and the Interior | $350 | $400 | $450 |
| Main sewer line, larger or older home | $650 | $1,050 | $2,800 |
| Roots cut out and flushed | $650 | $1,100 | $1,650 |
| Commercial or strata system | $900 | $1,650 | $3,350 |
What's in the Price — and What Isn't
In the price
- The jetter unit and crew on site, usually truck- or trailer-mounted
- Nozzle passes up and back down the line until the wall is clean, not just open
- Flushing the loosened debris through and disposing of what comes back
- A flow test at the end with the fixtures running together
- Basic protection of the work area, since jetting throws water
Costs extra
- The camera inspection most contractors want done first, priced separately at $100–500
- Excavating an access point where the line has none (from $600)
- Root inhibitor treatment after a root cut (+$200–400)
- Travel outside the core service area (one BC operator charges a flat $200)
- Any repair the camera turns up — jetting cleans pipe, it doesn't fix it
Insist on a camera before the jetter, not after. Water at 3,000 psi through a cracked clay joint or a corroded cast iron line can turn a cleaning job into an excavation, and a contractor who skips the inspection to save you $200 has quietly moved that risk onto you.
Calculate Your Estimate
What Moves the Price
- How much pipe gets cleaned
- Jetting is sold by the line, and a Coquitlam operator is explicit that fees climb with the footprint of the house. An average home starts around $450 to $800; a sprawling one on a large lot reaches $2,500 or more for the same nozzle doing more metres.
- Region
- One of the clearest price splits in BC drainage work. Lower Mainland shops start residential jetting at $350 to $800, while a Kelowna company advertises mainline jetting at $300 to $400. Same equipment, different labour market.
- Roots
- A root mass is its own job. Fraser Valley pricing runs $600 to $1,500 for cutting and flushing roots, plus $200 to $400 if you want a root inhibitor treatment afterward to slow the regrowth.
- Getting the hose in
- A jetter needs a clean entry point. Where an old tile system has no usable access, one Greater Vancouver company prices excavating a new insertion point from $600, and that is before the jetting itself.
- Distance from the shop
- Travel is priced openly here. The same Vancouver operator lists residential jetting from $595 in its core area and from $795 out of town, a flat $200 for the drive.
- Residential or commercial
- Restaurant and strata lines carry heavier grease loads and bigger systems. BC commercial jetting starts around $800 and runs past $3,000, and complex sewer line cleaning is quoted from about $1,200.
Where a typical $700 job goes:
- Materials
- 10% · ~$70
- Labour
- 85% · ~$595
- Permit & disposal
- 5% · ~$35
How the Job Actually Goes
-
Camera inspection first
The line gets recorded end to end so the contractor knows the pipe material, the condition of the joints, and where the trouble sits. Cast iron scaled to half its diameter and a clay line with a cracked bell need very different decisions.
$100–500, usually quoted separately
-
Setting up access
The hose goes in through a cleanout wherever one exists. On older drain tile with no access, an insertion point has to be dug, which is a small excavation with its own price.
Included at a cleanout; excavated access from $600
-
The jetting run
The nozzle is pushed right through to the end of the run, then drawn back slowly so the reverse jets scour the wall and push everything downstream. A proper job is several passes, not one.
The bulk of the bill: $350–800 residential, more on long or heavy lines
-
Root cutting, where needed
Roots get a cutting head and considerably more time. Some crews follow with a foaming root inhibitor to buy a few seasons before the next intrusion.
$600–1,500, plus $200–400 for inhibitor
-
Second camera pass and flow test
The camera goes back down to confirm bare pipe wall rather than a channel through the debris. Fixtures then get run together to load the line properly.
Usually included when the first inspection was paid for
Do It Yourself or Hire a Pro?
Doing it yourself
- Jetter attachments for a pressure washer are sold at Canadian hardware stores for a fraction of the service price
- On a short outdoor line — a downspout run or a garage floor drain — a homeowner unit will move light silt
- A consumer pressure washer makes a fraction of the flow a real jetter does, and flow is what carries debris out. Pressure alone just polishes the clog
- The hose can flip and come back at you at working pressure, which is how people lose skin and eyes on this equipment
- Without a camera you're jetting blind, and blind jetting is exactly how a hairline crack in a 1960s clay lateral becomes an open trench
- Nothing you can rent will cut roots. That takes a proper cutting nozzle and someone who has felt it bind before
Hiring a licensed pro
- Enough flow to actually carry the material out of the line rather than pack it further along
- The camera goes in first, so the pipe gets assessed before it gets pressurized
- Nozzle selection is the whole trade — grease, scale, sand, and roots each want a different head
- The debris leaves in the truck, which matters more than it sounds when a mainline gives up years of grease
- Two to five times the price of a cable clearing for the same blocked line
- It's overkill on a single sink, and a shop that leads with jetting for a bathroom clog is selling, not diagnosing
Our take: Cabling and jetting solve different problems. Cable a first-time clog. Jet when the line keeps closing, when the camera shows grease or scale coating the wall, or when roots are back in the joints — that's the job jetting was built for, and it's the only version of it worth $600.
Signs It's Time to Replace
- The same line has been cabled more than once in a year
- A camera shows grease or scale narrowing the pipe rather than a single blockage
- Fine root hair visible at the joints on the inspection footage
- A restaurant, café, or strata kitchen line that slows every few months
- Sand or silt settling in a line that runs through fill or a high water table
- Honest catch: if the footage shows a collapsed section or a belly holding water, jetting won't help. That pipe needs replacing, and paying $700 to clean it first is money gone
How to Keep the Cost Down
- Ask whether the camera fee comes off the jetting price. Several BC shops quote the inspection separately, and some credit it against the work if you go ahead the same day
- Bundle the lines. A crew already set up with the hose out will do a second line for far less than a second call-out
- If you're outside the core service area, ask what the travel charge actually is. One Vancouver operator publishes a flat $200 difference, so you can tell a genuine travel charge from a padded quote
- Get a quote from an Interior shop if you're in the Okanagan or the Thompson. Published Kelowna mainline jetting sits at $300 to $400 against $450 to $800 in Metro Vancouver
- Decline the root inhibitor if the camera shows the roots came through a broken joint. At $200 to $400 it slows regrowth in a sound pipe, but it does nothing for a pipe that's failing
North Vancouver Notes: Permits, Homes, Rates
North Vancouver runs its own gas permit program: the City and the District each issue gas permits in-house rather than routing you to Technical Safety BC, and plumbing permits are municipal too. At the City, a gas permit for one or two appliances is $150, with plumbing at $124.99 for up to four fixtures; the District runs a parallel program.
Rain and conifers are the whole story. The North Shore takes more rainfall than anywhere else in Metro Vancouver, and Lynn Valley, Deep Cove, and the older Grand Boulevard blocks sit under firs and cedars on slopes that funnel water at foundations. Perimeter drains silt up faster here than on the flats, and the same roots looking for that water find the sewer lateral on the way.
Among the highest trades rates in BC, in Vancouver's band, pushed up by slope access and high-end expectations.
Questions to Ask Before You Hire
- Will you camera the line before you jet it, and what does that cost on its own?
- What pressure and flow rate is your unit, and is it truck-mounted or portable?
- Is the price per line or per hour, and what's the cap if the line is heavier than expected?
- Where will you access the line, and what does it cost if there's no usable cleanout?
- What does the second camera pass show, and do I get the footage?
- If the inspection shows the pipe is failing, do you still charge for the jetting?
While the Plumber Is There
Call-out time is a big share of any bill — if one of these applies to your home, pricing it in the same visit usually beats a separate appointment.
For a first blockage, a cable machine at $150 to $500 does the job and jetting is the wrong tool at three times the price. Compare the two before agreeing to the bigger one.
Perimeter drains are flushed with the same equipment on the same visit. If the truck is in the driveway for a sewer line, a foundation flush is the cheapest it will ever be.
Jetting is often the last cheap step before the expensive one. If the camera shows a broken or bellied lateral, this is the number you're actually shopping for.
Common Questions
Hydro Jetting Costs Across British Columbia
| City | Typical range | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Abbotsford | $350–$2,450 | $650 |
| Burnaby | $400–$2,700 | $700 |
| Chilliwack | $350–$2,400 | $600 |
| Coquitlam | $350–$2,650 | $700 |
| Delta | $350–$2,600 | $700 |
| Kamloops | $350–$2,400 | $600 |
| Kelowna | $350–$2,500 | $650 |
| Langley | $350–$2,550 | $650 |
| Maple Ridge | $350–$2,550 | $650 |
| Nanaimo | $350–$2,450 | $650 |
| New Westminster | $350–$2,650 | $700 |
| North Vancouver (this page) | $400–$2,800 | $700 |
| Port Coquitlam | $350–$2,600 | $700 |
| Port Moody | $350–$2,650 | $700 |
| Prince George | $350–$2,350 | $600 |
| Richmond | $400–$2,700 | $700 |
| Saanich | $350–$2,650 | $700 |
| Surrey | $350–$2,650 | $700 |
| Vancouver | $400–$2,800 | $750 |
| Victoria | $350–$2,650 | $700 |
| West Vancouver | $400–$2,850 | $750 |