Point Roberts
A community with no sewer system and one road in
Point Roberts is a five square mile peninsula hanging off the end of a Canadian one, cut off from the rest of Washington by the forty ninth parallel. Around thirteen hundred people live there year round. To reach it by road from anywhere else in Whatcom County you cross into British Columbia at one border, drive through Delta and Tsawwassen, and cross back into the United States at another. There is no bridge, no highway and no shortcut.
That fact shapes everything about drain work here.
There is no municipal sewer system on the point. Every property is on its own septic system, which means every drain call is a house to tank call, and the line running out to that tank is the whole game. Many of these systems went in decades ago on properties that were seasonal cabins at the time and are now used year round.
The other consequence is scheduling. A trade coming from Bellingham is committing to two border crossings each way, with waiting times that are not predictable, in a vehicle carrying equipment. That is not a problem we can charm away, and it is why very few companies serve the point properly. It is also why we would rather tell you honestly what a visit involves than take the booking and then let you down.
What we do here
What we do on Point Roberts
Drain cleaning for slow and stopped fixtures in year round homes and seasonal properties.
Hydro jetting for lines that have dried down or silted up over a long vacancy.
Sewer camera inspection, which is worth doing on the same trip as anything else.
Main sewer line clearing, which here means the run from the house out to the septic tank.
Clogged toilets and fixture drains, the most common call from a holiday property.
Kitchen and grease line cleaning for houses and the small kitchens serving visitors.
Sewer line repair where the camera shows the pipe rather than the contents is the problem.
Emergency drain service, with a realistic conversation about timing.
Local knowledge
Why one trip has to do the work of three
The right way to work on the point is to do everything in one visit.
If we are coming to clear a line, we would rather camera it in the same trip, because the alternative is a second round of border crossings to find out something we could have learned while we were standing there. If a camera run shows a defect, we would rather know the depth and the position before we leave, so that when the repair is scheduled it is one further trip rather than two.
That changes the advice we give. On a Bellingham job it is perfectly sensible to clear a line, see how it behaves, and film it later if it plays up again. Here, filming it while we are on the point is almost always the better call.
The same logic applies to seasonal properties. If a house is used from May to September, the sensible time to have the line looked at is April, when a visit can be planned. Waiting until the middle of a full house in July means an urgent call at the worst possible moment, on the one part of the county where urgency is hardest to deliver.
Everything on the point is septic, so it is worth saying again clearly: we clear and inspect the drain line from the house to the tank. We do not pump tanks, inspect tanks or work on drain fields. On a property this far out it is worth lining both trades up together rather than discovering the split halfway through the day.
Questions
Point Roberts questions
Do you actually come out to Point Roberts?
Yes. It takes longer to get there than anywhere else in the county because it means two border crossings each way, and we will give you a realistic time rather than an optimistic one. Where we can, we group work on the point into a single trip.
Is there a sewer system on Point Roberts?
No. There is no municipal sewer on the point, so properties are on septic. Every drain call here is a house to tank job, and the condition of that line is usually what the visit is about.
Should I get the drains looked at before the season starts?
On a seasonal property here, yes, more than anywhere else in the county. A planned visit in spring is straightforward. An emergency in the middle of summer, on a peninsula reached through two border crossings, is not.
Do you pump septic tanks on the point?
No. We clear and camera the drain line running from the building to the tank, and we stop there. Tank pumping, tank inspection and drain field work need a septic company, and it is worth arranging both around the same window.
Tell us the symptoms