A plumbing issue… What is a cleanout?

We may have heard this term in regards to drain service and plumbing. The dilemma here is a misappropriation of terms. Generally when one hears it the association made is a process to purify something. This actually is so. To ‘clean out’ a drain is a process done to service a drain and restore its function. Buildup, foreign matter, or even roots from trees typically impair the drainage function. This all makes sense.

Enter the plumber… and he asks where is your cleanout? So now, a plumbing problem becomes an issue of semantics.

What the plumber is actually asking; ‘where is the access to service this drain?’ Most plumbers are not sensitive to the fact words commonly used in the field can have different implications. Being in the trade a unique mindset develops simply by “being the monkey behind the wrench…” So the plumber should be sensitive to the fact clients and the general public do not speak, ‘industry friendly plumbing.’

A ‘cleanout’ to a plumber is a fitting on a drain line. This fitting is intended to provide access and reasonably service the drainage. Grammatically the term is a noun, (a thing). Yet we see the term generally is used to mean an action also; a process done to service a drain.
The crux of our issue is one type of person speaks of a tangible item and the other of something performed both using the same word(s). This is not a new dilemma or one unique to the plumbing industry. For the plumber, when using terms that are trade sensitive, we should clarify this.

We plumbers got it all mixed up ‘cleanout’ is a verb used as a noun. This is a trade secret…think of the word ‘plumbing.’