Homeowner Sewer Backup Information

By | October 20, 2011

The City of Muskego provides some valuable insight on Sewer Backups. Check it out:

Sewer backups are an unfortunate but common problem in U.S. cities and towns. Although municipal departments make every effort to prevent such incidents, they still may occur. The following information is offered to help property owners and residents understand why backups happen, how they can be prevented, and what steps citizens should take if a sewer backup affects their property. The following questions and answers may be helpful:

What causes a sewer backup?

Sanitary sewer overflows can be caused by a number of factors. They usually involve sewer pipe blockages in either main sewer lines or service laterals (lines between buildings and the main line). Causes may include pipe breaks or cracks due to tree roots, system deterioration, insufficient system capacity due to residential or commercial growth, or construction mishaps. In home and office plumbing systems, the main cause is accumulation of grease, tree roots, hair, or solid materials, such as disposable diapers or sanitary napkins that are too large for wastewater pipes to handle. Such materials may cause major backups in City lines as well as in residents’ lateral lines. A frequent cause of water stoppages within the City’s system, however, is vandalism. Leaves, sticks, rocks, bricks and trash have been found stuffed down manholes. We hope you will report observations of any such activity.

How could a sewer backup affect me?

If the backup occurs in a City maintained line, the wastewater will normally overflow out of the lowest possible opening. In some homes—especially those with basements, or where the lowest level is even with the sewer lines—the overflowing wastewater may exit through the home’s lower drains and toilets.

What should I do if sewage backs up into my home?

  • First, take action to protect people and valuable property.
  • Keeping in mind that ceramic plumbing fixtures such as toilets are fragile, quickly close all drain openings with stoppers or plugs. Tub, sink, and floor drains may need additional weight to keep them sealed. A string mop can be used to help plug toilet openings.
  • Don’t run any water down your drains until the blockage has been cleared.
  • A quick check with nearby neighbors will help determine if the backup appears to be in your neighbor’s wastewater line, and/or widespread in your neighborhood. In this case, call the Utilities Department immediately. Numbers are listed at the end of this flyer.
  • Call a plumber if the problem is in your lateral service line.

If I call the city, what will they do about a sewer backup onto my property?

  • You will be asked questions about the backup timing, location, the property at risk, etc.
  • City personnel will check for blockages in the main line. If found, the blockage will be immediately cleared.
  • If the main line is not blocked, you will be advised to call a plumbing or sewer contractor to check your lateral line. Maintenance and repair of the lateral line is the owner’s responsibility from the house to the right of way. From the right of way to the sewer line it is the Utility’s responsibility.
  • To minimize damage and negative health effects, you should arrange for cleanup of the property as soon as possible. There are qualified businesses that specialize in this type of cleanup.
  • If the sewer backup onto your property resulted from blockage in the main sewer line, City personnel will explain what the City can immediately do to help take care of the problem.

 

Is there anything I can do to prevent sewage backup into my home?

  • Avoid putting grease down your garbage disposal or household drain. It can solidify, collect debris and accumulate in City lines, or build up in your own system.
  • Never flush disposable diapers, sanitary napkins or paper towels down the toilet. They could stop up your drains and may damage your plumbing system.
  • If the lateral line in your older home has a jointed pipe system, consider whether the roots of large shrubs or trees near the line could invade and break pipes. It is a good idea to know the location of your lateral line(s). You can call the Utilities Department for assistance in locating your lateral line.
  • If the lowest level of your home is below ground level, such as a basement floor drain, it may one day be affected by a backup. One way to prevent sewage backup through such below ground areas is to Install a “back-flow valve” on the lowest drain(s). You can also use a plumber’s test plug to close these drains when not in use.
  • For further information about preventive measures, contact a plumber or plumbing supply dealer.
  • What does the municipality do to prevent this problem?
  • Every attempt is made to prevent backups in the public wastewater system before they occur. Sewer lines are specially designed to prevent accumulation and stoppages.
  • In addition, we have maintenance crews that are devoted to inspecting and cleaning wastewater lines throughout the City on a regular schedule.
  • Degreasing chemicals are also injected into lines in areas that are prone to stoppages, such as those near restaurants, apartments or high density housing developments.
  • Even with our maintenance schedule, however, backups are often beyond the City’s control. Most that do occur are confined to the sewage pipeline, rather than backing up into a home.
  • Will insurance cover any damage to my home or property?

In the majority of cases, a special rider will need to be added to your homeowner’s or renter’s insurance policy to cover damages related to sewage backups or water damage. This optional coverage is usually not very expensive, but you must usually request that it be added to your policy. Check with your insurance agent about this policy provision.

As with the majority of municipalities in the country, the City cannot assume full financial responsibility for damages resulting from sewage backups, since most stoppages are related to conditions that are beyond the City’s control. That is why it is important that property owners confirm that they are adequately insured—particularly if areas of their home lie below ground level.

If you want an inspection, contact HomeSmart for a sewer line inspection.

Milwaukee sewer back-ups – Journal Sentinel

By | October 3, 2011

Posted on August 25, 2011
Here is a recent article from the Journal Sentinel regarding issues with sewer laterals—especially following substantial rains or major thaws—affecting basements. Read on to better understand the importance of a sewer line inspection:

Huge Problem? Ignore it
O. Ricardo Pimentel

Last week, even without spring rain, Milwaukee’s thawing Ice Age ’11 taxed one sewage treatment plant’s capacity. This week, rain is falling and, I’m guessing, the spring summer rains ahead will threaten us with overflows.

When this happens, here’s what will happen. We’ll blame the deep tunnely and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (and note also that Zapruder film places them on the grassy knoll).
Here’s a better idea. If you’re looking for someone to blame, look in the mirror.

There. You, right there. OK, not you specifically, but you as in us. Collectively. Me included.

They keep telling me about our sewer wars of yesteryear. Yesteryear? On sewers, we’re Korea.

But let’s look at this dispassionately as only Wisconsinites can. (We can get red-faced again as only Wisconsinites can when we come to the cost).

MMSD has 300 miles of pipe. Another 3,000 miles of pipes are owned by 28 communities. But there’s another 3,000 miles of pipe out there in the MMSD service area that belongs to us, which is to say you and me—privately owned.

These pipes—also known as laterals—leak like politicians speaking on background. In a community old enough to ahve buildings with spires—and with housing stock to match—they are just plain old.
If you own a house, that’s your private lateral. Moreover, if you have a house built before 1954, you likely have foundation drains under your house that hook up your lateral.

That means groundwater produced by heavy rain drains into these foundation pipes and then into your lateral, and that, in turn, means more water in the sewer drain to cause backups into your basement.
If you have a house built after 1954, your foundation drain isn’t hooked up to your lateral. Instead, you’re supposed to have a sump pump that sends all that water upward to flow eventually into a storm system instead of a sanitary sewer system. Some folks connect their sump pump illegally to the basement floor drain or sink, in which case the water, again, goes into the sewer system.

But much of our overflow and basement backup problems are because of all our leaky pipes.

MMSD calls this infiltration and inflows, or I/Is. MMSD talks about illegal inflows as well. But we don’t get as excited about this as, say, illegal immgration because we are the ones who are “illegal.”
MMSD has a partial solution, a bandage, really, but the best it can do under the circumstances: a $156 million pot for municipalities to help residents with their laterals and their foundation drains.

This is work that each private property owner should be on the hook for. But here’s the reality: Absent a gun to your head, if you have the money to fix your laterals and foundation drains, you’re likely rehabbing your kitchen or bathroom. You can see them. And in this economy, a whole lot of folks don’t have that kind of money anyway.
Here’s where you start getting red-faced. A real solution to this runs in the tens of billions of dollars. That $156 million over 10 years is just a start and, even it is threatened by Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget. That budget imposes zero growth in MMSD’s budget. If that happens, the $156 million is going to be trimmed.

That being the case, we can tackle this comprehensively in two ways.
There’s that gun to the head—your municipality makes you fix the lateral or fixes it for you and then levies an assessment, preferably payable over several years. Or, we can tackle this as a community through taxation, spreading the cost to all of us.

I’d prefer the latter, given the slew of folks without the wherewithal to pay. I reckon that cities can take this on block by block, spreading the work over years. Spreading the cost as well.

Metro Milwaukeeans will need to be convinced that fixing this is worth the cost—that it will truly fix the problem. In other words, delay, defer, don’t do it if it costs you anything.

Bad news: There is no 100% solution to a deluge. Leaky pipes behave the same here as every other place. The natural laws of water flow have not been suspended for metro Milwaukee. And I tend to trust folks who do sewage for a living for having some credible insight on this.

But, wait. Silly me. There’s the traditional alternative to huge problems. If we keep ignoring those out-of-sight, out-of-mind laterals, the problem will just go away. And if it doesn’t? Blame the deep tunnel and MMSD.