Service
Sewer Backup Repair
Dealing with sewage backing up into a property, including telling apart a blockage in your own lateral and the public sewer pushing back.
- Licensed and insured
- Price agreed before work
- A plumber who works your area
The weather tells you whose problem it is
This single observation decides the entire course of the repair, and you already have the information.
Dry weather backups point at your own lateral. Something in your line is restricting flow: roots, an offset, a belly, a collapse. It is on your property and it is yours to repair.
Rain-only backups point outward. The public sewer is receiving more than it can carry and pushing back toward the properties connected to it. Clearing your lateral will not change that, because your lateral was never the problem.
The two need different money spent in different places, which is why it is the first thing to establish.
When the fix is protection rather than repair
If the public system is surcharging, you cannot fix the cause. It is not on your property and it is not yours.
What you can do is stop it entering the house. A backwater valve on the house drain closes when flow reverses, so when the sewer pushes back, the property is isolated.
That is the right answer for a rain-driven backup and the wrong answer for a dry weather one, where a valve would simply mask a defect in your own line that still needs repairing. Plenty of properties turn out to have both problems, which is another reason to establish which you are looking at before spending anything.
Does this sound familiar?
Problems this service solves
- Sewage rising through the lowest drains in the property
- Backups that happen only during heavy rain
- A basement floor drain that overflows with waste
- Repeated backups in the same property
- Waste appearing after work on the public sewer
Signs you need sewer backup repair
If more than one of these is true, the problem is usually past the point a plunger or a store-bought cleaner will fix.
- Waste water comes up rather than going down
- The lowest fixtures are affected first
- Backups coincide with storms
- The problem returns despite the line being cleared
What to expect
How the visit works
Stop the flow into the system
Everything in the property stops draining first, because each fixture used adds to what has nowhere to go.
Relieve the line
Access at the cleanout releases the backed-up column and gets waste out of living space, which is the immediate priority.
Establish which system failed
A dry weather backup points at your lateral. A rain-only backup points at the public sewer surcharging, and those have completely different fixes.
Fix or protect
A lateral defect is repaired. A surcharging public sewer is not yours to fix, and the answer there is a backwater valve protecting the house.
What's included
What you get on every job, whoever we send.
- Waste cleared out of living space as the first action
- Your lateral and the public system told apart properly
- A backwater valve recommended only where it is the right fix
- Camera evidence of what actually happened
Questions
Sewer Backup Repair questions
It only backs up when it rains hard. Why?
Because water is getting into the sewer system that was never meant to be there. Either the public sewer is taking more than it was sized for and pushing back toward properties, or your own lateral has cracks and open joints admitting groundwater. The distinction matters because they need different fixes: a backwater valve protects the house from the public system, while lining or repairing the lateral stops infiltration at source.
What is a backwater valve and do I need one?
It is a one-way valve fitted on the house drain that closes when flow tries to come back toward the property. If your backups are caused by the public sewer surcharging in storms, it is the correct protection, because the cause is outside your property and not yours to fix. If your backups happen in dry weather, a valve is treating the symptom of a defect in your own lateral, and the repair is what you actually need.
Is a sewer backup a health hazard?
Yes, and it should be treated as one rather than as a mess. Sewage carries bacteria and contaminates porous materials, so carpet, underlay, plasterboard and anything absorbent that has been in contact usually cannot be salvaged by cleaning. Keep people and pets out of the area, avoid contact with standing water, and be careful about tracking it through the rest of the property.
Related services
- 24/7
Emergency Sewer Repair
Urgent response to sewer failures, including collapsed laterals and backups putting waste water into the property, with containment before the permanent repair.
See what this covers Main Drain Cleaning
Clearing the main line that every fixture drains into, using a cleanout access and camera verification where the blockage keeps returning.
See what this coversSewer Camera Inspection
Putting a camera down the sewer lateral to find out what is actually wrong, because roots, offsets, bellies and collapses all cause the same backup.
See what this coversWater Heater Repair
Diagnosis and repair of gas, electric and tankless water heaters, including no-hot-water calls, leaks, pilot problems and sediment flushing.
See what this covers
Get it fixed
Sewer Backup Repair, handled locally
Call with your ZIP code and what you are seeing. We route you to a licensed plumber in your area who does sewer backup repair every week.
- Licensed and insured
- Answered 24/7
- Price before work