Grease
Phoenix Water Services: "The two primary causes of sewer backups and overflows are grease and roots," and "grease is the most frequent cause of sewer problems." Surprise adds the rest of the list: "fats, oils, grease, wipes and pills."
Water Losses, Category 3
Sewer Backups, and Who Owns the Pipe
Every other water loss begins with stopping the water. This one begins with getting people out of the room, and the reason is what is in the water rather than how much of it there is. Then the question every West Valley city answers a little differently: who owns the lateral.
Sewage on the floor right now?
Stop using water, close the door, and call {{PHONE}}. A person answers at any hour, and the job starts with containment.
A backup comes up at the lowest opening it can find, and to get there it traveled the length of the lateral under the slab.
Why the First Move Is to Leave the Room
The IICRC S500 standard’s own words, and what they mean for the sequence.
Water from a drain, a toilet trap or a sewer line is Category 3 under the ANSI/IICRC S500 standard. The definition: Category 3 water "is grossly contaminated and can contain pathogenic, toxigenic or other harmful agents," and the examples include "sewage; waste line backflows that originate from beyond any trap regardless of visible content or color." Clear water coming up through a shower drain is Category 3 by definition.
The risk is not only what you touch. The IICRC’s guidance covers the case where contaminants "are believed to have been aerosolized," and the EPA’s rule is "Do not use fans before determining that the water is clean or sanitary." Water that gets agitated, by a fan, a vacuum, a mop or somebody walking through it, goes into the air. You are not trying to get the water up quickly; you are trying to stop it spreading while it sits still.
The First Ten Minutes
In order. The order is doing real work.
Stop using water everywhere in the house
If the blockage is in the lateral, everything draining anywhere in the building is delivered to the room that is already flooding: a shower upstairs, a washing machine mid cycle, a toilet somebody flushes without thinking.
Keep people and pets out, and close the door
Children, anyone pregnant, anyone with a weakened immune system, and pets in particular; a dog walks through it and then through the rest of the house.
Do not run fans, a vacuum or the air conditioning
The EPA’s instruction is "Do not run the HVAC system if you know or suspect that it is contaminated," and its rule on fans is above. The return will pull the air from that room into the ducts, and a wet vacuum aerosolizes what is in the water. Leave the water where it is.
Photograph everything from the doorway
Wide shots from the door, then the fixture it came up through, the high water line on walls and cabinets, and anything of value standing in it. The Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions tells homeowners to "take pictures of the damage before any water mitigation, plumbers, or restoration contractors show up."
Call the city if the street is involved
If sewage is coming up in the street, from a manhole, or in more than one house on the block, the blockage may be in the main, and that is the city’s pipe. The numbers by city are in the table below. If the problem is only your house, the lateral is yours, and a plumber with a camera is the call.
Call us
{{PHONE}} is answered by a person at any hour. Say that it is a drain or sewer backup rather than a leak, because the word changes what the crew brings: containment, protective equipment and the disposal that sewage cleanup requires. Use the same word with your carrier.
Who Owns the Lateral, City by City
The lateral is the pipe from your house to the sewer main in the street. Every West Valley city puts blockages and cleaning on the owner. The street portion is where they differ.
| City | Code | What it says | Sewer emergency line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peoria | City Code 25-107 | The owner is responsible for "the cleaning, unstopping, maintenance, and repair of the building connection piping serving his property from his home or building to the public sewer line": the whole line, street portion included, with a licensed contractor and a permit for any break under the street. | Peoria Water Services, 623-773-7160 in the daytime; 623-245-5201 after hours |
| Phoenix | City Code 28-5 | The owner maintains the line from the house to the connection with the main. The city "will ONLY repair broken service lines within the public right of way." | 602-262-6691 in business hours; 602-261-8000 after hours, weekends and holidays |
| Glendale | City Code 33-217 | The owner cleans, repairs and replaces the lateral, except where the work requires excavation of a public street, right of way or sidewalk, which the city does at no cost. | 623-930-4100, any hour |
| Surprise | City Code 58-312 | Each single family user "shall be responsible for cleaning, unstopping, and maintaining the building sewer, sewer lateral and sewer tap free of obstruction." The city repairs or replaces the portion in the right of way at its own discretion. | Sewage backing up into a house, 623-222-6000; sanitary sewer overflows and odors, 623-222-7000 |
| Goodyear | City Code 12-3-1 and 12-3-2 | The owner is responsible for "the installation, repair, maintenance and inspection of all Sewer Service Lines within the owner’s property." A break in the right of way is verified by video and repaired by the city. | 623-932-3010, option 3, any hour |
Two footnotes. Not every address inside Surprise is a city sewer customer: the city’s My Surprise Address lookup shows the provider, and areas with no provider go to Maricopa County Environmental Services at 602-506-6616. And Sun City, Sun City West and Litchfield Park are served by utilities rather than by a city, so ask the utility where responsibility divides; who to call besides us lists their lines along with every city’s.
Why It Happens Here
Phoenix Water Services names two causes. The third arrives with the storm.
Roots
Phoenix’s second cause is "roots from trees and invasive shrubs, such as oleanders." Roots seek water and enter at the joints, and older neighborhoods often have clay tile laterals laid in short jointed sections. Clearing the blockage without clearing the cause means it happens again.
The storm
A sanitary sewer is not built to carry monsoon rain. Stormwater gets in through defective joints, cracked pipe and manhole covers, and when a line surcharges, one utility’s plain description is that "sewage may back up into the lowest homes during wet weather."
Where a house has backed up more than once, the usual preventive is a backwater valve. The residential code Phoenix adopted requires one where a fixture’s flood level rim sits below the next upstream manhole cover, and the Insurance Information Institute recommends one for any house at risk.
What Comes Out, and What the Policy Says
Porous material is removed rather than dried, and the standard policy says nothing kind about drains.
The IICRC’s position is that "with regard to Category 2 or 3 water intrusions, remediation should occur prior to restorative drying," and the EPA’s guidance for contaminated water lists carpet and padding, drywall, ceiling tiles and insulation among the porous materials that "may have to be discarded." In our practice that list also takes in particleboard and laminate flooring, because anything that swelled has taken the water inside. Tile, the slab, glass and metal are cleaned and dried to a documented standard.
The one thing to remember
The category is set by where the water came from, not by how it looks. Anything that came up a drain is Category 3, and the fans stay off until the area is contained.
The Insurance Information Institute: "Sewer backups are not covered under a typical homeowners insurance policy, nor are they covered by flood insurance. This type of coverage must be purchased either as a separate product or as an endorsement." It adds that the coverage "is available from most providers for a nominal cost," and that "your insurance policy will not cover damage due to lack of maintenance." Check the declarations page for a line naming water or sewer backup, and ask your agent on a calm day. Filing a water or storm claim in Arizona covers the rest.
Questions About Sewer Backups
The sewage came up in the street too. Whose problem is that?
If it is in the street, from a manhole, or in several houses at once, the main is the first suspect, and the main belongs to the city. Call the city’s sewer line from the table above, then call us for the house. If yours is the only house affected, the lateral is the suspect, and in every West Valley city a blockage in it is the owner’s to clear.
Can I clear the drain with a rental cable and clean it up myself?
Clearing the line is a plumber’s job; a rental cable through a root mass or a collapsed clay joint can make a break where there was a narrowing. Category 3 water on a slab floor gets under the tile, a disinfectant only works on the surface it reaches, and drying porous material leaves you with dry contaminated material. Anything that reached carpet, drywall or cabinets is a containment job.
It backed up during a monsoon storm. Is that a flood claim?
Usually not. Water that came in at ground level from outside is flood, and a homeowners policy excludes it; water that came up through a drain is sewer backup, which the same policy also excludes unless you carry the backup endorsement. A surcharged main during a storm produces the second. Why a house nowhere near water takes on water covers the first.
Sources for this page
- IICRC weather related position statement, the S500 Category 3 definition, aerosolized contaminants, and remediation before drying.
- EPA, mold remediation guide, chapter 4 and chapter 3, no fans on unsanitary water, no HVAC if contaminated, porous materials discarded.
- Arizona DIFI, water damage and homeowners insurance, photographs before mitigation.
- City of Peoria Code 25-107 and Peoria Water Services FAQ, the owner’s responsibility for the whole lateral.
- Peoria Water Services, 211 Arizona listing, the 623-773-7160 number; the after hours line is on the city FAQ above.
- City of Phoenix Water Services, sewer issues and FAQ, Code 28-5, grease and roots, oleanders, the emergency numbers.
- City of Glendale Code, chapter 33, article III, section 33-217; Glendale Water Services, report an issue, the 623-930-4100 number.
- City of Goodyear Code, chapter 12, article 3, sections 12-3-1 and 12-3-2; Goodyear 311, water emergencies, the after hours number.
- Maricopa County Environmental Services, water, sewage, stormwater and waste, the 602-506-6616 number.
- Insurance Information Institute, which disasters are covered and protect your house from sewer backups, the exclusion, the endorsement, the maintenance wording and the backwater valve.
Keep Everybody Out
If a drain has backed up, keep everybody out of the room and call. A person answers 24 hours a day, and dispatch starts during the call.