Basement Sewer Backup Services in Ohio

First steps in the first few minutes

Stop all water use in the house. Turn off the washer and dishwasher, leave the taps alone, and do not flush. The pipe is already full, and anything more goes to the lowest opening, usually a basement floor drain or a basement toilet.

Keep everyone, pets included, out of the wet area. Do not step into water near outlets, cords, the furnace or the water heater, and do not reach past water to unplug anything. If you smell gas, leave the building and call the gas utility and emergency services from outside.

Move valuables off the floor only if it is safe to reach them. Then call. The sooner the line is opened, the less water reaches the basement.

What a sewer backup actually is

In a house, every drain feeds one shared line that leaves the building as the sewer lateral. A backup happens when something along that path is blocked or restricted, so wastewater cannot leave as fast as it arrives. It rises through the pipes until it finds an exit, and the exits are the lowest openings: floor drains, laundry tubs, basement showers and toilets.

That is why the water appears in the basement first, even when the cause is a hundred feet away under the street or the yard. It is also why the pattern of what is backing up is the best clue. One fixture means a branch line. A floor drain, or several fixtures at once, means the main line or the lateral.

Common causes

Tree roots entering joints in older clay or iron lines are the most frequent cause of repeat main line backups. Grease that cooled and coated the pipe wall, wipes labeled flushable, paper towels, and heavy loads of laundry lint build up and eventually catch. Scale inside old cast iron narrows the pipe until it closes. A sag or offset in the lateral holds water and lets solids settle. A fibre pipe, the bituminous kind used in mid-century homes, can deform with age.

Sometimes the restriction is not in your pipe. During heavy rain the public sewer can fill, and a lateral that is already partly narrowed is the first to show it. A technician can tell which by what clearing the line does and what a camera shows.

What not to do

Do not pour chemical drain cleaner into a backed-up line. If it does not clear the blockage, it sits in the pipe and in the standing water, which is harder on the technician and on the pipe. Do not keep flushing to see whether it clears. Do not use a wet vacuum on sewage. Do not plug a floor drain to keep water out unless a technician tells you to, because blocking the lowest opening can send water to the next one.

Do not assume the problem is gone because the water drops. A line that backs up once has a reason, and without clearing it the water will return.

Health and cleanup

Stay out of water that has come up through a drain. Avoid skin contact, wear waterproof boots and gloves if you must enter, and wash hands and clothing afterward. Keep children and pets out. Throw out porous items that sat in the water, such as cardboard and carpet padding, and let a restoration company advise on anything structural.

Drying, disinfecting and removing damaged materials are separate work. Restoration companies handle it. This service connects drain cleaning only.

What to tell the dispatcher

Say which fixtures are involved and in what order, whether water is coming up through a floor drain, whether it started when the washer drained or after rain, and how old the house is. Say whether you have a cleanout in the yard or on the basement floor, and whether this has happened before. If the house is on septic, say so. The technician can clear the drains inside the house, but pumping and tank work are outside this service.

How the crew clears it

The technician starts by looking at the pattern and finding the best access to the line, which may be a yard cleanout, a basement cleanout, a floor trap, a roof vent or a toilet that is removed and reset. A cable machine with a cutting head opens the blockage and cuts roots at the joints. A hydro jetter washes the pipe wall to remove grease and debris. The right tool depends on what is in the line and what the line is made of.

When flow returns, the technician runs water to confirm that it drains and checks that the original fixtures behave. Where it helps, a camera shows what caused the problem.

Why a camera look afterward is worth considering

Opening the line fixes today. A camera explains it. It shows roots, scale, an offset, a sag or a collapsed section, and it places the problem along the line. That tells you whether the backup was a one-time clog or whether the pipe is likely to block again, and it is far more useful than guessing. The recording is also worth keeping with your house records.

Rain, storms and the public sewer

If backups happen mostly during or after heavy rain, the cause may be extra flow in the wider system. Cleaning clears a restriction in your own line, but it cannot promise to prevent a backup caused by the public sewer. A backwater valve is one device that some houses use against reverse flow. A technician can describe it in general terms, and the backwater valve page explains what to ask. For background on how municipal sewers back up into homes, see the EPA overview of sanitary sewer overflows.

After the line is clear

Learn where your cleanout is, note what the technician found, and think about habits that load the line: grease, wipes and heavy washer loads on the same day. If the backup repeated, tell the technician, because repeat backups are the clearest sign that the cause is in the pipe and not in what went down it.

Related services

Basement Floor Drain BackupMain Sewer Line ClogBackwater Valve QuestionsSewer Camera InspectionCleanout Location and AccessEmergency Drain Cleaning