Basement Sewer Backups: What Causes Them and How to Prevent Them
According to industry experts, over half a million sewer backups occur annually in the United States, and Los Angeles homeowners are no exception.
Sewer backups in basements across this country are rising at an astonishing rate of about 3% annually.
Our 40 years of providing plumbing services in Los Angeles have shown us that sewer backups usually originate from your home’s lowest plumbing fixture: the sump pump on your basement floor.
A sump pump sewer backup can cost a homeowner hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage and repair.
It can also force residents to leave their homes for weeks, enabling extensive sewage clean-up and restoration.
That doesn’t have to be the case.
Boss Plumbing takes a proactive approach to installing, servicing, maintaining, and replacing our customers’ sump pumps.
Yes, we do offer emergency sump pump service.
But we also educate our customers on the importance of regular sewer line maintenance and inspections, which, if ignored, can cause flooding in their own right.
This includes taking pre-emptive steps to prevent a sewer backup in their basement.
Let Boss Plumbing, the premier provider of sump pump services in Los Angeles, work with you to protect your home and your family from a sewer backup.
What is Causing My Sewer Backup?
Why? That’s the most frequent question Boss Plumbing gets when our Los Angeles customers realize they’re the victims of a sewer backup in their basement.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a single reason why this type of catastrophe occurs. Instead, there are many different reasons, including the following.
Incorrectly Installed Sump Pumps
The sump pump prevents flooding in your basement or crawl space. This apparatus pumps excess water away from a home’s foundation and pushes it into your municipal storm drains.
Unfortunately, sometimes, when called out for a sump pump replacement in Los Angeles, we see many that aren’t old but instead incorrectly installed.
As a result, they’re pushing a home’s excess clear water into the local wastewater system, which is only designed to hold dirty water.
This excess water is estimated to add up to 7,200 gallons of clear water to the wastewater system daily.
This is equivalent to an average-sized residential swimming pool.
Sanitary systems cannot carry the excess clear water.
All that extra water overwhelms the city’s sewer treatment system and causes the sewage to flow back into a person’s home through the sump pump.
Heavy Rainfall
Despite being drought-ridden for several decades, the heavy rains have returned to Los Angeles, which can overwhelm the city’s sewer lines.
When the public sewer cannot mitigate the excess rainfall, this water will eventually enter the connected sewer lines, putting your home and property at risk for sewage backflows.
Aging Sewer System
More than half a million miles of sewer lines in this country are thirty years or older.
These pipes are decrepit and in need of replacement.
Instead of replacing these pipes, many municipalities have done the opposite, increasing the number of new homes added to these lines.
The result is cities like Los Angeles cannot handle the tremendous increase in raw sewage.
Home plumbing experts such as Boss Plumbing are seeing an increase in the sewer backup calls we usually receive.
How Do I Prevent a Sewer BackUP in My Basement?
Install a Sump Pump
As experts in sump pump installation in Los Angeles, Boss Plumbing strongly advocates for all homes to have this apparatus in the homes.
Sump pumps can protect your home’s sewer lines from damage due to heavy rains.
Frequent or intense rain storms can cause the ground surrounding your sewer line to either shift or swell. This can result in the sewer pipes either cracking or rupturing.
A sump pump can reduce this risk by efficiently removing the rainwater from the ground and preserving the integrity of your residential sewer lines.
Additionally, in residential areas particularly prone to flooding, Boss Plumbing recommends installing a backup sump pump system that either steps in should the primary one fail (i.e., begins overflowing) or assists if the former becomes overwhelmed.
Whether you don’t currently own a sump pump or have one making strange noises, contact Boss Plumbing; we are Los Angeles’ experts in sump pump servicing.
Install a Backwater Prevention System
Boss Plumbing often recommends installing a backwater prevention system for our customers who’ve either already experienced a flooded basement or are at high risk for such an event.
Designed to be fitted to the sewer line in your home’s basement, it allows sewage to leave your home but never return.
In case of a blockage in the municipal sewer line or an overflow, thanks to the backwater prevention system, it cannot back up your pipes and flood your basement.
Maintain your Sewer Lines and Sump Pump
It’s one thing to call Boss Plumbing to come out and replace your sewer pipes or install a new sump pump, but if you don’t regularly maintain either one, you’re overlooking one of the easiest ways to prevent basement flooding.
As leaders in sump pump maintenance in Los Angeles, we encourage all of our customers to schedule regular inspections of their systems.
From inspecting pump parts and replacing an item such as a sump pump backup valve to advising you on when to invest in a new one, Boss Plumbing’s trained technicians are fully knowledgeable.
We also recommend regular cleaning and maintenance of your sewer lines.
A working sump pump alone cannot prevent a sewer backup in your basement. You need clean, clear sewer drain lines that can effectively do their job by repeatedly ridding your home of wastewater.
Invest in a sewage pump
A sewage sump pump is essential if you have showers or bathrooms below ground level, such as in your basement. Or if you own a septic tank.
Unlike sewer lines in your above-ground floors that rely on gravity to help the sewage move away from your home, that can’t be done when below ground.
A sewage pump is required to move the solid waste to your home’s primary sewer line.
Installing a sewage pump is not something a homeowner should try and do themselves. Let the experts at Boss Plumbing do the job.
What to Do if Your Sewer Backs Up?
In the event you find yourself in an emergency with standing sewer water in your basement, immediate action is required.
Many Los Angeles residents forget that sewage is a biohazard, which can make you and everyone else in your home extremely sick when exposed to it.
The first thing to do is turn off the electricity to the affected area, the basement.
If you must venture across your basement floor through the sewage, please wear a mask, rubber boots, and gloves.
The next step is to make an emergency call to a professional plumber, Boss Plumbing.
Due to its toxicity, we do not suggest cleaning your sewer backup in the basement. Leave that to the experts.
Let Boss Plumbing Handle Your Sewer Backups
With over 70,000 jobs completed, we are your home plumbing experts.
From sump pump repair in Los Angeles to sewer backup cleaning services, Boss Plumbing covers the entire spectrum of residential plumbing services.
Don’t wait until your basement is knee-deep in sewer water; give us a call and reach out to the sump pump experts at Boss Plumbing.
