How to Handle Sewage Backups: When to Call the Pros for Sewage Cleanup

A sewage backup can cause extensive damage to your home in a short span of time. Broken bathroom fixtures, clogged drainage systems, and even floods that cause municipal sewage system backups can create gallons of dangerous raw sewage. And when it leaks, it risks the health and safety of anyone inside your home.

In these situations, a professional sewage cleanup is usually necessary. While there are ways to prevent, identify, and even manage sewage backups in your Palm Springs, CA home, bringing in a professional restoration company helps to mitigate short- and long-term damage. Not to mention the necessary professional decontamination for raw sewage cleanups.

What Happens in a Sewer Backup?

Throughout your home’s plumbing, there are incoming water lines and outgoing sewer lines. Incoming water lines allow sinks, showers, and appliances to work effectively with clean, safe water.

Conversely, your sewer lines move used water, or wastewater, away from your home. Think flushing a toilet, dirty dish and bathtub water going down the drain, or a washing machine after its final rinse and spin. When a sewer backup occurs, wastewater forces its way back into your home.

Causes of Sewage Backups

When you’re dealing with a sewage backup and consequently a sewage cleanup, your wastewater lines are compromised in some way. Causes of sewage backups are similar to other types of water emergencies, including:

• Blockages – Your home sewage lines may have a clog that stops the flow of wastewater out, causing a backup. Similarly, municipal sewers in your area can also clog. However, city drainage lines are broader so it’s less likely to happen.
• Flooding – Heavy rain seasons can lead to flood waters that overwhelm local sanitary sewage systems. Stormwater drainage merging with sewage systems can reduce the flow rate. With slower drainage comes the potential for sewage backups in homes.
• Pipe Breaks and Deterioration – Older sewage lines may decay and break over time, causing a breach that blocks outward water flow. Additionally, supporting soil around drainage pipes can wash away in heavy rains and cause pipes to collapse.

Early Sewage Backup Signs and Prevention

While you may not notice a sewage backup until it’s too late, there are a few signs to watch out for. Some signs of a sewage backup include:

• Gurgling sounds from drains – Air bubbles formed from clogged pipes will create a gurgling sound which may also be visible in toilets once flushed.
• Unusual odors from sinks, showers, or drains – While waste smells may be common at times, any distinct “sewer” smell is a major red flag. Especially if it occurs in more than one area of your home.
• Slower drains – When your drains can’t keep up with sewage, they’ll move more slowly, increasing the potential blockage.
• Water backing up in your shower or tub – When water has nowhere to go but back out of the drain, there’s likely a blockage further down the drain line.

Sewage Backup Prevention

In most cases, a sewage backup in your home does not have a DIY fix. However, for minor sink clogs and blockages, there are a few quick solutions:

• Use a plunger to remove clogs from drains, toilets, and sinks.
• Use a liquid drain cleaner when a plunger is not an option. However, most liquid drain cleaners are highly corrosive. Use caution as they can not only irritate skin but cause further damage to plumbing. Instead, consider a mixture of 1/3 cup vinegar and 1/3 cup baking soda poured into the clogged drain.
• Release pressure by turning off the water at the main supply. From there you may be able to stop water flow and locate the source of a blockage.

To prevent sewage backups, you may also consider installing a backwater valve in your sewer line. The valve automatically closes when sewage backs up from the main sewer. Only a licensed professional should install an approved backwater valve.

Sewage Cleanup: When to Call a Professional

During a sewage backup, your home is not only at risk of the types of water damage and mold contamination with a “normal” flood or appliance issue. Sewage water can contain harmful bacteria, viruses, and parasites that can pose health risks to occupants, and should be cleaned by a professional to ensure complete decontamination.

Should you experience a sewage backup, you can get ahead of long-term damage by washing contaminated surfaces and objects with warm, soapy water and disinfect with a bleach and water solution. You may also use wet vacuums alongside disinfectants for small sewage cleanups.

However, you’ll likely need to discard or remove any materials that absorbed contaminated water. Which may include carpeting, certain types of flooring, drywall, cabinets, vanities, and even door frames.

If left untreated, raw sewage can leave permanent stains and smells in paint, flooring, and fixtures in your home while risking occupant exposure to dangerous bacteria, viruses, parasites, and even mold and mildew.

In any case outside of small clogs and backups, you should leave the decontamination and reconstruction to professionals.

The Flood Response Sewage Cleanup Process

The trained professionals at Flood Response have the tools and knowledge to safely and effectively remove sewage from your property, leaving it clean, sanitized, and ready for restoration. The Flood Response sewage cleanup process consists of:

1. Constructing containment barriers to prevent cross-contamination in the event of an ongoing leak or backup.
2. Immediately removing any sewage for safe disposal off your property.
3. Mitigating sewage damage and exposure to prevent the spread of hazardous toxins and microorganisms throughout your home.
4. Deeply cleaning and sanitizing affected areas, including tile and laminate floors, plumbing and appliance fixtures, cabinets (when possible), and more.
5. Advanced filtering techniques and equipment to continuously clean the air during the cleanup and treatment process.
6. Documenting the spread of raw sewage and replacing any materials that can’t be safely cleaned and restored.

Once our team extracts the raw sewage, IICRC-trained technicians begin deep cleaning any affected areas to pull out all toxins and traces of sewage. But sometimes cleaning isn’t enough – carpets, fabrics, and other porous surfaces can absorb raw sewage so thoroughly that they can’t be sanitized without a full replacement.

From there, our team of licensed general contractors and emergency cleanup professionals can manage the restoration process from start to finish. The process also includes any additional water damage restoration needs, mold remediation, and reconstruction to return your home to normalcy.

Make Your First Response, Flood Response Whenever Disaster Strikes. 

At Flood Response, we’re here to help you during every stage of recovering and restoring your home after a sewer leak. Our team has experience responding to both small-scale and large-scale sewage disasters, and we can help you feel more confident in making educated decisions during a stressful time.

At Flood Response, we have the tools for immediate sewage cleanup and the expertise to restore your home to its previous condition. When speed is crucial, get an emergency sewage cleanup team at your door as quickly as possible.

Home disasters can be scary and overwhelming, but you don’t need to face the unknown alone. For over 20 years, we’ve helped families and business owners in the Coachella Valley area take the right steps to restore their properties and rebuild their lives in the face of disaster. Are you looking for a reliable, full-service disaster recovery service in the Coachella Valley or the surrounding area? Contact Flood Response today!