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Guide

Who Is Responsible for the Sewer Lateral

Generally the homeowner, from the house to the connection. Where exactly that boundary sits is worth knowing before there is a problem.

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Drains and sewers only

Not a plumbing company with a drain page. This is the whole job.

A camera on recurring calls

If a drain has backed up before, guessing at it twice is not a plan.

Northern Utah homes

Cast iron, clay lateral, hard water scale, roots. The local failure modes.

The general rule

In most Northern Utah municipalities the property owner is responsible for the lateral from the house to the connection at the main. The city takes it from there.

Why the detail matters

The exact boundary varies, and in some places responsibility extends further than owners expect. It is worth a call to your city before there is a problem rather than during one.

What this means in practice

If a blockage is on your side, it is your cost. If the problem is at the main, it is not, and you should not be paying a contractor to address it.

How to find out which it is

A camera pass locates the fault and its distance from the house, which is usually enough to establish which side of the boundary it sits on.

Why it comes up at the worst moment

Nobody researches this until there is sewage in the basement, which is the least useful time to find out. Ten minutes on your city’s website now is worth a great deal later.

What to do if it turns out to be the city’s

Report it and stop paying contractors to address it. A camera pass that establishes the fault is beyond your boundary is one of the more valuable results you can get.

Where the boundary usually sits

Commonly at the property line or at the connection to the city main, though which of those varies by municipality. Some cities take responsibility from the curb, others do not. It is worth knowing which yours is.

Why a camera settles arguments

It gives the fault a measured distance from the house. Combined with a plan of where your boundary sits, that usually establishes responsibility without anyone having to dig to find out.

A drain technician feeding a cable into an open sewer cleanout in the front lawn of an older Ogden home.

Look first. Then clear it.

Most drain calls run the same four steps. The order matters: everything we recommend comes after we have seen the line, not before.

  1. 01

    Ask

    What is the drain doing, which fixtures are affected, how old is the house, has it happened before. Five minutes on the phone usually narrows it to two possibilities.

    You get a straight answer about whether this needs a visit.

  2. 02

    Look

    On anything recurring, the camera goes in before the cable does. We find where the restriction is and what is causing it.

    You watch the same screen we do.

  3. 03

    Clear

    Cable, jetter or descaler, chosen for what we actually found. Grease gets cut out, not punched through.

    The line is open, and the cause is gone with it.

  4. 04

    Show

    A second camera pass after the work, so you can see the pipe you are left with, including when the answer is that nothing is wrong with it.

    You know the condition of your line, not just that the water moved.

What the camera actually shows

You watch the same screen we do. These are the three things we find most often behind a drain that will not stay clear.

Root intrusion. Roots at a clay joint. Common under mature trees on Ogden's older streets.
Root intrusion Roots at a clay joint. Common under mature trees on Ogden's older streets.
Mineral scale. Cast iron closed down by hard water scale. Regularly mistaken for a clog.
Mineral scale Cast iron closed down by hard water scale. Regularly mistaken for a clog.
A belly in the line. A low section holding water. It will keep catching waste until it is corrected.
A belly in the line A low section holding water. It will keep catching waste until it is corrected.

Questions we get asked

Who is this written for?

Homeowners in Ogden and the surrounding Northern Utah towns who want to understand a recommendation before agreeing to it.

Does this apply to my property?

Generally, though the specifics depend on the age of the house and what its lines are made of. We would want to see it before saying anything for certain.

Not sure if this is what you have?

Tell us what the drain is doing. We will tell you what usually causes that pattern before you commit to anything.

What is the drain doing?

What is the drain doing?

Worth saying up front. If the pipe turns out to be healthy, we will tell you that. We do not turn a drain cleaning call into a sewer replacement pitch.

Backing up right now? (801) 643-5784

What we do when the pipe is fine

No fault found

Sometimes the camera goes down a line that has backed up three times and finds nothing wrong with the pipe. Grease, or roots at one joint, or a fixture that was never vented properly. The pipe itself is sound.

When that happens we clean it properly, tell you what caused it, and leave. That is the whole visit. A recurring clog is not evidence that a sewer needs replacing, and we are not going to say it is.

Related

Tell us what the drain is doing

Describe the symptom and we will tell you what usually causes it. If it needs a look, we will come and look.

No call-out pressure and no sewer replacement pitch. If cleaning is the fix, cleaning is what we quote.

Call and talk it through (801) 643-5784 Describe the symptom Takes under a minute Send it in writing office@draincleaningogden.com
HoursMonday to Saturday, 7am to 7pm
Based inOgden, Utah
License #14290593-5501
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