Pittsburgh Water Damage Cleanup

Unlike many homes in the suburban Pittsburgh area, the city proper and many of the older surrounding towns  still have their storm water connected to their sanitary sewer within the confines of the house.  This outdated system not only causes environmental problems for the community but can cause extensive water damage for the  homeowner.  To understand why, we have to examine the history of the water and sewer system in Pittsburgh.

In the late 1800′s as Pittsburgh began to grow as an industrial city, the common means of human waste disposal was the privy or outhouse.  During this period Pittsburgh had the highest number off Typhoid cases in the country.  This was due in large part to contaminated drinking water, caused by wells being located to close to outhouses, and raw sewage being dumped into the streams and rivers which also was a source for drinking water.

As the city grew it continued to add additional sewers which transferred both waste water and storm water through the same pipes and into the river.  The thought being the rain water would help flush the raw sewage through the system.  This uncontrolled dumping of raw sewage into Pittsburgh’s rivers did not stop until 1958 when the Allegheny Sanitary Authority opened it’s sewage treatment plant.  Sadly, to this day the treatment facility cannot handle all the storm and sewage coming into the plant on rainy days, causing them to discharge overflows of  waste water directly into the rivers.

The combination sewer becomes a problem for the individual homeowner when the home’s building sewer, leading to the main municipal line, becomes blocked.  Being that all the homes outside rain conductors are connected to the building sewer in the basement means none of the rain water coming off the roof  can get through to the municipal line.  This forces the water up in the lowest place, which is usually the basement floor drains.  The water will continue to rise as long as the rain continues and the sewer is blocked.  Over a foot of water can accumulate in the basement, causing extensive water damage.

To avoid this costly scenario the rain conductors should be removed from the system.  This will be required for City of Pittsburgh residents in the near future, as it has been for suburban residents for years.  Until this is done it may be best to have your sewer professionally cleaned once a year, particularly if you have experienced problems with sewer blockages in the past.