Sewer Backup Cleanup in Blaine, MN

The washer finished its rinse cycle and the floor drain in the middle of the basement started to bubble. Ten minutes later there was gray water across the utility room and into the carpet of the finished half, and it did not smell like rain. Something between the house and the street had stopped moving. This site puts you through by phone to an independent local provider who handles sewer backup cleanup in Blaine and across Anoka County.

Treating floor-drain water as what it is

Water that comes up a floor drain or a basement fixture is contaminated no matter how clear it looks, and the crew treats it that way from the door. They wear protective gear, pump out the standing water, and bag the materials it touched. Carpet and pad that took sewer water come out rather than dry in place. Drywall below the water line comes out. Then the slab and the bottom of the block get cleaned and disinfected, and only after that does the drying start.

The first question the crew asks is whether the water came from your own line or from the city main, because that decides whether a plumber clears the line at the house or the city sends a crew. Roots in a clay service line, a wipe clog, and a surcharged main during a storm all put water in the same place.

Keep everyone upstairs, and do not run the fans

Stop using water in the house: no flushing, no laundry, no dishwasher, because everything you send down comes back up the lowest drain. Keep children and pets off the basement level. Do not point a box fan at the water; it moves what is in the water into the air. Turn off the breaker for the basement if the panel is on a dry wall. Photograph the drain, the water line, and the rooms it reached from the stairs, then call and say the water came from the drain, so the crew arrives ready for it.

What sewer water takes with it

Carpet, pad, and area rugs that touched the water leave. Drywall and insulation below the water line leave, with the cut made above the line. Particleboard cabinets and shelving on the floor leave. Cardboard and soft goods stored on the floor leave. Concrete, block, and framing stay and get cleaned. Hard-surface contents like tools and plastic bins can be cleaned. Once the wet material is out and the slab is clean, structural drying runs equipment until the block and the framing read dry.

If clean groundwater came in through the walls at the same time the drain backed up, the two sources get handled as one contaminated job, and the entry points from the basement flooding cleanup side get metered along with everything else. A pit tied into the floor drain makes the sump pump failure cleanup part of the same visit.

Blaine's sewer lines, thirty lift stations, and the storms that surcharge them

Blaine's Public Works crews keep up more than 225 miles of sanitary sewer and thirty lift stations that pump toward the regional treatment plants, and they clean about a third of the system every year. Between the house and that main is your own service line, and in the 1960s ramblers south of 99th Avenue that line is often clay with joints that roots find. The city's own guidance is blunt about wipes and paper towels clogging pumps and causing backups, and the same clog happens in a four-inch house line. In a storm that puts four inches on the city in a day, as June 19, 2014 did, the sanitary system takes on water it was never meant to carry, and the lowest floor drains in the neighborhood are where it comes back.

Newer subdivisions like The Lakes and Wagamon Ranch have PVC service lines and fewer root problems, but a finished basement bathroom there sits on the same low drain.

Water from a sewer backup is excluded by many homeowner policies unless you carry a water backup endorsement, which is a separate line on the declarations page. This site cannot read your policy. Have the crew photograph the drain and the water line and list every material that left the house.

Call about the drain that backed up

Say which fixture the water came from, whether it is still coming, and how many rooms it reached. Mention whether the basement is finished and whether anyone in the house has used water since. Call (763) 297-2728.