A functional sewer line is essential for sanitation. It helps dispose of waste and keeps your home, business and environment healthy. Sewer and drainage blockages can cause short and long-term catastrophic effects on the environment, with backups causing contamination and health problems for the entire community. Knowing the different types of sewers and how they function will help you make an informed decision on how to tackle your wastewater disposal.

There are three types of sewers in Arvada, CO: storm, sanitary, and combined sewers. Please keep reading to discover how different they are and how they work.

Storm sewer lines

Storm sewers are also called surface water sewers. They collect and channel rainwater, stormwater, melted snow, or flood water from your rooftops or streets to rivers and channeled drains. Storm sewers play a vital role in ensuring that excess surface water flows where it should without flooding or soaking. These sewer lines ensure you enjoy living, owning a home, or doing business in Denver, CO.

However, it is essential to note that, unlike sanitary sewers (which we’ll discuss in a moment), storm sewers drain their waters directly into rivers or channels, which in turn end up in lakes, ponds, or seas. Water from storm sewer lines does not undergo any treatment. Therefore, you should always keep potentially hazardous waste away from storm sewers to preserve the environment around you. Keeping storm sewers from contamination means keeping contaminated waste away from the streets or drainage. Always ensure that waste is handled correctly and segregated to ensure that toxic waste does not find its way into the natural waters.

The other threat to the effectiveness of storm sewers is blockages due to material waste like leaves, plastics, or other debris. When storm sewers are clogged with litter, they cannot handle the amount of surface water they are designated to take in, causing flooding. It is essential to keep a little away from storm sewers to ensure you are protected from flooding. Storm sewers always use gravity flow to drain the surface water and, therefore, do not use a pumping station. The County Department of Transportation and Infrastructure is responsible for storm sewer line repair, installation, maintenance, and cleaning services.

Sanitary sewers

Sanitary sewers, rightly called “foul sewers,” are simply sewers responsible for carrying wastewater from homes and offices to the wastewater treatment plant; from your toilet bowl to the kitchen sink, laundry room, and bathroom drainage. Sanitary sewers are composed of sewer pipes, manholes, and pumping stations. When you flush your toilet, take a shower, or use your kitchen sink, small sewer pipes carry the waste from your house to larger pipes around your compound that combine the waste from other households in your neighborhood. These service pipes feed the waste into the sewer mains in the street.

The mains carry sanitary sewer wastewater to a wastewater treatment plant. In some instances, where the land is low-lying, pumping systems may be put in place to help take the wastewater to the treatment plant. Otherwise, the wastewater is pushed to the treatment plant by gravity.

Cutouts are openings along the smaller pipes that serve the mains. They are used to access the sewer line around your property to tackle any blockages. Manholes are strategically placed along the mains to perform a relatively similar role as the cutouts.

It is important not to flush non-biodegradable waste like sanitary towels down the toilet, as the small pipes in a sanitary sewer line can only handle tissue paper and human waste. Any other material can cause blockages that may result in an unpleasant backflow of wastewater into the house, causing contamination.

Blockages along the main sewer line can also cause overspills through the manhole that could contaminate the streets with untreated wastewater, which is hazardous to the environment. Once the wastewater reaches the treatment plant, it is treated for biohazard contamination before being released into the environment.

If you suspect a sewer line clog or experience slow drains, backflows, or overspills, do not hesitate to call our emergency plumbing service for an inspection, drain cleaning, sewer line replacement, or fixing a clogged drain. We have the most qualified plumbers in Arvada, CO, famous for their fastest turnaround time for any emergency plumbing problem.

Combined sewers

As the name suggests, combined sewers are a combination of sanitary and storm sewers. These types of sewer lines use the same line to drain both surface water and foul wastewater into the same containment pipes. During the dry season, when there’s little surface water, combined sewers carry wastewater through dammed pipes that separate slugs from overflow wastewater. The slug is collected at the dammed points while the wastewater proceeds to rivers or drainage channels.

However, when there is a heavy downpour, the dams are rendered ineffective as the surface water washes away wastewater and sludge into the rivers and drainage channels. This phenomenon is referred to as a combined sewer overflow event. Due to their obvious flaw of polluting the environment with wastewater, combined sewers are no longer used in modern cities. Instead, surface water and wastewater are separated and channeled differently.

Professional sewer line repair, drain cleaning and emergency sewer service in Arvada, CO

Hiring professional and accredited plumbers for all your sewer and drain line needs is important for the functionality and longevity of your drain system. Arvada Plumber Co. is a licensed and insured plumbing company offering sewer line installation, sewer line cleaning, and maintenance of sewer systems in Arvada, CO. Our experienced plumbers guarantee quality workmanship, quick response, and 100 percent satisfaction guarantee.

Our plumbing team is available 24/7 for all your drain cleaning and plumbing needs, including emergency sewer service. We take our work seriously and value all our customers. Arvada Plumber Co. crew has completed simple and complex plumbing jobs, including kitchen plumbing, bathroom plumbing, plumbing renovations, leak detection, and drain cleaning services. You can therefore count on us for all your residential and commercial drain cleaning, sewer cleaning, installation, repair, maintenance, and other plumbing services.

Call 303-500-0437 or email scott@myarvadaplumber.com to schedule service or get emergency drain and sewer services.