The calm before the storm sewer
Are you ready?
It’s late October and while it’s not yet raining in Vancouver, it will! Will you be ready? Even a native like me, who is experienced with Vancouver rain, never really believes it will actually flood… I mean, the storm sewer has managed the water every other year, and those people whose basements flooded… well… it won’t happen to me, right?
The calm we experience in Vancouver in the early fall is the time to focus on your storm sewer. Therefore, it’s the time to spend a little money and put the camera in there and make sure that during this exceptionally wet spring, followed by an exceptionally dry summer, haven’t encouraged those roots to proliferate your storm sewer.
For that reason, whether your gravity drained, or have a storm sump pump, the time to find out if your storm sewer is blocked, cracked or, half filled with tree roots is not when it’s storming! It’s now.
The Clues
Here are three ways to tell if your storm sewer is partially blocked.
- Peek down any drains and look for standing water
- Sogginess of the yard, dampness in the basement of the home that never really dries and is nowhere near water pipes.
- Trees or bushes growing above the line should at least make you suspicious – especially if they are known for aggressive rooting
The Remedy
Here are three things you can do about it.
- Peak – Have R&B come out to do a video diagnostic on your storm sewer
- Clear – R&B will run an auger down to clear roots and blockages
- Prevent – Schedule R&B to come and do a sump pump service
The Reality
Seem a little repetitious? Unfortunately, drainage is one of those things that will save the most expense (flooding) and headache (Insurance companies) with a little investment in prevention.
Between the writing and the posting of this blog, November rains have arrived and if you’ve got a blockage, you may have already found out about it the hard way. For emergency service R&B has 24-hour live answering services for immediate response.
