Drain Cleaning in Aurora, CO

Original Aurora, the neighborhoods north and south of East Colfax near the old Fitzsimons Army Hospital, has homes from the 1920s through the 1950s, many small brick ranches and bungalows with clay or cast iron laterals.

Most of central Aurora, including Hoffman Heights, Del Mar and the areas around Buckley, was built from the 1950s through the 1970s, usually with basements and clay or cast iron laterals.

Southeast Aurora, along E-470 and toward Saddle Rock and Southlands, and the far northeast near DIA were built from the 1980s onward with PVC drains, finished basements and often sewage ejector pumps.

Much of Aurora sits on bentonite-rich expansive clay that swells when wet and shrinks when dry, heaving basement floors and shifting laterals.

The Anschutz Medical Campus at the former Fitzsimons, Buckley Space Force Base and a large immigrant community have made Aurora one of the most diverse cities in Colorado.

Aurora Water provides sewer service across most of the city, with treatment through its own plants and Metro Water Recovery. The homeowner maintains the service line from the house to the main.

Spring snowmelt and summer storms soak the clay, swelling it against foundations and laterals. Roots grow fastest in early summer.

Winter arctic fronts sweep across the plains and can freeze drains in garages, crawlspaces and exterior walls.

The neighborhoods along East Colfax, near the old Fitzsimons hospital grounds, are Aurora's oldest. Small brick homes there sit on clay or cast iron laterals under mature elms and cottonwoods. Roots, offsets and corrosion are common. Many of these homes now house families from around the world, often with more people under one roof than the original builders imagined.

Hoffman Heights, built in the early 1950s as one of the first big postwar subdivisions in the Denver area, and the neighborhoods that followed across central Aurora have brick ranches with full basements. Their clay laterals are now seventy years old. Trees planted with the homes have grown large, and the swelling clay has shifted many joints. A sewer scope from the basement cleanout shows the condition.

Aurora is known among builders for bentonite clay, which can swell to many times its dry volume when it gets wet. Basements heave, slabs crack and laterals shift. That movement separates joints and creates bellies where debris collects. Newer homes often have structural floors and flexible connections to reduce the damage, but older homes don't.

Nearly every Aurora home has a basement. In newer homes with a basement bathroom below the main, an ejector pump lifts waste up to the line. Pumps wear out, floats stick and power outages stop them. Test the alarm a couple of times a year and keep wipes out of basement toilets, since they jam the pump.

In June, after a week of afternoon storms, a family in a 1962 ranch in Del Mar finds water seeping from the basement floor drain. The plumber clears the main from the basement cleanout, cutting roots from a silver maple about thirty-five feet out, then runs a camera that shows a joint separated by soil movement. The family schedules a spot repair.

Saddle Rock, Tallyn's Reach, Southlands, Murphy Creek and the newer neighborhoods along E-470 were built from the 1990s onward with PVC drains, finished basements and, in many homes, an ejector pump serving a basement bathroom. The pipe rarely fails. Calls there are mostly about kitchen grease, wipes in kids' bathrooms and ejector pumps that jam on wipes or wear out after fifteen years. Newer neighborhoods near DIA and Green Valley Ranch see first-year construction debris too.

Aurora sits on open high plains with nothing to slow an arctic front, and winter wind can drive temperatures well below zero. Drains and supply lines in garages, crawlspaces and along exterior basement walls freeze first, and shallow laterals under driveways can freeze in a long cold spell. Wrapping exposed pipe, keeping garage doors shut and letting a faucet drip during the coldest nights prevent most frozen lines.

Havana Street and East Colfax are lined with restaurants serving food from Korea, Ethiopia, Mexico, Vietnam and beyond. Commercial kitchens frying, braising and grilling all day need interceptors pumped on a short schedule and lines jetted every few months.

Sewer scopes are standard in Denver-area home sales, and in Aurora they often show roots in postwar clay laterals or joints shifted by expansive soil. Watch the video yourself, not just the summary, and get a repair quote before closing.

Give your neighborhood and the home's age, whether there's a basement bathroom or ejector pump and whether water came up through the floor drain. Mention big trees and whether the trouble started after rain or snowmelt, and whether more than one family lives in the home.