24/7 Drain Cleaning & Sewer Service in Buffalo, NY

The Elmwood Village, Allentown, the West Side and the Fruit Belt have homes from the 1860s through the 1910s, including Victorians, Queen Annes and wood-frame doubles with basements and clay laterals.

The Buffalo double, a two-family home with one flat above another, is everywhere in North Buffalo, Riverside, Black Rock, Kaisertown and South Buffalo.

North Buffalo, Parkside and the Central Park neighborhood have early 1900s homes on tree-lined streets, many designed around Frederick Law Olmsted's parks and parkways.

Postwar neighborhoods on the city's edges and suburbs like Cheektowaga, Tonawanda and Amherst have ranches and Cape Cods from the 1940s through the 1960s.

Buffalo's combined sewers overflow into the Niagara River, Scajaquada Creek and the Buffalo River during heavy rain, and the Buffalo Sewer Authority has a long-term plan to reduce overflows.

The Buffalo Sewer Authority operates the city's sewer system and Bird Island treatment plant. The house sewer from a Buffalo building to the public sewer is the property owner's to maintain.

Spring snowmelt and summer storms overload the combined sewers and raise groundwater, and roots grow fastest from June through August.

Buffalo's winters bring deep cold and lake-effect snow that can freeze drains in garages, porches and exterior walls, and meltwater after big storms adds to sewer loads.

Like Cleveland, Buffalo built thousands of wood-frame two-family homes, with one flat on each floor and a shared basement. They were ideal for working families who lived downstairs and rented upstairs. Both flats share one sewer lateral, usually clay, running from the basement to the street. When that lateral clogs, the upstairs unit's water drains down and backs up into the basement.

Elmwood Village and Allentown are Buffalo's best-known historic neighborhoods, with Victorians, Queen Annes and doubles along tree-lined streets. Their clay laterals are often more than a century old, and roots are a common cause of backups. Lining protects the historic streetscapes.

Frederick Law Olmsted designed Buffalo's park system, with Delaware Park, Front Park and broad parkways lined with trees. Homes along those parkways and in Parkside have big lots and big trees. The trees are beautiful, but their roots find every crack in old clay laterals.

Most of Buffalo has combined sewers, and during heavy rain or a big thaw, they overflow into the city's waterways and can push water back into basements. The Buffalo Sewer Authority's Rain Check program uses green infrastructure and storage to reduce overflows. Homeowners can help by disconnecting downspouts and installing backwater valves.

In early June, the downstairs tenant in a 1910 double in North Buffalo finds water rising from the basement floor drain while the upstairs neighbors do laundry. The owner calls a plumber, who opens the basement cleanout and clears roots about thirty-five feet out, under a big maple on the tree lawn. The camera footage shows cracked clay and a joint that has slipped. The owner plans to line the lateral before winter.

Buffalo's winters are famous for lake-effect snow, with storms that can drop several feet in a day. Long cold spells freeze drains in garages, enclosed porches and exterior walls. Keep basements and porches heated, insulate pipes on exterior walls and let faucets drip during deep cold. After a big storm, melting snow raises groundwater and loads the sewers.

South Buffalo, long an Irish-American neighborhood, and Kaisertown, a Polish neighborhood, have doubles and single homes built for steelworkers and railroad workers. Old clay laterals and cast iron are common, and some homes have house traps in the basement that collect debris.

Buffalo invented the chicken wing, and its restaurants fry a lot of them. From Elmwood Avenue and Hertel Avenue to the Chippewa District and Canalside, commercial kitchens send grease toward the sewers. Interceptors pumped regularly and jetted lines keep them open.

Buffalo's West Side, around Grant Street and Niagara Street, has been revived by refugees and immigrants from Burma, Somalia, Yemen, Bangladesh and many other countries, who bought and fixed up old doubles and cottages that had sat empty. Many of these homes went years without anyone running water through them, and roots had free rein in the laterals. When a family moves in and the household is large, a lateral that was barely open can close completely within a few weeks. A camera inspection soon after buying, and a jetting if roots show up, saves a lot of stress later.

Black Rock and Riverside, along the Niagara River north of downtown, grew up around the old canal port and the rail yards. Their modest frame homes and doubles sit close to the river, where groundwater is higher and the soil holds water after rain. Cracked clay laterals take in that water, and the older homes here often have house traps in the basement that collect paper and grease. Clearing the trap and cabling the line to the street usually restores flow, but a camera tells the owner whether the clay is still sound.

Say which neighborhood you're in, the home's age and whether it's a single or a double. Mention whether there's a house trap, whether a thaw or storm came first and whether big trees grow near the lateral.