24/7 Drain Cleaning & Sewer Service in Fargo, ND

Downtown, the Roosevelt and Hawthorne neighborhoods and the blocks near NDSU have homes from the 1890s through the 1930s, with basements and clay laterals.

The Horace Mann, Clara Barton and Jefferson neighborhoods have bungalows and foursquares from the 1910s through the 1950s.

South Fargo filled in from the 1960s through the 1990s with ranches and split-levels.

Newer subdivisions on the far south and west sides have grown rapidly since the 2000s.

Fargo sits on heavy Red River Valley clay that swells, shrinks and heaves with frost, next to a river that floods most springs.

The City of Fargo's wastewater utility runs the sewer system and treatment plant. Fargo homeowners maintain the sewer service line from the house to the city main.

Spring snowmelt brings Red River flooding and high groundwater, and sump pumps run nonstop.

Winter brings weeks below zero and frost five or more feet deep, freezing pipes and shallow service lines.

Fargo is built on the bed of glacial Lake Agassiz, and its soil is a heavy, fine clay that holds water, swells when wet, shrinks when dry and heaves when it freezes. Foundations crack, basement floors heave and buried pipe shifts. Clay laterals and cast iron crack and separate at the joints. Running a camera down the line shows exactly which joint the clay has pushed out of place.

Fargo winters are among the coldest of any American city, with stretches of thirty below. Frost can drive six feet or more into the ground under plowed driveways, reaching service lines. Pipes in garages, porches and exterior walls freeze long before that. A frozen service line needs steam thawing. Keep the basement warm and leave snow cover over the line's path when you can, since snow insulates the ground.

The Red River flows north, and when snow melts in the south while the north is still frozen, water backs up and floods. Fargo has fought major floods in 1997, 2009 and 2011, with residents sandbagging by the thousands. The diversion channel around the metro is designed to reduce that risk. During flood season, groundwater rises, sump pumps run constantly and low sewers can back up.

Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Horace Mann and the blocks near NDSU have homes from the late 1800s and early 1900s, many with full basements. Clay laterals under big elms and ash trees fill with roots, and soil movement cracks joints.

In late January, after a week below minus twenty-five, a family in a 1920s home in Hawthorne finds water backing up in the basement floor drain. The plumber finds the service line frozen under the driveway and thaws it with steam. The camera shows a joint shifted by frost heave. Insulation over the line and a spring repair are planned.

Nearly every Fargo basement relies on a sump pump during spring thaw and flood season. Pumps can run for weeks. A battery backup, a spare pump and a discharge line that doesn't freeze are worth having.

North Dakota State University brings thousands of students to older homes and apartments near campus. Heavy use and old laterals cause more clogs, especially in late August.

South Fargo grew from the 1960s through the 1990s, and the far south and west have added many new homes since. Newer PVC lines handle soil movement better, and grease, wipes and sump pumps cause most problems there.

Many newer homes have basement bathrooms below the sewer that use an ejector pump, which needs occasional service.

Downtown Fargo's Broadway has a busy restaurant and bar scene in older buildings. Bars and kitchens on Broadway that pump their grease traps often stay open through the busiest weekends.

Fargo's boulevards were heavily planted with ash after Dutch elm disease, and emerald ash borer now threatens them. Removed trees leave root systems that decay in place, and new plantings grow fresh roots. Laterals see roots from both.

After the 1997, 2009 and 2011 floods, Fargo bought out hundreds of homes along the Red River and built levees and floodwalls in their place. The neighborhoods just behind that protection, including parts of the Rose Creek and Belmont areas, still sit on low ground with high groundwater in spring. Older laterals there take in water through cracked joints, and basements see seepage. A sealed lateral, a reliable sump pump and a backwater valve give the best protection.

Across the river, Moorhead, Minnesota, and to the west, West Fargo, share the same clay, frost and flood risks. West Fargo has grown enormously with new subdivisions on former farmland, where settling backfill can create sags in newer lines. Older homes in both cities have clay laterals and the same root problems as central Fargo.

In Fargo, snow is the ground's best insulation. Where a driveway or sidewalk is plowed bare, frost drives much deeper than under a snowy lawn. Homeowners whose service line runs under a driveway sometimes add rigid foam insulation over the line, or leave a strip of snow on the lawn above it, to keep it from freezing in the deepest cold.

Share the neighborhood, the home's age, whether the basement is finished and whether it's been bitterly cold or the river is rising.