24/7 Drain Cleaning & Sewer Service in Fort Collins, CO

Old Town, Laurel School, Mantz and the neighborhoods around Colorado State University have homes from the 1880s through the 1930s, many with basements and clay tile laterals under massive elms, cottonwoods and silver maples.

Postwar neighborhoods west and south of campus were built from the 1950s through the 1970s, with clay or cast iron laterals and full basements.

South and east Fort Collins, toward Harmony Road and the I-25 corridor, grew from the 1980s onward with PVC drains.

Colorado State University brings more than 30,000 students, and the neighborhoods around campus are packed with rental houses.

The city's soils range from sandy river bottoms along the Cache la Poudre to clay on the east side that swells after rain and shifts foundations and laterals with it.

Fort Collins Utilities provides wastewater service within city limits, and some outlying areas are served by districts. The homeowner owns the service line from the house to the public main.

August move-in fills CSU rentals across the neighborhoods near campus. Spring snowmelt and early-summer storms soak the soil and swell roots, and May and June are the peak months for basement backups.

Long winters bring cold snaps that freeze lines in garages, crawlspaces and exterior walls.

Old Town, Laurel School and Mantz have Victorians and bungalows under enormous trees, many planted in the early 1900s. Clay tile laterals there are full of roots. Lining or bursting replaces the pipe without digging up the tree lawns that give these neighborhoods their character.

The blocks around campus are packed with rental houses, many of them old bungalows with basements. Several students per house push hair, grease and wipes through old clay laterals. Landlords who jet mains every summer avoid most August emergencies.

Most older Fort Collins homes have basements, many now finished into bedrooms rented to students. The basement floor drain is the lowest point in the plumbing, so a main line backup shows up there first, sometimes soaking carpet. A backwater valve on the main protects the lower level, and keeping a little water in the floor drain trap keeps sewer gas out.

The first week of the fall semester, four CSU students in a 1920s bungalow near Laurel Street find water coming up through the basement floor drain. The plumber clears the main from the basement cleanout, pulling out hair, wipes and a mass of elm roots. The camera shows offset clay joints. The landlord schedules lining.

Fort Collins is famous for its breweries, from New Belgium and Odell to dozens of smaller taprooms, and Old Town's restaurants serve big crowds every weekend and during events like the Fort Collins Old Town festivals and CSU football. Many kitchens sit in buildings from the late 1800s with old sewer lines. Interceptors pumped on a regular schedule and lines jetted before busy seasons keep them running. Breweries also send spent grain and yeast toward drains, which need screening and their own maintenance plan.

Fort Collins sits right where the plains meet the foothills, and winter can bring weeks of cold with arctic fronts that drop temperatures below zero. Drains and supply lines in garages, crawlspaces and along exterior basement walls freeze first, and a shallow lateral under a driveway can freeze too. Foam sleeves on garage pipes, a shut garage door at night and a slow drip at the kitchen faucet get most homes through a January cold snap. Thaw a frozen drain gently with warm air; never use a torch.

Neighborhoods along Harmony Road, around Rigden Farm and Observatory Village, and out toward I-25 and Timnath were built from the 1980s onward with PVC drains and cleanouts in the basement or outside. Root problems are rare there. Most calls trace back to busy households: grease from family cooking, wipes in the kids' bathroom, hair in shower drains and the occasional ejector pump in a finished basement.

Parts of Fort Collins, especially on the east and south sides, sit on clay that swells when wet and shrinks when dry. That movement can heave basement floors and shift laterals, separating joints and creating low spots. Homes along the Poudre River bottoms sit on sandier soil that settles instead. Either way, a camera inspection from the cleanout shows whether the line has moved and where.

Sewer scopes are a routine part of buying a house along the Front Range, and in Old Town and the neighborhoods near campus they almost always find something: roots at the joints, an offset under the tree lawn or a belly near the street. Watch the whole video, get a quote for lining or bursting, and use it in negotiations. The homeowner owns the line all the way to the main, so a repair under the street is the buyer's problem after closing.

Give your neighborhood and the home's age, whether there's a basement and whether it's a student rental. Mention big elms or cottonwoods near the sewer path, whether water came up through the basement floor drain and whether the trouble started after snowmelt or a storm.