24/7 Drain Cleaning & Sewer Service in Manchester, NH

The Millyard area, the Inner City and the West Side have brick row houses, tenements and multi-families from the 1840s through the 1920s, built for Amoskeag workers.

The North End has larger Victorian and Colonial Revival homes from the 1880s through the 1930s on tree-lined streets.

The South End, the East Side and neighborhoods toward Bedford and Hooksett filled in from the 1920s through the 1970s with capes, ranches and two-families.

Manchester sits on ledge and glacial soil along the Merrimack River, with hills on both sides of the river.

Parts of the older city have combined sewers, and the city has worked for years to separate them and reduce overflows into the Merrimack.

Manchester's Environmental Protection Division runs the city's sewers and wastewater treatment plant. Manchester property owners maintain the building sewer from the house to the city main.

Spring snowmelt raises the Merrimack and groundwater, filling basements and loading older sewers, and roots grow fastest in summer.

Long winters with subzero nights freeze back-porch plumbing, garage drains and shallow service lines.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company employed as many as 17,000 workers in a mile of brick mills along the Merrimack. The company built rows of brick boardinghouses and tenements nearby, and workers from Ireland, French Canada, Greece and Poland filled the West Side and the Inner City. Those buildings still stand, many now apartments, with century-old laterals, cast iron stacks and house traps.

Manchester's West Side, across the river from the mills, was the heart of the French Canadian community, with churches, social clubs and dense blocks of multi-families. Today it's home to families from many backgrounds. Shared building sewers under those multi-families carry grease and wipes from several households, and old clay pipe cracks and collects roots.

New Hampshire is called the Granite State for a reason, and ledge lies close to the surface across much of Manchester's hills. Laterals were often laid shallow or chiseled into rock. Shallow pipe freezes more easily, and digging to repair it can mean breaking granite. Lining and pipe bursting avoid most of that work.

The North End has larger Victorian and Colonial Revival homes on tree-lined streets near Derryfield Park and Saint Anselm's old neighborhoods. Long clay laterals under big maples and oaks fill with roots, and many homes have finished basements.

In late January, after a week of nights near minus fifteen, the first-floor tenant in a 1905 multi-family on the West Side finds water rising at the basement floor drain. The owner's plumber finds the line frozen where it runs shallow over ledge near the sidewalk, thaws it with steam, then sees roots at a cracked joint on the camera. Foam insulation and a spring liner are planned.

Manchester winters are long, with stretches below zero and heavy snow. Frost drives deep under plowed driveways and sidewalks, and shallow service lines over ledge freeze first. Back-porch kitchens in old multi-families are another weak spot. Heat the basement, insulate exposed pipe and leave a faucet dripping when temperatures drop well below zero.

When the snowpack melts in March and April, the Merrimack rises and groundwater climbs. Basements take on water through old foundations and floor drains, and cracked laterals take in groundwater. A sump pump and a sealed lateral help keep basements dry.

Parts of Manchester's older core had combined sewers that overflowed into the Merrimack during storms. The city has separated many of them under a long-term plan. Some older buildings still have roof drains tied into the building sewer, which add water during storms; rerouting them helps.

In multi-family buildings, kitchens are stacked one over another, sharing a single cast iron stack. Grease from several households coats that pipe and can clog it at the base. When upstairs dishwater shows up in the ground-floor sink, a plumber jetting that stack from the basement is usually the fix.

Elm Street, the Millyard's restaurants and the busy corridors along South Willow Street serve office workers, students and families. Restaurants there pump grease traps regularly to stay open through busy weekends.

Many of the downtown kitchens operate in old brick commercial blocks whose sewer connections date to the mill era.

The University of New Hampshire's Manchester campus and Southern New Hampshire University bring students to the city, and many old mill buildings and tenements have been converted to apartments. New plumbing inside often connects to very old building sewers.

Rimmon Heights and the neighborhoods around the old Notre Dame church on the West Side sit on a hill above the river, with multi-families and cottages on steep streets. Laterals drop sharply to the street, often over ledge, and water outruns solids on the steepest runs. Hydro jetting clears those lines more thoroughly than a cable.

Tell the plumber the neighborhood, whether it's a single-family or multi-family, how many units share the line and whether it's been bitterly cold or a thaw just started.