24/7 Drain Cleaning & Sewer Service in Milwaukee, WI

Bay View, Walker's Point, Riverwest, Brewers Hill and the near South Side have cottages, Polish flats and duplexes from the 1870s through the 1920s, with basements and clay laterals.

The Milwaukee duplex, a two-story house with one flat on each floor, is everywhere on the North and South Sides, built mostly from the 1900s through the 1930s.

Washington Heights, Story Hill, Sherman Park and Bay View's southern blocks have bungalows and period revival homes from the 1910s through the 1940s.

The far Northwest and Southwest sides filled in after World War II with ranches and Cape Cods.

The older core has combined sewers, and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District's Deep Tunnel stores overflow 300 feet below the city.

The City of Milwaukee maintains local sewers, and MMSD runs the regional interceptors, Deep Tunnel and the Jones Island and South Shore treatment plants. Milwaukee property owners own the lateral from the house to the public sewer.

Spring rain on frozen or saturated ground and summer thunderstorms overload sewers and flood basements, and roots grow fastest from June through August.

Long winters with stretches below zero freeze pipes in unheated basements, enclosed porches and exterior walls.

Milwaukee's most common older house is the duplex, a two-story wood-frame home with a flat on each floor, built for working families who lived in one unit and rented the other. Thousands line the North and South Sides. Both flats share one basement and one lateral. When the lateral clogs, water from upstairs comes out of the basement floor drain or the lower flat's tub.

On the South Side, Polish immigrants built Polish flats, small cottages that were later raised to add a basement apartment underneath. Families lived in the basement unit while renting the upper floor, or the reverse. Those lower units sit at the bottom of the plumbing, and old clay laterals mean roots and backups are common.

Milwaukee's older core has combined sewers, and for years they overflowed into Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic rivers. MMSD's Deep Tunnel, opened in 1993 and later expanded, stores huge volumes of overflow until the plants can treat it. Overflows have dropped dramatically, but local sewers can still back up into basements during extreme storms, like the 2010 and 2024 floods.

Many older Milwaukee homes have foundation footing drains or downspouts tied into the lateral, and cracked laterals let in groundwater. During storms, that clean water floods the sanitary sewer. MMSD and area communities have run programs to disconnect footing drains and line laterals to reduce this load. A sump pump that discharges to the yard is the usual fix for footing drains.

After a July storm, the lower-flat tenant in a 1918 duplex in Washington Heights finds water spreading from the basement floor drain. The owner calls a plumber, who opens the cleanout and cuts roots from a big ash tree on the terrace about thirty feet out. The camera shows a cracked clay joint and a sag near the curb. The owner looks into a liner and a backwater valve.

Bay View, along the lake south of downtown, grew around a rolling mill in the late 1800s, and its cottages and duplexes have old clay laterals under big terrace trees. The South Side's Polish and later Latino neighborhoods have similar housing and similar problems.

Milwaukee winters bring long stretches below freezing and occasional subzero cold off the lake. Pipes in unheated basements, enclosed porches and exterior walls freeze first. Keep the basement heated, insulate pipes along exterior walls and leave a faucet running slowly on the coldest nights.

Milwaukee's breweries, from the big names to the craft taprooms in Walker's Point and the Third Ward, along with its supper clubs and fish fry restaurants, put a lot of waste and grease into the sewers. Restaurants and breweries keep their lines open by maintaining interceptors and jetting on schedule.

The far Northwest and Southwest sides filled in after World War II with ranches and Cape Cods. Cast iron and clay laterals from that era are now aging, and many of these homes have finished basements.

Emerald ash borer killed most of Milwaukee's ash trees in the 2010s, and the city removed thousands from terraces. Dead and removed trees leave root systems that rot in place, and replacement trees are now growing new roots. Old roots in laterals can break loose and cause clogs.

Where a terrace tree was cut down, the stump grinding rarely reaches deep enough to remove the roots around the lateral, so plumbers still pull old ash roots out of lines years later.

Riverwest and Brewers Hill, along the Milwaukee River north of downtown, have cottages and duplexes from the late 1800s on hilly streets near the river bluffs. Old clay laterals and steep runs mean roots and occasional sags.

Mention the neighborhood, whether it's a duplex or single-family, the home's age and where the cleanout is. Say whether a storm came first and whether neighbors have water.