24/7 Drain Cleaning & Sewer Service in Providence, RI

College Hill, Fox Point and the East Side have homes from the 1700s through the 1920s, many on steep lots with basements and old clay or cast iron laterals.

The West End, Federal Hill, Elmwood and Armory have Victorian homes, two-families and triple-deckers from the 1870s through the 1920s.

Mount Pleasant, Elmhurst and the north end have bungalows and Colonial Revivals from the 1910s through the 1950s.

Many neighborhoods are dense with triple-deckers, three-family homes with stacked porches sharing one basement and lateral.

Providence has combined sewers in its older core, and the Narragansett Bay Commission's tunnel program captures overflows that once went into the bay.

The Narragansett Bay Commission treats Providence's wastewater and runs the interceptors and deep tunnels, while the City of Providence maintains local sewers. Providence property owners maintain the building sewer from the house to the public main.

Nor'easters, spring rain and summer thunderstorms load the combined sewers and push water into low basements, and roots grow fastest in summer.

New England winters freeze pipes in back porches, unheated basements and exterior walls of old wood-frame houses.

College Hill, home to Brown University and RISD, has one of the finest collections of colonial and federal-era homes in the country, along with Victorian houses climbing steep streets. Laterals drop sharply to the street, and big trees send roots into old clay. Many homes are now student rentals or divided into apartments, adding heavy use. Lining protects historic yards and walls.

Providence has thousands of triple-deckers, especially in the West End, Elmwood, Federal Hill and Olneyville. Built for immigrant mill workers from Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Cape Verde and later the Dominican Republic and Guatemala, they house three households over one basement. When the building sewer clogs, upper-floor water comes out the basement floor drain. Owners who jet lines regularly avoid most emergencies.

Providence's older neighborhoods have combined sewers, and for generations heavy rain sent overflows into the Providence River and Narragansett Bay. The Narragansett Bay Commission built a deep tunnel under the city, opened in 2008, and has expanded the system since to store overflow. Local sewers can still surcharge in big storms, and backwater valves help.

Federal Hill, Providence's Little Italy, and the West End have Victorian homes and multi-families on dense blocks. Old laterals and cast iron stacks, along with grease from busy family kitchens and Atwells Avenue restaurants, cause most clogs.

After a September nor'easter, the first-floor tenant in a 1905 triple-decker in Elmwood finds water around the basement floor drain. The owner calls a plumber, who opens the cleanout and clears roots and grease about twenty-five feet out under the sidewalk. The camera shows cracked clay. The owner books a liner.

The East Side's hills mean many homes sit high above the street. Steep laterals let water outrun solids, leaving deposits where the slope flattens. Jetting scours those spots.

Brown, RISD, Providence College and Johnson and Wales bring tens of thousands of students, many in older rentals. September brings a rush of clogs as new tenants move in.

Mount Pleasant and Elmhurst, on the north side, have bungalows and Colonial Revivals from the early twentieth century on tree-lined streets. Clay laterals and big trees mean roots.

Atwells Avenue's Italian restaurants, Thayer Street, Wickenden Street and downtown's dining scene put a lot of grease into old lines. Kitchens there stay open by keeping grease traps pumped.

Providence winters bring nor'easters and cold snaps. In triple-deckers, back porch kitchens and pipes along exterior walls freeze first. Heat the basement and insulate exposed pipe.

Old wood-frame houses on the hills catch wind off the bay, and pipes on the windward side freeze sooner than you'd expect.

Fox Point, once home to Cape Verdean and Portuguese longshoremen, sits near the waterfront where groundwater is higher and storm surge from hurricanes has flooded low streets. Cracked laterals there take in water.

Olneyville grew around textile mills along the Woonasquatucket River, with triple-deckers and worker housing. Many mills have been converted to lofts, and old laterals serve both old homes and new apartments.

In a Providence triple-decker, the three kitchens are usually stacked at the back of the building, all draining into one cast iron kitchen stack. Decades of grease from three households coat that pipe, and it often clogs at the bottom bend in the basement before the main line does. When the first-floor kitchen sink fills with water from upstairs dishes, jetting the kitchen stack usually fixes it.

Many East Side and West End multi-family homes have been converted to condos, with each floor owned separately. The shared building sewer is a common element, and the condo association is usually responsible for it. Associations that budget for periodic camera inspections avoid surprise assessments.

Share the neighborhood, the building type and age, how many units share the line and whether the lot is steep. Mention whether a storm came first.