Sanitary Sewer Cleaning

Scheduled Beats Reactive

A surcharged main on a Sunday costs more than the same length cleaned on a Tuesday, and that is before anyone counts the basements. Systems with a known problem section repay being on a cycle.

We can work from your existing schedule, or from what the camera finds, and prioritize the lengths that actually need attention rather than the whole network at once. On most systems the trouble is concentrated in a small proportion of the network, and a cycle that reflects that is cheaper than one that treats every length the same.

How the Work Runs

What the Work Involves

• Jet-Vac cleaning, so debris leaves site rather than moving downstream
• Camera survey before and after where it is worth documenting
• Root control where intrusion keeps returning
• Smoke testing to find inflow and illegal connections
• Manhole cleaning and locating where structures are buried or unrecorded
• Reactive callouts on a surcharge or a blockage, at any hour

Roots, Grease and Infiltration

Three things drive most collection system work, and they are not the same problem.

Roots come in at joints and defects, and cutting them without treating them just sets the clock running. Where a length keeps taking intrusion, RootX after the cleaning is what changes the interval.

Grease is usually traceable to a source. Cleaning the main keeps the system running, but on a length fed by commercial kitchens the durable fix is upstream, at the interceptors.

Inflow and infiltration is a different problem again. Inflow is stormwater entering where it should not, through roof drains, yard drains and cross connections. Infiltration is groundwater coming in through defective pipe, joints and manholes. Cleaning does not fix either, but it is often what brings them to the surface, and smoke testing is how the sources get located.

What Cleaning Will Not Fix

Cleaning restores the pipe you have. It does not give you a different one.

• Structural defects. A cracked, offset or collapsed length keeps catching debris however often it is cleaned. Where a length is back on the callout list quickly, an inspection is worth more than another visit.
• Capacity. A main at its design limit in a storm is not a cleaning problem. Cleaning restores the section that silt and grease took away, and no more.
• Infiltration through defective pipe. Water coming in through joints and cracks needs a repair or a lining decision. Cleaning and testing locate it; they do not seal it.
• Private laterals. Where the public main ends and a private lateral begins varies by community, and a lateral that is somebody else's responsibility can still be what is putting water or debris into your system.

What to Expect From Darr's

We have worked Ohio collection systems since 1960, out of Clyde, with our own fleet and our own crews. Cleaning, inspection, root control, smoke testing and the disposal that follows are all in house, so a scope that grows does not become a second procurement.

• Scheduled cycles or reactive callouts, on the same contract
• Cleaning directed by what the camera finds, not by the length of the network
• Crews used to permits, traffic control and working around a village's own schedule
• Open 24 hours, 7 days, across 23 Ohio counties