Work the Structures First
Catch basins and inlets hold most of the grit, and clearing them first keeps what is in them from washing into the line the moment it rains.
Commercial & municipal
Storm Sewer Cleaning
Storm systems fail on the worst possible day, because that is the day they are asked to work. Grit, leaf litter and construction debris accumulate quietly and then matter all at once.
Send a scope and we will price it. Drawings welcome.
Serving Ohio since 1960
Open 24 hours, 7 days
Our own fleet and crews
Municipal and commercial work
Ahead of the Weather, Not After
The cost of a blocked storm system is rarely the cleaning. It is the flooded parking lot, the basement, the road closure and the complaints. Cleaning before the season is the cheap end of that.
On a commercial site it is also a liability question. Standing water where it should not be tends to become somebody's claim.
Storm work has a season to it in Ohio. Grit and salt from the winter, then leaf litter in the fall, and construction debris whenever there is work upstream. Most sites are better served by a route run at the right point in the year than by a callout after the first storm that finds the problem.
How the Work Runs
Clean the Line
Structure to structure with the Jet-Vac, so silt and debris are lifted out rather than pushed toward the outfall.
Haul and Dispose
The load leaves with the truck. Catch basin grit is not clean fill, and it is not something to leave bagged at the curb for somebody else.
What We Clean
- Storm mains and laterals
- Catch basins and inlets, where most of the grit is caught
- Manholes and junction structures
- Detention and retention structures
- Outfalls, where debris collects out of sight
- Trench drains and yard drains on commercial sites
Work is done with the Jet-Vac, so what comes out leaves with us. Where a line will not stay clear, a camera is usually a better next step than another cleaning.
Storm Is Not Sanitary
They get treated as one job and they are not. A storm system is built to move water fast, in volume, on the few days a year it matters, and what fills it up is mostly what the surface hands it: grit, salt, leaves, sediment and whatever a site upstream has been washing off.
That has two practical consequences. The structures do more of the work than the pipe does, which is why catch basins are where a storm program earns its money. And a cross connection between the two systems is worth finding, because stormwater in a sanitary sewer is capacity nobody planned for. Smoke testing is how those get located.
What Cleaning Will Not Fix
Cleaning restores what silt and debris took away. It does not change what the system was built to carry.
- Undersized or overloaded systems. A structure that floods in a heavy storm with a clean line downstream has a capacity problem, not a debris problem.
- Grading and surface drainage. Water that never reaches an inlet is not a sewer question. Where a lot ponds away from the structures, that is a paving decision.
- Structural defects. Collapsed pipe, failed joints and broken structures keep catching debris however often they are cleared.
- The source upstream. Where a site keeps washing sediment into the system, cleaning is a recurring cost until the source is dealt with.
What to Expect From Darr's
We have cleaned Ohio storm systems since 1960, out of Clyde, with our own fleet and our own crews. Structures, lines, inspection and the disposal that follows are all in house.
- Scheduled seasonal routes or reactive callouts, on the same contract
- Structures and line cleaned in the right order, on the same visit
- Crews used to permits, traffic control and working around a tenant or a village
- Open 24 hours, 7 days, across 23 Ohio counties
Send Us a Scope
Municipalities, property managers and contractors. Quotes turned around quickly.