Sewer line clog drives family from home, costs them $$$ / By Martha Knight

There’s no place like home for the holidays, unless home has a sewer backup and is uninhabitable.

Under those circumstances, the Shaun and Heather Harrier Nance family thought it best for her to take their five children and decamp to her parents’ home until vital sanitation and water services were restored.

When the emergency started, Saturday, December 21, Shaun called PA1 for help in locating utility lines. He also called 911, mainly for help in reaching borough officials and service crew on a Saturday.

Port Allegany borough manager Richard Kallenborn said the problem had to be in Nance’s sewer lateral, not the borough’s sewer line serving Katherine Street Extension, because no other residents of the neighborhood had reported problems.

Nance found this puzzling, because sewage continued to back up into the home even after the family had left and no one was using water or toilet facilities there. Where could it be coming from but the sewer system?

With no help forthcoming from the borough, Nance rented a “Bobcat” digger from Burleson’s JustAsk, and called in plumbing contractor Mark Howard for help.

“We dug up 100 feet of perfectly good water and sewer pipe,” Howard reported. Since the pipe was of the older kind, they replaced it with pipe made of the currently recommended material. “Sooner or later all these old pipes will have to be replaced,” Howard said. “But you don’t want to do it in the winter.”

The old pipe was not plugged. But sewage continued to flow out into the ditch, from the sewer main, rather than on toward the treatment plant near the Allegheny River.

“The kids still had a good Christmas,” Nance said, meaning that the family had been made welcome and comfortable at their grandparents’, and Santa had found them without any difficulty. “But we all really wanted to be home. And we had such a mess to deal with.”

The homes in what used to be called Baker’s Acres are nearly all one-story structures. Originally they had flat roofs, and were built on slabs and with radiant heat in the floors. Later many were built onto, had pitched roofs installed and were switched to baseboard convectors for heat. Lacking basements or even crawl spaces, the homes experience sewer backups up close and personal. The Nance’s sewer outlet was in a utility closet off a hallway into the living area.

Carpet and rugs and everything at floor level in the area became defiled. Cleanup, repairs and replacements looms as unpleasant but urgent projects, not even counting the expense. “This wasn’t in the budget,” Shaun Nance acknowledges.

As he and Howard relate the events, they informed the borough from the beginning that there had to be a stoppage in the borough system, near the Nance home. The borough was able to confirm this, belatedly, by getting an uphill neighbor to flush a green dye pellet down a commode. Sure enough, the green tint showed up in the sewage that was running into the ditch, but not in the sewer lines farther down the street. The clog was located.

One borough source theorized that the clog had been caused by something in the Nance line. Howard and Nance dismissed that possibility. “We don’t flush sewer wipes,” said Nance. “And look at how much larger the sewer line is than our lateral,” he added, illustrating the circumferences with his hands.

The borough crew brought up a large backhoe and clog removal gear and got the sewer line cleared and repaired.

Adding to miseries and efforts to get everything flowing again was a water pipe freeze up, what with frigid overnight temperatures and a length of exposed line. But daytime temperatures thawed the water.

As of Thursday afternoon the borough crew and equipment had come and gone, and Nance was left with the task of filling in his trench. Frozen dirt was piled high, and his driveway was blocked, and the main entrance of the house was inaccessible.

As Nance and the Bobcat wrestled with the dirt, a large, frozen chunk fell into the trench and broke his new sewer lateral. He called Howard.

The plumbing contractor  quickly brought out a “sleeve.” But during the process of cutting out the damaged sewer lateral section, the new water line, inches away, was cut too! Another sleeve was applied.

By Thursday night the family was reunited in their own home. “We are really happy to all be back,” Nance said. But much will have to be done before it becomes “home, sweet home” again.

Nance says he was disappointed by the borough’s assumption that the clog was in his lateral, without any dye testing or considering other possibilities. Also, one borough crew member had been “rude and belligerent.”

He and Howard point out that other sewer customers, higher up the hillside development, did not experience backups because sewage was flowing out of their laterals and down the sewer line—and into Nance’s house! Downhill neighbors were below the clog, so they did not experience any problems.

There were bright spots, though, Nance said. Howard was most helpful, and provided materials and a lot of labor as needed. “Burleson was very understanding and helpful; I really appreciate that, the caring attitude.”