I have heard that if/when the power goes out the sewers will back up. I started imaging sewage coming up into my basement where my food is stored. Yuck! Someone once told me you could plug the drains in your house to keep the sewage out. What does one use to do that? And, would you just plug the basement drains or would it come up into the house proper? Any ideas?
A Flow valve. It stops the water from coming in but let’s any water go down that might be in your basement already. We had that problem and that is what we got. It goes in the sewer opening. I think you can get them at the hardware store. We had the plumber install one. Not to expensive.
A back-flow valve. I heard of an estimate of $1000 for installation. :(
A sandbag over the floor drain will stop it.
It will depend on how much pressure is in the line. Do you live at the bottom of a hill? If not, I wouldn’t be too concerenced with it.
No electricity will eventually mean no water so there won’t be a lot of stuff going down the sewer except from a few preppers who have enough stored water (i.e. from a swimming pool) to still have flushing toilets. Given the capacity of a sewer pipe it is highly unlikely that it would back up any time soon UNLESS you are living at the bottom of a hill or the storm drains also empty in to the sewer.
In any case, with any pressure it will ultimately come through all the lower plumbing fixtures - floor drain, toliet, sink, et cetera. You can remove the toilet and sink and fairly easily cap the pipe. If you have a 2 story house an are at the bottom of a hill, if the sewer backs up you may need to cap your upper story plumbing fixtures too.
A sandbag on a floor drain will keep out most but won’t stop seepage. You can, however, remove the grill and whittle down a piece of wood into a slight cone shape and hammer it into the pipe making a plug. Don’t hammer it in so hard that you can’t get it out. If the cone plug is smooth, putting a piece of fine cloth over the plug before hammering it in will completely seal the pipe opening for all but really high back pressure.
The only way to absolutely shut off any backflow is to install a shut off valve on the main line. Very expensive to do since that usually involves a lot of digging.
Can’t afford the backflow device. Don’t live at the bottom of a hill. Am an old woman alone and can’t remove toilet and sink and cap the pipes. So…bottom line? Thanks for any additional thoughts. Very appreciated.
Since you are not at the bottom of a hill, don’t worry about it.
pfwag: There is a floor drain in my basement near the hot water heater. Also there is a rough-in for a basement bathroom, but it is capped. So, if I fashioned some sort of plug for that floor drain would that be sufficient? Maybe I could get something at the hardware store that I might be able to adapt. Again. Thank you so very much.
Nova: If the basement toilet AND sink drains are capped, the only other immediate place for a backed-up sewer line to come through is the floor drain. Take off the grill and check the diameter. A tennis ball with a sandbag on top of it may be all you need.
Since you are not at the bottom of the hill it is highly unlikely you will even need that.
pfwag: When you say ‘bottom of a hill’, how specific do you mean? Here’s why I’m asking - we’re the third house from the bottom of a mile long street that begins gently sloping after 3/4 of a mile - houses on both sides. The street ends at an intersection with a flatted off row of homes - much like a T shape. On the other side of the T is a small creek…I’m just worried that ‘near’ the bottom is as bad as the end house? Any thoughts?
pfwag: When you say ‘bottom of a hill’, how specific do you mean? Here’s why I’m asking - we’re the third house from the bottom of a mile long street that begins gently sloping after 3/4 of a mile - houses on both sides. The street ends at an intersection with a flatted off row of homes - much like a T shape. On the other side of the T is a small creek…I’m just worried that ‘near’ the bottom is as bad as the end house? Any thoughts?
Jackson: other than doing all my own plumbing, I am not a plumber or sanitation engineer so am only making an educated guess. Nevertheless, as I mentioned above, no electricity means no water fairly quickly so there won’t be much going into the sewer until the electricity comes back on in which case the sewer pumps are now working. A sewer pipe is good size and it will take a lot to fill it up where it now starts backing up in elevation into the houses. Since the pipe is buried a fairly fixed depth under the street (usually) it follows the contours. Therefore, it stands to reason that if the pipe isn’t being pumped the sewage will fill up the lowest parts first and start backing up from there.
If you are a few feet higher than the bottom of the intersection, with the pipe being 8–10 (?) feet down, that is a lot of “storage” space before it could back up enough to get into your house. With no water there won’t be much be going down the sewer so I wouldn’t be too concerned about it. If you are real concerned you might want to ask whoever is providing the sanitation services in your area about a “what if” scenario.
Power was out for a good while after Hurricane Camille (1969). Sewage lift stations didn’t work for lack of power. The sewer lines filled up and backed up. When one flushed an upstairs toilet, sewage had nowhere to go except down and out the first available opening. The same would be true if a neighbor’s sewage lines were slightly higher than yours.
While it wasn’t pleasant, the expedient thing to do was to dig down to the sewage line in the yard and break open the sewage pipe. A yard covered with sewage seems preferable to a house full of sewage.
Thankfully, post-Katrina, our small town purchased generators to keep the water and sewage systems operable during an extended power failure. Now, if we can just keep the diesel flowing…
If you’re really worried about other people’s sewage backing up and into your home, many homes have an outdoor cleanout, or some other direct access, to the main line leaving the house. Plumbing stores sell a test fixture that is actually just a heavy duty inflatable ball. If you stuff in in your sewer main BELOW your cleanout access and inflate it to the recommended test pressure, it provides a temporary, removable, and 100% effective seal. Nothing will get past it.
Be aware, however, that YOUR sewage won’t drain out, either!
Also — The test balls cost $30–50 max, and can be installed by anyone willing to get their hands stinky…
I just got an estimate for the “backwater” valve. On the phone I was told $375 to $450 to install so I allowed the estimate, which was $54. When the plumber got here he wanted $595 to install. Quite a jump. I was not happy at all and called the company. I allowed them to come based on information provided, when I threatened to put a stop payment on the check they threatened a lien on my house! This is a company that, it turns out, is owned by a former students father. He said he’d give me a good deal. I’m trying to calm down and speak to him Monday. The idiot on the phone just wanted to escalate it.
Thank pfwag - what you say makes a lot of sense. We do have an outdoor cleanout and it sounds like the test ball that Timber suggested might be a good alternative, with the understanding we’ll be using other means rather than our plumbing system. I think I’d rather that than the alternative!
pfwag.
The logic that no power means there won’t be a water input so you don’t have to worry about water output (sewage) makes sense. I would be concerned that a gravity fed water tower could fill many miles of sewer line. That actually happened in places as a result of the 08/14/03 northeast blackout.
http://tinyurl.com/e6tl7 some info on a back flow valve
Timber: “in your sewer main BELOW your cleanout access and inflate it to the recommended test pressure” Does that mean after the cleanout access further away from your house, or closer to your house than the cleanout access? Sounds like a good solution-thanks!
I have a basement with pvc sewer going out to the street. It has a cleanout valve easily accessable. My thought was to use the bag of rags approach. Remove the valve stuff it full of rags in a plastic bag and screw on the valve compressing the rags to form a tight blockage. Once done I would remove the bag of rags. No basement drains in the house. Anyone see any holes in this approach? Also we are not near the bottom of the hill, so should be pretty safe anyway.
If you have a septic system nows the time to have it pumped out. You dont want to have to deal with an overflowing tank during a pandemic. We just had ours done,its checked off the list of things to do
There is valuable “night soil” for fertilizer in those septic tanks. I would not pump it all out. Fertilizer will be just as hard to come by as everythingelse if it gets really bad.
We’ll now I’m a little freaked out to say the least. So if the power goes out the sewers back up. I know when our power goes out, the toilets still flush etc. But you guys are saying that once the yucky stuff leaves our homes, it it powered by electricity to move it along.. where does it actually start needing the electricity, at the street area? I never thought of this.
Glad I read this. I Am at the bottom of a hill. Do have my preps in the basement. How on earth do you determine where the outflow area is to sandbag it? I don’t recall any problems when power was out before. I know of at least 11 homes up above me. ( I decided long ago that a house on the bottom of a hill wasn’t ideal as I get more feet of snow blocking my drive than any one else on the street. Am going to finally ask the men to lift the snow plow when they reach my drive as I really get heavy packed snow even after I have cleared my driveway. Well live and learn.
Think I’ll take a trip to my local Home Depot and talk about this. I also think goods the mice can’t open will now but put into the kitchen pantry after I clear that out and send stuff to the local Food Pantry. I have been thinking about storing mouse proof items on a large plywood plank on sturdy wood horses, I used when occassionaly I had a garage sale. Have to rethink a lot of things this week.I have lived such a carefree existance till now, eventually something always gives you a real good jolt, like just thinking about being inundated with sewerage. Ugh, and 11 other house Ughs.
Think I’ll chat with my immediate next door neighbor and she can talk to her male friend, and I’ll talk to some male friends as they know more about plumbing than I do.
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