sewer backup Articles
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Top Reasons You May Need Vacuum Truck Services
Almost every building will have at least one plumbing emergency during its service life. Such emergencies can involve sewage-line blockages, drain blockages, grease trap blockages, sewer backups, and septic tank overflows. Buildings that are in areas vulnerable to flooding may experience these problems more often than those that do not. When these plumbing blockages occur, they not only produce a ...
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What Is a Sewer Camera Inspection?
If you’ve done any research on sewer line issues, you’ve probably seen much information about “sewer cameras” or “video pipe cameras.” Any sewer camera inspector or plumber worth any value will utilize this visual inspection technique when diagnosing sewer backups or any other sewer pipe drainage issues. It is worth the time and effort to know what sewer camera ...
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Is There Anything that I Can do to Reduce Sewer Backups
Each time you wash your hands, take a shower, flush the toilet, do your dishes, or run your garbage disposal you put your sewer system to work. With so many daily and sometimes hourly activities that put your sewer lines and septic tank system to work at your home is important to know that even a small clog or blockage can cause problems for this engineered waste system. Unfortunately, many ...
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Next-generation water monitors
Fancy IoT gadgets can now check the water flow in a home or business and warn of any potential flood incidents. Here’s how they can save the industry a bundle Imagine you’re driving along on your daily commute. Suddenly, the engine seizes. The car grinds to a halt. Thick black smoke begins pouring out of the hood of your car as you wonder what happened. At the garage, ...
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Cleaning mold containing surfaces
Once a determination is made that a moldy surface can be cleaned instead of removed or demolished, what cleaning agents are effective in removing or killing the mold? Many factors influence the selection of a cleaning agent. 1). The type of surface to be cleaned: Is it porous? Hard such as cement or sheetrock? Soft, such as cloth, fabric or wallpaper? Absorbent and thick such as rugs, carpet, ...
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Northwest Side Relief Sewer
Meticulous planning, design and construction management went into devising reliable solutions for this award-winning tunnel project that alleviated persistent flooding and improved the community's water quality. Like many U.S. cities, Milwaukee faced a serious and growing problem. Population growth and urban development had produced ever-increasing volumes of wastewater and stormwater. Aging and ...
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Mold Control Information Series – Article #5
Cleaning Mold-Containing Surfaces Once a determination is made that a moldy surface can be cleaned instead of removed or demolished, what cleaning agents are effective in removing or killing the mold? Many factors influence the selection of a cleaning agent, such as: 1) The type of surface to be cleaned. Is it hard such as cement or sheetrock? Soft, such as cloth, fabric or wallpaper? ...
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What too much water can do to your collection systems
In areas with a high water table, or for cities more prone to flooding, your underground infrastructure can become inundated with groundwater and stormwater. And despite stormwater systems being built for this type of collection, there are a number of things that can go wrong for both types of collection systems underground—and above ground—that can lead to contamination or degraded ...
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Banishing backups - Case Study
Cities eliminate backups & overflows with remote manhole monitoring Sewer backups are an ongoing problem for municipalities in the U.S. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, up to 75,000 annual backups and overflows account for 10 billion gal of untreated wastewater discharge. Underground infrastructure management is difficult for many utilities, but there is equipment that ...
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Fats, Oils and Grease Reclamation: A Modern Perspective on Municipal Fats, Oils & Grease Management
Brian Levine discusses the growing trend of wastewater utilities to combine best practices with cutting-edge technologies, like Greasezilla, to support resource recovery, efficiency and sustainability Fats, oils and grease (FOG) are a dirty and difficult challenge for the wastewater industry. Annually, FOG costs municipalities millions of dollars to manage. When not properly intercepted, FOG can ...
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City of Ottawa Tackles System Overflow and Flooding with Tempest Inlet Controls Case Study
Over the past few decades, rain events throughout North America have become more frequent and substantial. The combination of increased rain and outdated infrastructure has caused many municipality storm sewers and drainage systems to exceed capacity, resulting in flooding and additional expense. To cost-effectively mitigate the problem, municipalities are turning to the use of inlet control ...
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Danbury’s FOG-to-fuel solution
An innovative FOG-to-Biodiesel approach addresses a costly problem for the wastewater industry and also generates a new energy resource for treatment operations. Brian Levine of GreasezillaTM and Al Barbarotta of REA explain. Fats, oils, and grease (FOG) waste is a serious and growing problem for the wastewater industry and the environment. Every year, grease costs municipalities millions of ...
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What’s that Smell in my Office?
Have you ever gone into the office on Monday morning and noticed a strange smell that wasn’t there on Friday? What’s worse, by noon you don’t feel so good! Maybe it is a headache, or your eyes burn, or your throat is sore, or your skin itches or you just can’t concentrate on your work. The question in your mind is obvious: Is the smell connected to my symptoms and could ...
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I think I smell sewer gas – what should i do?
The first thing is to make sure the smell is sewer gas—usually a rotten egg smell—and not a natural gas smell—usually smells like a skunk. If you think it’s the natural gas smell, call the natural gas company immediately and if it’s anything but a very faint small—evacuate your home, office, or whenever it is—and wait for the gas company to give you an ...
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After the flood - preventing mold
Beyond the direct water damage from a flood, there can be short term and long term problems with mold growth, whether the building is commercial or residential. The source of the water is the first important issue. Consider the following: 1.) If the flood is from surface water flooding such as heavy rains, hurricanes, and overflowing rivers this means dirt and debris. This material is a rich ...
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Community Spotlight: Oakland. Maine - Case Study
Problem: The Town of Oakland, Maine has approximately 11.6 miles of gravity sewer piping, 52% of which is newer PVC pipe, with the remainder including a mix of clay, transite and fiberglass pipe. With only 800 mostly residential customers, and limited budget for maintenance, the Town needed a means to prioritize the cleaning and CCTV inspection of the collection system piping. Historically, the ...
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Mold Control Information Series – Article #3
After the Flood: Preventing Mold Beyond the direct water damage from a flood, there can be short term and long term problems with mold growth, whether the building is commercial or residential. The source of water is the first important issue. Consider the following: 1). If the flood is from surface water floodings such as heavy rains, hurricanes, and overflowing rivers, this means dirt and ...
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Tapping Energy From Fatbergs
Fatbergs, massive accretions of grease and debris, are a big problem in sewers, but decentralized and sustainable solutions have been proposed It weighed as much as a blue whale and was even longer, but Londoners didn’t realize it was lurking beneath their streets until ancient sewer tunnels backed up. The blockage turned out to be the world’s largest recorded fatberg, a monolithic ...
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Water Level Sensor Can Monitor Rising Water in Elevator Pits
During torrential rains in the Summer of 2018, two men became trapped inside an elevator after the elevator pit flooded in a parking garage in Toronto. They were rescued but the incident raises the question of how to better monitor the water level in elevator pits. A new sump pump sensor could be the answer. Toronto was experiencing a tremendous rain storm, accumulating up to 50 millimeters ...
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I Think I Smell Sewer Gas – Home or Office – Who Can Help?
Posted by atlanticei If you need sewer gas assistance as discussed in this article, call us at 1-800-344-4414 or email us at info@atlenv.com for details and a free estimate. Written By: Robert E. Sheriff, MS, CIH, CSP, President Is It Sewer Gas? The first thing to do is make sure the smell is sewer gas—usually a rotten egg smell—and not a natural gas smell, which usually smells ...
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