Sewage Cleanup in Atlanta, GA: Your Line, the City’s Main and the Cleanup

When sewage comes up through a floor drain, a tub or a ground-floor toilet, two questions arrive together: how to get the contamination out of the building, and whose pipe failed. In Atlanta the second question has a specific answer. The City puts the whole pipe between a building and its sewer on the property owner, and part of the city still drains through pipes that carry stormwater and sewage together.

Water Damage Services Atlanta is a free referral service that connects callers by phone with independent local restoration providers. It is not a contractor and not a plumber, it does no cleanup work itself, and the provider you are connected with decides its own scope, schedule and price.

This page covers sewage cleanup in Atlanta from the first minute to the insurance claim: what to do before anyone arrives, how to tell a private blockage from a City sewer problem, why this city’s sewers behave the way they do in heavy rain, what a restoration provider typically does with contaminated water, what has to be thrown out, and what published sources say about cost. Each local fact is attributed to the source it comes from.

Three things to do right now

• Keep people and pets out of the area. The EPA’s flood cleanup guidance says children and pets are kept away from sewage water. Close the door to the room if there is one.
• Stop using water in the building. No flushing, no taps, no dishwasher, no washing machine. Every gallon sent down a blocked line has to come back up somewhere, and it comes up at the lowest drain.
• Leave the electricity alone unless you can reach the panel from a dry place. That is CDC guidance for any home with standing water: switch off the main power only from a dry spot, and if getting there means stepping into water, call an electrician instead.

Your line or the City’s main?

Every building on public sewer has a pipe of its own that runs from the structure, across the yard and out to the City sewer. The City calls it the sewer service lateral, and its ATL311 article on the sewer service lateral is plain about it: the property owner is responsible for maintaining and repairing the entire lateral. A blockage, a root mass or a collapsed section anywhere along that pipe is the owner’s repair, and a licensed plumber’s job.

The City’s side begins at the sewer the lateral connects to. Water and sewer in Atlanta are run by the City’s Department of Watershed Management, usually shortened to DWM. Whether the public sewer is involved in a particular backup is for the City to determine, not for a homeowner, a plumber or this site to guess.

Signs that point one way or the other

A few observations help before anyone has put a camera down the pipe. They are indications, not a diagnosis.

What you see	What it usually suggests
One sink, tub or toilet is slow and the rest of the house drains normally	A clog in that fixture’s own drain, close to the fixture
Several low fixtures back up together: the basement floor drain, a ground-floor shower, the lowest toilet	A blockage further down, in the building drain or the lateral
Running the washing machine or an upstairs bath pushes water up through a floor drain	The main line out of the house is not carrying flow away
Sewage appears when nobody in the building is using water	The flow may be coming from outside the building; report it to the City
Neighbors on the same street have the same problem at the same time	A possible problem on the public sewer; report it to the City

Reporting a suspected City backup

For a suspected sewer backup, the City’s instruction is to call its customer service line at once on 404-546-0311, which it says is answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The ATL311 article on sewer backups sets out what follows: a first responder investigates within 8 hours, a confirmed backup can take 4 to 8 hours to contain, and full resolution, including repairs and restoring the property, can take 30 to 45 days.

Those are the City’s stated time frames for its own process. Sewage standing in a building cannot sensibly be left for a month, so owners usually arrange the indoor cleanup straight away and keep a record of everything: photographs, the time of the report, the request number and every receipt. None of the sources read for this page says who pays for indoor damage when a public sewer is at fault. Put that question to the City when you report, and to your insurer.

DWM takes water leak reports on the same number and offers a quick way to tell the two kinds of leak apart outdoors. A water leak runs clear and smells of chlorine. A sewer leak is cloudy and smells like sewage or stormwater.

Finding the cleanout

A plumber’s first stop is usually the cleanout, which the City describes as a direct access point to the sewer drain. In homes built within the last 45 years, the City says, it is usually near the front of the house, under the basement floor where the drain leaves the building. It can also be outside and covered by soil. Knowing where it is before the plumber arrives saves time, and a cleanout that is overflowing outdoors is useful information for whoever takes your report.

Part of the problem	Who deals with it
The City sewer, a manhole or a suspected backup from the public side	City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management, reported on 404-546-0311
The sewer service lateral and the drains inside the building	A licensed plumber, hired by the property owner
Contaminated water, soaked materials, cleaning, disinfection and drying indoors	A restoration provider, which is who a call to this site connects you with
Whether any of it is covered	Your insurance agent or insurer

Why Atlanta’s sewers back up

Across most of Atlanta, rainwater and sewage travel in separate pipes, but not everywhere. The City’s Clean Water Atlanta questions and answers say the combined sewer system, where stormwater and sewage share one pipe, represents 15 percent of the city. The page places it in the central part of Atlanta: downtown, Midtown near Piedmont Park, the Georgia Tech and Georgia Dome areas, and parts of east Atlanta near Grant Park. The other 85 percent is separated.

That page is undated and old enough to name the Georgia Dome, which no longer stands, so treat the list as the City’s general description and not as a street map. The principle does not age. In a combined area a hard storm fills the same pipe that carries a building’s waste, and a pipe that is full has less room for what the building sends into it.

A lawsuit, a consent decree and what has been built since

The same City page records how the system came under court supervision. The U.S. EPA, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division and the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper sued the City of Atlanta in 1995. In 1998 the City signed a court-ordered consent decree agreeing to eliminate combined sewer overflow water quality violations by November 2007.

Under its Clean Water Atlanta program the City reports investing $2 billion in wastewater infrastructure. Its own totals, which are undated, are 11 miles of combined sewers separated in downtown Atlanta, 1,574 miles of sewer mains evaluated citywide, 373 miles of sewers repaired and rehabilitated, and 18 miles of sewer tunnels built at Nancy Creek and the West Area Combined Sewer Overflow facility.

The combined sewer overflow projects alone cost $610,048,070 to build, by the City’s figures. The largest was the West Area CSO Tunnel at $210,231,000, substantially completed in October 2008, alongside sewer separation in the McDaniel, Stockade and Greensferry basins and facilities at Custer Avenue and Intrenchment Creek.

None of that means the problem is closed. The U.S. EPA describes Proctor Creek, which runs through downtown Atlanta to the Chattahoochee River, as plagued by pollution, erosion and high bacteria levels from regular stormwater flooding and sewage overflows, and says surrounding communities face public health threats related to flooding and sewer overflow discharges.

Rain that loads the system

Atlanta gets rain all year. NOAA’s 1991 to 2020 monthly normals for Hartsfield-Jackson add up to 50.43 inches in an average year, with July the wettest month at 4.75 inches and several cooler months not far behind. Single days matter more to a sewer than monthly totals. On January 9, 2024 the city set a daily rainfall record of 2.75 inches.

The extreme case is recent. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Atlanta recorded 11.12 inches of rain in a 48-hour period during Hurricane Helene, between September 25 and September 27, 2024, and National Weather Service records show a daily record of 7.62 inches on September 27. Backups reported during storms like these are consistent with pipes carrying far more than their usual load, though no general figure explains what happened at any one address. Water that came in over the ground is a different job, covered on the flood damage restoration in Atlanta page.

Causes on the private side

Not every backup has anything to do with the City or the weather. Grease that sets in the pipe, wipes and other items that do not break down, tree roots that find a joint, and old pipe that has sagged or cracked are the ordinary causes of a blocked lateral, and a plumber’s camera is how they are told apart. Atlanta has a large stock of older homes: by 2024 American Community Survey estimates, 66,922 of the city’s housing units, 23.5 percent, were built before 1960. An older house is more likely to have an older lateral, though age alone says nothing about the condition of any one pipe.

The first hour: what to do and what to leave alone

Once people are out of the room and the water use has stopped, the next hour is about not making things worse. The steps below come from federal and state health guidance and run in a sensible order for someone standing in a hallway with a phone.

1. Report it if the City’s sewer may be involved. If sewage is rising while no water is being used, or neighbors are affected, call the City’s customer service line given above and note the time and the request number.
2. Photograph everything from the doorway. Wide shots first, then the drain or fixture the sewage came from, then anything it has touched. The joint federal guide for homeowners and renters puts contacting the insurer and photographing the home ahead of cleanup.
3. Do not set up fans. The EPA says not to use fans until the water is known to be clean or sanitary. The flood clean-up guide that the Georgia Department of Public Health links to gives the reason: in a house contaminated with sewage, moving air can spread germs to other rooms.
4. Leave the heating and cooling off if it serves the affected area. The EPA says a system touched by flood water must not be used to help dry the house. A system that draws air from a contaminated room carries that air to the others.
5. If you must step in, dress for it. CDC’s guidance for anyone who has to enter floodwater is rubber boots, rubber gloves and goggles, and sewage calls for no less.
6. Treat any cut at once. The EPA says a cut or scrape that touches flood water or sewage should be washed and disinfected immediately.
7. Move only what is dry and in the way. Leave soaked items where they are until they have been photographed and someone equipped for contaminated materials decides what happens to them.

Two things people reach for should stay in the closet: the household wet vacuum, which will be contaminated by the job, and the box fan. If the water is still rising, the plumber comes before everything else. For clean water from a supply line the first steps are different, and the emergency water removal in Atlanta page sets them out.

Can a backed-up sewer make you sick?

Yes. The restoration trade sorts water into three categories by how contaminated it is, and sewage sits in the worst one. Category 3 water, under the trade’s S500 standard, is grossly contaminated water that can carry disease-causing, toxin-producing or otherwise harmful agents and can cause severe adverse health effects if touched or swallowed.

Public health sources say the same thing in plainer words. The CDC’s floodwater safety page lists the illnesses and injuries linked to floodwater exposure as wound infections, skin rash, gastrointestinal illness and tetanus. The joint federal guide for homeowners and renters adds that water which carried sewage indoors can expose a household to viruses, bacteria and parasites.

Exposure happens through the mouth, through broken skin and through contact with surfaces that look dry but were wet an hour ago. That is why the guidance keeps children and pets away, and why the federal guide says children should not take part in cleanup at all. The same guide says people with asthma, other breathing problems or weakened immune systems should stay out of moldy spaces, which a sewage-soaked room can become if it is left.

This page is not medical advice. Anyone who feels unwell after contact with sewage, or who has a wound that touched it, should speak to a doctor and say what the exposure was.

Will a plumber clean up sewage?

Generally not. Clearing the line and cleaning the building are different halves of the same job. The plumber finds out why the line stopped carrying waste and clears or repairs it. The restoration provider removes the contaminated water and materials from the building, cleans and disinfects what stays, and dries the structure.

Most backups need both. If sewage is still rising the plumber comes first, because cleaning a floor that is still being flooded achieves nothing. Once the flow has stopped, the two can often work on the same day.

Georgia regulates the plumbing half by statute. State law defines plumbing to include installing, maintaining, altering or repairing piping and fixtures connected with sanitary drainage (O.C.G.A. 43-14-2), and nobody may work as a master plumber or journeyman plumber in Georgia without a valid license from the state’s Division of Master Plumbers and Journeyman Plumbers (O.C.G.A. 43-14-8).

The cleanup half is where the EPA’s advice applies. Its mold cleanup guidance says that when water damage was caused by sewage or other contaminated water, the owner should call in a professional who has experience with buildings damaged by contaminated water. This site connects callers with restoration providers. Whether the provider you reach also arranges plumbing is a question to ask on the call.

What a restoration provider typically does

Each provider is independent and writes its own scope, so what follows is a description of the usual sequence for a Category 3 loss, not a promise about any one job. Ask the provider you are connected with to walk you through its own version before work begins.

1. Assessment. The provider establishes where the sewage went, including under flooring and into wall cavities, and whether the source has been stopped.
2. Containment and protective equipment. The EPA states that when water is known or suspected to be contaminated with sewage, protective equipment and containment are required by OSHA and an experienced professional should be consulted. In practice the work area is separated from the clean part of the building.
3. Extraction. Standing sewage and solids are removed and disposed of.
4. Removal of porous materials. Carpet, pad, wet drywall, insulation and similar materials that took up contaminated water are cut out and bagged.
5. Cleaning. Remaining hard surfaces are washed. FEMA’s guidance is that disinfectants are meant for surfaces that have already been cleaned, so this step is never skipped.
6. Disinfection. The cleaned surfaces are treated with a disinfectant and given time to work.
7. Drying with readings. Only after cleaning does air movement and dehumidification begin, with moisture readings taken until the structure is dry.
8. Odor treatment and a final check. Odor that survives cleaning usually means contaminated material is still in place somewhere.

Rebuilding the room is a separate scope that starts once the structure is dry: new drywall, flooring, trim and paint. The water damage repair in Atlanta page covers that stage.

The bleach figures in the public guidance

For readers dealing with a small spill on a hard surface, the published mixes differ, and both come after washing with soap or detergent and water. CDC’s bleach cleaner for hard surfaces after a flood is one cup of household bleach in one gallon of water. The EPA’s flood cleanup questions and answers give a weaker mix for hard, non-porous surfaces after sewage contamination: one cup of unscented household bleach in five gallons of water. FEMA says a disinfecting bleach solution should stay on the surface for at least 10 minutes before it is rinsed or left to dry.

What is thrown out and what is saved

The rule that surprises people is how much has to go. The EPA’s table of what can be dried and kept after water damage applies only to clean water. It does not apply when the source is sewage. With black water, HomeAdvisor’s cost guide (updated June 17, 2026) notes, everything porous it reaches takes up contaminants, including upholstered furniture, beds, carpeting, clothing and porous building materials.

Item	Usual outcome after sewage contact	Source
Drywall and insulation	Removed and discarded, not dried in place	CDC
Carpet, rugs and carpet pad	Discarded and replaced if they cannot be thoroughly dried and cleaned; the subfloor beneath is cleaned and dried either way	EPA
Upholstered furniture and mattresses	Discarded if they cannot be disinfected	EPA
Pillows, books and wall coverings	On CDC’s list of items to throw away when they cannot be cleaned and dried quickly	CDC
Furniture made of pressed particle material	Treated as porous; when in doubt, thrown out	FEMA
Solid wood furniture and other hard surfaces	Kept after washing and disinfecting	FEMA, CDC
Concrete floors and ceramic tile	Kept after washing, disinfecting and drying	General trade practice
Clothes and washable fabrics	Washed in hot water and detergent	CDC

Carpet is the item people most want to save and the one least often worth saving after sewage. The pad underneath acts as a sponge and cannot be cleaned, and the EPA’s test for the carpet itself is whether it can be thoroughly dried and cleaned. Before anything goes to the curb, photograph it and check with your insurer, since the Insurance Information Institute advises against throwing damaged items out before the adjuster has seen them, while FEMA’s flood claim guidance allows items that pose a health risk to be discarded once they are documented.

Toilet overflows

A toilet overflow is not always a sewage problem; what matters is where the water came from and what was in it. Clean supply water from the tank or the fill line is Category 1, the same as a broken supply pipe. General summaries of the trade categories list a toilet bowl holding urine but no feces among typical Category 2, or grey water, sources. Once sewage is involved, whether from a full bowl or from water coming back up the drain, the same summaries class it as Category 3.

The first move is the same in every case: close the shut-off valve on the wall behind the toilet, or lift the float in the tank, and stop flushing. Do not plunge or flush again to test it while water is on the floor.

Then look at what is on the floor. HomeAdvisor’s water damage guide says an owner can handle a small clean-water leak in one room and that anything more serious is a job for a water restoration professional. A clean-water overflow caught quickly on a tiled bathroom floor is a mop job. Water with waste in it, water that has run under a wall or into a carpeted hall, and anything that came back up through the drain are not.

Time changes the category too, because clean water can deteriorate to Category 2 or 3 depending on time, temperature and the growth of microbes, so an overflow left overnight is not the same job it was at the start. And an upstairs overflow rarely stays upstairs. Water finds the gap around the toilet flange or the edge of the floor and shows up as a stain or a sagging patch in the ceiling below, which is a repair covered on the water damage repair in Atlanta page. A supply line that splits is a different event again, and belongs with burst pipe water damage in Atlanta.

How long it takes and when the room can be used

No honest page can give a number of days for a job nobody has seen, and this site promises none. What can be described is the sequence and what stretches it.

Removal and cleaning come first. Drying comes second, and FEMA’s published figure is that a wet or contaminated area usually takes two to three days to dry completely, with rebuilding waiting until then. HomeAdvisor’s guide puts a water-damaged home at around five days to dry, depending on the damage.

• How long the sewage sat. The longer it stood, the further it wicked up walls and into subfloor, and the more has to come out.
• Finished or unfinished space. A bare concrete basement is washed and dried. A finished one has drywall, insulation, flooring and trim to remove first.
• Whether the source is fixed. Drying a room while the lateral is still blocked invites a second backup.
• Mold. The EPA says mold will not grow, in most cases, if wet materials are dried within 24 to 48 hours. Past that window the job can grow into mold remediation in Atlanta.
• Rebuild. New drywall, flooring and paint are scheduled separately and often by a different trade.

As for using the room again, the practical test is that the contaminated materials are gone, the surfaces that stayed have been cleaned and disinfected, and the structure reads dry. Where mold was part of the job, the joint federal guide gives a simple finish line: no visible mold, no mold odor and no remaining signs of water damage. Ask the provider what readings or checks it will show you before it calls the job done.

What sewage cleanup costs

The provider sets the price after seeing the damage. This site does not quote, set or collect prices, and the call itself is free. What can be offered is a published third-party estimate, with its date, so a quote can be read against something.

Published figure	Amount	Source
Cleanup, clean water, per square foot	About $3.50	HomeAdvisor, updated June 17, 2026, national
Cleanup, grey water, per square foot	About $5.25	HomeAdvisor, updated June 17, 2026, national
Cleanup, black water, per square foot	About $7.50	HomeAdvisor, updated June 17, 2026, national
Water damage restoration, national average	$3,868, with most homeowners paying $1,383 to $6,369 in 2025	HomeAdvisor, updated June 17, 2026, national
Drywall repair, as a separate stage	About $300 to $850	HomeAdvisor, updated June 17, 2026, national

These are HomeAdvisor’s national estimates, not Atlanta prices and not a provider’s rates. Black water costs about twice as much per square foot as clean water in that guide, and the likely reason is plain: the work is done in protective equipment, inside containment, and far more material is removed than dried.

The things that move a real quote are the area affected, how long the sewage sat, whether the space is finished, how much has to be cut out and hauled away, and whether contents need handling. Expect up to three separate bills: the plumber’s for the line, the restoration provider’s for cleanup and drying, and the rebuild. Ask for each scope in writing, line by line, which is also what the Insurance Information Institute advises for any claim.

Insurance: the backup endorsement

This is the part many owners learn too late. The Insurance Information Institute says sewer backups are not covered by a typical homeowners policy and are not covered by flood insurance either. The cover has to be bought as a separate product or as an endorsement to the homeowners policy. The Institute also notes that some policies cover sewer and drain backups but many do not.

The exclusion is written into the standard form. The sample of the ISO HO-3 homeowners form published by the Institute (the 10 00 edition) defines its water damage exclusion in three parts, and one of them is water that backs up through sewers or drains or overflows from a sump. A real policy can differ from the sample, which is why the declarations page and any endorsements are the documents to read.

A toilet overflow may be a different question from a main-line backup. The same sample form names accidental discharge or overflow of water from a plumbing system as a covered peril, and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners describes the plumbing loss a homeowners policy pays for as a discharge that is both sudden and accidental. Which side of that line a given event lands on is the insurer’s call, not a website’s. Nothing here promises that a claim will be paid.

• Call your agent or insurer promptly and ask one direct question: does this policy include water backup cover?
• Photograph the damage before anything is moved or thrown away, and keep receipts for what you spend.
• Keep the plumber’s written finding on where the blockage was. It is evidence of the cause.
• If a dispute with an insurer cannot be settled, the Consumer Services Division of Georgia’s Office of Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire answers insurance questions and takes complaints; its toll-free line is (800) 656-2298.

Renters, condos and businesses

Atlanta is a city of renters. By 2024 American Community Survey estimates, renters occupy 127,924 of the city’s 244,482 occupied homes, or 52.3 percent. A renter’s first steps are the same three as anyone’s, followed by a report to the landlord or property manager, made in writing as well as by phone, with photographs and the time. This page does not state Georgia landlord and tenant law, and a renter with a dispute should get advice on it.

One expectation is worth correcting. The Georgia Department of Public Health’s Environmental Health Section says that for indoor air quality it regulates only the tourist accommodations segment, meaning hotels, motels and the like. A tenant has no reason to expect a state health inspection of an apartment after a backup.

In a condo or apartment building, sewage from one unit’s drain may have traveled through a shared stack, so the building manager needs to know at once whichever unit it surfaced in. Shops and restaurants should close off the affected area, keep staff and customers out of it, and tell the provider on the call about floor drains, grease lines and whether any food preparation or storage area was reached.

Your tap water and a backup are separate things

People searching this topic often ask whether Atlanta’s water is safe to drink, a question left over from the water main breaks of May 31, 2024, when a boil water advisory covered the affected areas. A sewage backup inside a building is a drain-side event. Boil water advisories concern the supply side and are announced by DWM. This page says nothing about the state of the supply today; the City’s own channels are the place to check.

Check the provider you are connected with

The providers reached through this site are independent businesses, and this site does not warrant their work. Verifying license and insurance is the owner’s job, and Georgia makes parts of it easy.

• Plumbing always needs a license. If the same company offers to repair the sewer line, ask for the plumber’s license. The Georgia Attorney General’s office says plumbers must be licensed through the Secretary of State’s office.
• Rebuild work above $2,500. Georgia’s statutory definition of a residential contractor applies where the total value of the work exceeds $2,500. The Attorney General’s office also says some trades, drywall contractors and painters among them, are not required to hold a state license, so ask the provider which license, if any, covers the rebuild it proposes.
• Cleanup itself. None of the Georgia sources checked for this page names a state license or certification specific to water damage restoration. Ask instead what training the crew has for contaminated water and how it protects the rest of the building.
• Look the license up. The Attorney General’s consumer site gives the route: sos.ga.gov, then Licensing, then Licensee Search, then the Building and Contractors tab.
• Insurance. The state contractors board advises asking for proof of general liability insurance and checking that the name on it matches the licensed person or business.
• Scope in writing. What will be removed, what will be cleaned, how drying will be measured and what the price covers.
• A warning sign. The Attorney General says a contractor’s offer to pay the homeowner’s insurance deductible can be the sign of a scam.

The same checks apply to any job arranged through this site, and the homepage on water damage restoration in Atlanta sets out the same checks. Do them before work starts, not after a dispute.

Making the call

The call is free to the caller and connects you with an independent local restoration provider. It helps to have a few things ready: the address, where the sewage is and roughly how much floor it covers, how long it has been there, whether a plumber has stopped the source, and the name of your insurer. Some participating providers take emergency calls at night and on weekends; availability varies and is not guaranteed by this site.

To read more about the service itself, see how this free service works. For the parts of the city the pages on this site describe, see the Atlanta neighborhoods covered.

Questions people ask