Sewage Backup

Hi-I'm Ben, the king of the Paul Davis of Akron's water dogs. My person is Anne, a Project Manager/Associate at Paul Davis Restoration of Akron. Today - I'm supposed to bring you up to speed on sewage...

Ewwww-sounds like a stinky topic. It is!!! It's gross~it's nasty~it happens (haha...get it?). If you've experienced a sewage back up - you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, read on.

So, you get home one night, walk into the house and think "what died in here?"...You sniff around the house, finding nothing and then mosey on down to the lower level (the basement). There, eek gads, you find 3 inches of the most heinous smelling, brownish muck you've ever seen in your life coating the floor of the laundry area & the carpeted "kids room." The couch, chair and bookshelves are right in the middle of it - not to mention the toys strewn across the area - all floating in the nasty sludge. What the??????????????? Ahhhhhhhh, sewage back up from the basement drain - nice.

Sewage - what's in this stuff? All kinds of truly detestable things like human urine & feces, solid wastes, debris, soap - yuck. It's quite literally someone else's crap. These odors are interesting to pooches, for their people - not so much. Raw sewage often contains organic waste and waste water produced by household or industrial sources. It contains a myriad of viruses, bacteria, parasites and protozoa - things like Hepatitis A, B, C; E. Coli, HIV - in you basement, on the floor, on your stuff!!!!!! Gag! Health risks associated with sewage include allergic alveolitis, gastroenteritis, typhoid fever, cholera, infections of the skin & eyes, asthma - to name a few. Extreme exposure can cause fatal damage to the liver, kidneys & blood. You need to act fast ~ you need professionals~ Call Paul ~ We can fix that!

Hopefully, you'll have insurance coverage for sewage back up. What? You mean it's not covered? Well, it's covered - if you purchased the coverage. Better check you policy (now). 40-50% of the sewage claims in Ohio are not covered by insurance. Sewage claims are expensive. Anything porous that comes into contact with raw sewage MUST be discarded and disposed of properly. Oh man - the carpet, the furniture, the toys - yeah - all that! The average amount of homeowners insurance coverage for sewage back up that we see is $5,000. The average cost to clean up and restore a finished basement that has sustained damage from sewage is $10,000 - 30,000. The average cost to clean up an unfinished basement is $7,500 - 9,500. Yeah, better check that policy.