Sewage Overflow: What to Do Right Now
Keep everyone away, stop using water, and know whose pipe it is.
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THE SHORT ANSWER
In short
Keep children and pets away and avoid contact: sewage carries bacteria and viruses. Stop using water anywhere in the house. If the overflow is beyond your boundary, neighbours are affected, or it keeps flowing when no water is used, call Sydney Water on 13 20 90. If it only overflows when you use water, it is your private pipe: call us.
DO THIS FIRST
Do this first
1
Keep everyone away
Children and pets away; avoid touching wastewater or wet surfaces.
2
Stop using water
No flushing, showers, washing machines or dishwashers, anywhere in the house.
3
Check whose pipe it is
Overflow beyond your boundary, neighbours affected, or flowing with no water in use: Sydney Water on 13 20 90. Only when you use water: your pipe, call us.
4
Look at the gully outside
Water spilling from the overflow relief gully near your outside tap means the drain is blocked downstream. That gully is doing its job, keeping it out of the house.
5
Record it
Photos for your insurer, from a distance.
SOURCES
Where this advice comes from
WHAT IS HAPPENING
Where the overflow comes from, and whose pipe it is
Sewage overflows when the drain carrying wastewater from your home to the sewer main is blocked or broken. Water from every toilet, shower and sink keeps going in, has nowhere to go, and comes up at the lowest opening it can find.
In most Sydney houses that lowest opening is meant to be the overflow relief gully: the grated gully outside, often near a tap. NSW rules set its top at least 150 mm below the lowest fixture it protects and at least 75 mm above the finished ground (NSW Government), so a blocked sewer spills outside instead of into your home. If sewage comes up inside first, the gully may be missing, covered, set too high or blocked itself.
Whose pipe it is decides who fixes it. Sydney Water is responsible for the wastewater pipes in its network; you are responsible for the pipes from your home to where they connect. Sydney Water says the blockage is likely in its pipes if the overflow is beyond your boundary, neighbours have the same problem, there is widespread flooding, or it keeps overflowing when nobody is using water (Sydney Water).
Sewage can carry bacteria, viruses and parasites that cause gastroenteritis and other illness. Treat everything it has touched as contaminated until it has been cleaned and disinfected.
IS IT URGENT?
How serious is it?
| What you can see | How urgent | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Sewage coming up inside, through a shower, floor waste or toilet | Emergency: call now | Stop all water use, keep people away, call us |
| Overflowing from the gully outside while you use water | Emergency: call now | Stop using water; the gully is protecting the house for now |
| Overflowing in the street, from a maintenance hole, or neighbours affected too | Sydney Water’s side | Call Sydney Water on 13 20 90, 24/7 |
| Flowing continuously even when nobody in the house is using water | Probably Sydney Water’s main | Call 13 20 90; call us if they find it is your pipe |
| A sewer smell and gurgling drains, but nothing overflowing yet | Urgent: today | Use as little water as possible and book us for today |
DO NOT
Don’t make it worse
- Don’t touch sewage with bare hands. Wear gloves, boots and eye protection, as NSW Health advises for any clean-up.
- Don’t lift a maintenance hole cover or dig to find the pipe. Maintenance holes belong to Sydney Water and are dangerous to open.
- Don’t hose sewage into stormwater pits or the gutter: stormwater runs untreated to creeks, harbours and beaches.
- Don’t run the washing machine or dishwasher: each pump-out sends a large volume of water into a drain that can’t take it.
- Don’t pour bleach or drain chemicals into a blocked sewer. They won’t clear it, and they make the clean-up and the clearing more dangerous.
WHY IT HAPPENED
What blocks a sewer drain
We have cleared 365 blocked sewer drains since 2019. Where our plumbers recorded a cause, the most common were: tree roots in the drain line (102 jobs), broken or displaced pipe section (22 jobs), grease and fat build-up in the line (13 jobs), silt and debris build-up (10 jobs), foreign objects or wipes in the line (6 jobs).
| Likely cause | Tell-tale signs | The usual fix |
|---|---|---|
| Tree roots | Slow drains for weeks, gurgling, overflows after rain | Cut and flush with the Jet Blaster, check on CCTV, then relining or a regular maintenance plan |
| Broken or displaced pipe | Repeated blockages, sunken ground, a sewage smell in the yard | Locate on CCTV, then repair or reline |
| Fat, oil and grease | Kitchen drains slow first; white, waxy build-up | Jetting, and keeping fats out of the sink |
| Wipes and other items | A sudden blockage with no warning | Remove with rods, an electric eel or jetting, then a camera check |
| A blockage in Sydney Water’s main | Neighbours affected, or overflow beyond the boundary | Sydney Water clears it; if we find it there, we report it for you |
CLEANING UP SAFELY
Cleaning up after a sewage overflow
NSW Health’s clean-up advice for floodwater applies here too (NSW Health):
- Wear boots, gloves and eye protection the whole time
- Wash hard surfaces with hot soapy water, then disinfect them with a chlorine bleach solution or a product labelled as a disinfectant, and let them dry
- Throw out soft toys; soaked mattresses may need to go too
- Dry the house out as soon as you can: open doors and windows on dry days and use fans
- Wash your hands thoroughly when you finish, and before eating or drinking
Heavily soaked carpet and underlay usually need a specialist cleaner or replacement; ask your insurer before you rip anything out. For health worries, call the NSW Health Public Health Unit on 1300 066 055.
WHEN WE ARRIVE
What we do when we get there
1
Find the blockage point
We open the nearest inspection point and work out whether the blockage is in your pipe or past your boundary.
2
Clear it
The Jet Blaster, our hydro-jetting at up to 5,000 PSI, or drain rods and an electric eel, depending on what is in the line.
3
Camera the line
CCTV footage of the pipe after clearing, so you see the roots, crack or dropped joint behind it.
4
If it is Sydney Water’s
We report it to Sydney Water and pass on the job number, which you need to claim your costs back.
5
Fixed price for any repair
If the pipe is broken, you get a fixed price for the repair or relining before we start.
WHAT IT COSTS
What clearing a sewer costs, and getting it back
Half of our 359 priced blocked sewer drain jobs since 2019 cost between $660 and $1,463, including GST, with a median of $962.
Roots and broken pipes push it toward the top of the range. If the camera shows the pipe needs relining, that is a separate fixed price: see pipe relining costs.
If the blockage turns out to be in Sydney Water’s pipe, you can claim reasonable out-of-pocket costs back from Sydney Water. It asks for the job number the plumber receives when they report the blockage, plus the invoices and supporting documents (Sydney Water).
$0 call-out Monday to Friday, 7:00am to 5:00pm. After hours a call-out fee of $199 to $399 applies, confirmed by text before we dispatch.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE
Who is responsible?
Owners pay for blockages in their private sewer pipes; Sydney Water pays for blockages in its own. Tenants: a blocked or broken toilet system is an urgent repair, and a sewage overflow nearly always comes with one, so tell your agent straight away (tenants: what to do).
In strata, a blocked shared drain or stack is usually common property for the owners corporation; the drain from a single unit’s fixtures, before it joins the shared pipe, usually belongs to that lot (strata: who pays).
INSURANCE
Sewage damage and your insurer
Clearing a blockage is usually treated as maintenance and not covered. Damage from sewage that suddenly backed up into the house may be covered as escape of liquid, depending on the policy, and some policies limit cover where tree roots or a blocked drain caused the damage.
Photograph the damage and the overflow point, keep our CCTV footage, and ask your insurer early about soaked carpet and soft furnishings, which often have to go for health reasons. How to make a claim
NEXT TIME
Prevent it next time
- Never connect a downpipe or any stormwater to the sewer: in heavy rain it overloads the system and causes overflows
- Keep the overflow relief gully grate clear, uncovered and above the ground, and don’t pave or garden over it
- Plant trees at least 6 metres from wastewater pipes; Sydney Water lists figs, willows, plane trees, poplars, large gums and oaks among those to avoid (Sydney Water)
- Scrape fats, oils and food scraps into the bin, never the sink
- If roots have blocked the line before, ask about a regular maintenance plan or relining
QUESTIONS
Sewage overflow questions
WHAT TO DO RIGHT NOW
Other plumbing emergencies
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