Florence, Florence County, South Carolina
Plumber Florence SC: The Water in Your Pipes Probably Came From Under the House, Not From the River
Florence sits in the Pee Dee, a short drive from one of the largest rivers in South Carolina, and it does draw from it. But the river plant is the smaller half of the supply. The City runs fourteen separate groundwater treatment plants fed by thirty three wells, and between them they produce more than twice what the river plant does on an average day.
That is not a piece of trivia. Groundwater and river water arrive at a house having been through completely different treatment, and one of those trains exists specifically to take iron out. Which plant serves your street is a reasonable first question when something in your plumbing behaves oddly and nothing you have replaced has fixed it.
This page collects what the City of Florence actually publishes about its water, its sewer and its permit counter, including two things on its own website that are worth knowing before you send anybody an email.
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Fourteen Plants, Thirty Three Wells and Two Named Aquifers at Two Different Depths
The City publishes the shape of its groundwater system in unusual detail. Fourteen groundwater treatment plants. Water delivered to them from thirty three wells. The deep wells are set in the McQueen Aquifer System and average about 350 feet. The shallow wells pump out of the Crouch Aquifer and average about 135 feet. Collectively those plants produce an average of 10.5 million gallons a day.
Alongside them, the Frank E. Willis Pee Dee Regional Water Treatment Plant treats raw water from the Great Pee Dee River. Its present permit capacity is 10 million gallons a day and it currently produces an average of 4.5 million. So the river plant is running at well under half of what it is allowed, while the wells carry the larger share of the city.
Two treatment trains, and only one of them is about iron
- Water is aerated, then lime and chlorine are added.
- It then passes through iron removal filters, which is the step that tells you what is in the raw water in the first place.
- Fluoride is added, and the water goes to the distribution system, where fourteen elevated storage tanks provide fire protection and system pressure.
- Ferric sulfate, rapid mix and a polymer coagulant aid, with caustic soda for pH adjustment as needed, then sedimentation.
- Sodium hypochlorite in the settled water channel, then filtration to below 0.3 turbidity units as the state requires.
- Then lime in the transfer well, raising pH to between 7.5 and 8.0, and the City states the purpose plainly: to help control pipe corrosion.
That last line is the one worth carrying away. A utility adding lime to protect pipework is telling you that the water would otherwise be more aggressive to metal than it should be, and it is doing something about that at the plant rather than leaving it to the plumbing. It also means the pH of what reaches your fittings is a deliberately set number rather than an accident.
One more figure from the same pages, because it is the most concrete quality-control number the City gives. It samples 252 sites across the distribution system every quarter, checking for total coliform and for E. coli, and the state regulator runs an annual sanitary survey of the whole production and distribution system that normally takes three days.
A Necessary Aside
Florence Is One of the Least Unique City Names in the Country
We normally put this sort of note at the bottom of a page. Here it belongs near the top, because the risk of reading advice meant for somewhere else is real and because most sources you will find online do not draw the distinction at all.
There are real, incorporated places called Florence in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Arizona, Oregon, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Montana, Colorado and Texas among others. There is a Florence-Graham in Los Angeles County with tens of thousands of residents. And there is the one in Italy, which is what most of the internet means by the word.
Two of those are close enough to cause real trouble. Florence, Alabama is a Lauderdale County city of comparable size. Florence, Kentucky sits in Boone County beside Cincinnati, and it has its own quite different water arrangement: our Cincinnati page describes how Greater Cincinnati Water Works has sold water to Boone County and Florence through a pipeline under the Ohio River since 2003. Nothing about that applies here, and nothing here applies there.
When we measured how much genuine demand exists for plumbing help in this city, we counted only search phrases that name South Carolina explicitly and refused everything else, including a large body of demand that a keyword tool had filed under Alabama purely because the states are in alphabetical order. We would rather quote a smaller number we can defend than a bigger one that belongs to somebody else’s town.
The Permit Portal Is Down, and the Published Email Address Has a Letter Missing
The City’s Building and Permitting Department states that its online permitting portal is currently unavailable and that it is accepting applications in person or by email instead. That is worth knowing on its own, because most people now assume a portal exists and go looking for a login rather than an inbox.
The second thing is smaller and costs more. In the sentence telling you to apply by email, the address is given twice within a few words, and the two spellings are not the same. One of them is missing a letter from the city name. An application sent to the misspelled version does not arrive and does not obviously fail either, which is the worst kind of mistake to make with a permit.
We are not going to reprint either version here, because printing a typo is how a typo travels. The safe move is to copy the address from the department page yourself, read it back a character at a time before sending, and follow up by telephone if you have not had an acknowledgement. The department also publishes a direct number, and a call costs nothing.
While you are on that page, note which forms exist, because the list tells you how the department works. There is a single combined application for building and trades permits rather than separate ones. There is a form specifically for new contractors working in the city for the first time. There is a subcontractor list to be filled in for a job. And there are separate certificates for insulation and fenestration, and for duct sealing, which are the kind of thing that gets remembered on the day of the inspection rather than at application.
The Plumbing Code Here Is the International Plumbing Code, and the Ordinance Says So Oddly
South Carolina adopts building codes at state level through its Building Codes Council, and the City incorporates them into its own code of ordinances. The list Florence publishes is worth reading for two reasons.
| Code | Edition adopted |
|---|---|
| International Plumbing Code | 2021 |
| International Building Code | 2021 |
| International Residential Code | 2021 |
| International Mechanical Code | 2021 |
| International Fuel Gas Code | 2021 |
| International Fire Code | 2021 |
| International Existing Building Code | 2021 |
| International Property Maintenance Code | 2021 |
| National Electrical Code | 2020 |
The first reason is the plumbing code itself. This is the International Plumbing Code, which is not the same document as the Uniform Plumbing Code used in a number of other states we cover. Fixture unit tables, venting rules and materials lists differ between the two. A contractor who has just moved from a Uniform Plumbing Code state is working to a different book here, and that is a fair question to ask.
The second reason is presentational and we mention it only so nobody is confused by it. Every entry on the published list is followed by an identical parenthetical describing it as the international building code as promulgated by the state council, including the entries for plumbing, mechanical, electrical and fuel gas. That is plainly a copying artefact rather than a statement of law. The operative point is that the state promulgates and the city adopts, and if a code edition matters to your job, the state council and the building official are the two places to confirm it.
The Tanker Question
Septic Waste Has a Door Here. Grease Does Not.
The City publishes what its treatment works will take from a tanker, and the two answers are opposite. Septic tank waste may be introduced into the publicly owned treatment works at a designated site at the Water Reclamation Management Facility. Grease trap waste is prohibited from the treatment works and from the sewer collection system, and no exception is published alongside it.
The septic route is not casual either. Every hauler must hold an account with the City before being allowed to dump, and must provide a waste tracking form for every load. That form has to name the hauler and its address, the permit number, the truck, the names and addresses of the sources of the waste, and the volume and characteristics of it. It has to identify the type of industry, any known or suspected constituents, and whether any of the waste is hazardous under the federal waste regulations. The City may also require an analysis of a load before it is discharged.
For a household on septic this is mostly reassurance: the tanker that empties your tank is operating inside a paper trail. For anybody running a restaurant, a takeaway or any premises with a grease interceptor it is a cost signal, and it is the practical point of this section. If the local treatment works will not accept the contents of your trap, the disposal leg of that job involves a longer journey to somewhere that will. Ask where a quoted pump-out is actually going before you compare prices, because that leg is the part that varies.
The City Publishes a Leak Hunt You Can Run Yourself, and It Is Worth Running
Florence puts a do-it-yourself leak detection procedure on its own utilities pages. We are going to endorse it rather than talk around it, because it is correct and because a household that runs it either solves the problem for the price of a flapper or arrives at us already knowing something useful.
- Read the meter, then leave it alone
Note the position of the red clock-style hand that records individual gallons. Use no water inside or outside for at least fifteen to thirty minutes, then read it again. If the hand has not moved, there is probably no sizeable leak.
- Then do it again overnight, which is the part people skip
The City notes that waiting longer between readings, overnight for instance, helps detect smaller leaks. A thirty minute test only catches a large one. Most expensive leaks are slow.
- Dye the toilet tank
Add a few drops of food colouring to the water in the cistern and wait one to two hours. If colour appears in the bowl without a flush, that usually means a leaking flapper, which is cheap and easy to replace. While the lid is off, check the float level, and if water is running into the overflow tube, adjust it.
- Isolate the buried run
Turn off the water at the house cut-off and open a tap to confirm the valve has actually closed. Then go out to the meter. If the meter is still turning with the house valve shut, the leak is in the pipe between the meter and the house, which is a different job and a different conversation.
- Repeat the test after the repair
The City says this explicitly and it is the step that gets forgotten. Running the same meter test again is how you find out whether there was one leak or two.
Two practical notes from the City’s own leak reporting page sit alongside that. During normal hours, leaks are reported to Public Works; after hours and on holidays those calls are forwarded through police dispatch to on-call personnel, which is how a lot of smaller cities handle a utility emergency at three in the morning. And the City states its repair responsibility runs to the point of delivery, which is the water meter. Beyond the meter it is private plumbing.
If the overnight test says water is moving and nothing above finds it, that is the point at which equipment beats guesswork. Our leak detection page covers what happens next, and sewer line repair covers the case where the problem turns out to be on the drainage side rather than the supply side.
Work We Take On in Florence
The ordinary residential and light commercial range, with two local qualifications: the permit route currently runs through email rather than a portal, and the plumbing code in force here is the International Plumbing Code rather than the Uniform one.
Leak detection
Starting after the City’s own overnight meter test, not instead of it.
Hydro jetting
For grease and heavy build up that keeps coming back a few weeks after cabling.
Water heater work
Repair and replacement, tank and tankless, with the permit question settled first.
Emergency plumbing
For the failure that cannot wait for the permit counter to open.
Plumber Florence SC Questions, Answered From the City’s Own Pages
Answers taken from City of Florence published utilities and building department pages. Several of them tell you to do something yourself or to ring somebody other than us.
Mostly from underground. The City runs fourteen groundwater treatment plants fed by thirty three wells, with deep wells in the McQueen Aquifer System averaging around 350 feet and shallow wells in the Crouch Aquifer averaging around 135 feet, producing an average of 10.5 million gallons a day between them. The Frank E. Willis Pee Dee Regional Water Treatment Plant treats Great Pee Dee River water and averages 4.5 million gallons a day against a 10 million gallon permit.
Because the groundwater contains iron. The City states that groundwater is aerated, lime and chlorine are added, and the water then passes through iron removal filters before fluoride is added and it enters the distribution system. We are not going to give staining advice on this page, because that is covered properly elsewhere on this site, but the presence of that filtration step is a straightforward statement about what is in the raw water.
On the river side, deliberately. The City states that after filtration the water goes to a transfer well where lime is added to raise the pH to between 7.5 and 8.0, and gives two reasons: pH adjustment and helping to control pipe corrosion. That is a set number rather than an accident, which is useful context if anybody tells you the water here is eating your fittings.
At the time of writing, not online. The Building and Permitting Department states that its online permitting portal is currently unavailable and that it is accepting applications in person or by email. There is a single combined application form for building and trades permits, a separate form for contractors new to the city, and a subcontractor list. Check the email address on the department page carefully before sending, and follow up by phone.
The 2021 International Plumbing Code, adopted through South Carolina’s Building Codes Council and incorporated into the city’s ordinances alongside the 2021 building, residential, mechanical, fuel gas, fire, existing building and property maintenance codes and the 2020 National Electrical Code. The International Plumbing Code is a different document from the Uniform Plumbing Code used in some other states, so materials and venting requirements are not automatically transferable.
The City states that it will repair any leak in the distribution system up to the point of delivery, which is the water meter, and that a leak beyond the meter is private plumbing and the customer’s responsibility. It also warns that after a repair on the service connection you may get trapped air and some discoloured water, and that opening the taps to expel it should clear the condition fairly quickly.
The City publishes a Public Works number for normal hours and states that after hours, weekends and holidays those calls are forwarded to police dispatch and passed to on-call Public Works and Utilities personnel. It is a small-city arrangement and it works, but it is worth knowing in advance so the call does not sound like it has gone to the wrong place.
No. The City states that it prohibits waste haulers from disposing of grease trap waste into the publicly owned treatment works or the sewer collection system. Septic tank waste is a different matter and is accepted at a designated site at the Water Reclamation Management Facility, from haulers who hold an account and provide a waste tracking form for every load.
More than most people expect. The tracking form must include the hauler’s name and address, permit number, truck identification, the names and addresses of the sources of the waste, and the volume and characteristics of it. It must identify the type of industry, any known or suspected waste constituents, and whether any of the waste is hazardous under the federal waste rules. The City may also require an analysis of a load before it is discharged.
Run the City’s own procedure. Read the meter, use no water for at least fifteen to thirty minutes, and read it again. Then repeat it overnight, because the City notes that a longer interval catches smaller leaks. Dye the toilet cistern with food colouring and wait one to two hours. Then shut the house valve, confirm it has actually closed, and check whether the meter is still turning, which isolates the buried run. Repeat the whole test after any repair.
Yes, Florence in Florence County, in the Pee Dee. There are real places called Florence in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Arizona, Oregon, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Montana, Colorado and Texas among others, a Florence-Graham in Los Angeles County, and the well known one in Italy. None of the utilities, codes or procedures described here apply to any of them.
How This Page Was Built
Every figure, requirement and procedure above was read from City of Florence published pages during this build. Nothing is inferred from how other South Carolina cities work, and nothing at all has been taken from a source about a different Florence.
The contradiction we found, and why we did not print it verbatim
The building department page gives an email address for applications twice in the same sentence, spelled two different ways, one of them missing a letter from the city name. We have described that above without reproducing either spelling, because a typo that gets copied is worse than one that stays put. Copy the address from the department page and check it before sending. The same page states that the online permitting portal is currently unavailable, which is itself worth confirming before you plan around it.
What we refused to write, and why
We refused rust and iron staining advice, although this City runs iron removal filters at every groundwater plant, because another city page on this site covers stained laundry and softener decisions in full and a second version would add nothing. We refused grease and wipes guidance, sanitary sewer overflows, cross connection and backflow compliance, pretreatment and lead service line material, all of which the City publishes pages about and all of which are covered thoroughly elsewhere on this site. We took only the hauled waste rule, which nobody else here publishes.
We refused every rate, fee, tap charge and deposit. We refused every laboratory value and any hardness figure. Our Charleston, Greenville, Columbia and Myrtle Beach pages each carry a different South Carolina mechanism in depth, and none of them is repeated here.
A note on the numbers behind this page
This is one of the most contested city names in the United States and the search data reflects it. The pool of phrases containing the word Florence is more than three times the size of the pool that names South Carolina, and a large part of the remainder was filed by an automated tool under Alabama, apparently on nothing more than alphabetical order. Kentucky, Alabama and Mississippi all have real, separately measurable demand of their own inside the same pool.
We counted only what explicitly names this state and refused the rest rather than claiming it, which produced a smaller and much more defensible figure. We mention it because a page that quietly counts other towns is also a page that quietly makes claims about them.
A note for anyone retracing our steps
The City runs on two hostnames that serve the same content, and its own pages link across both of them, so a saved link may not look like the one you followed. Both answer ordinary automated requests without complaint. The material is split in a way worth flagging: water production sits under one branch of the utilities department, water distribution and leak reporting under another, sewer and hauled waste under a third, and billing, account setup and the emergency numbers under the finance department rather than under utilities at all.
Start with the City’s groundwater treatment page for the plants, wells, aquifers and depths, its surface water treatment page for the river plant, the treatment train and the corrosion control statement, its do-it-yourself leak detection page for the meter procedure, its water leak page for the reporting route and the point of delivery, its hauled waste page for the septic and grease rules, its building department page for the forms, the portal status and the adopted codes, and its water and sewer services page for the emergency numbers and the after hours routing.
Elsewhere on this site, our South Carolina overview covers state licensing and routing, Georgetown takes the same river the other way round, and Charleston, Greenville, Columbia and Myrtle Beach cover the rest of the state. For the work itself see drain cleaning, sewer line repair, leak detection, hydro jetting, water heater repair and emergency plumbing, or get in touch.
No office, address, crew or response time of ours is stated for Florence, and we are not claiming to be based in this city.
Everything above was read from City of Florence published pages at the time of writing. Plant outputs, permit capacities, adopted code editions, portal availability, forms and contact routes all change. Nothing on this page is a quotation of record, a legal opinion, or a substitute for asking the body that holds the pen.