Fulton and DeKalb Counties, Georgia
Drain Cleaning Atlanta: The City Tells Its Own Two Networks Apart by Colour and Smell
Utilities do not usually give the public a diagnostic test. Atlanta's Department of Watershed Management does, it is two sentences long, and it works.
If the leak runs clear and smells like chlorine, it is likely a leak in the water system. If the leak is cloudy and smells like sewage or stormwater, it is likely a leak in the sewer system. That is the City's own wording, printed on its own reporting page.
It is worth more than it looks. Atlanta runs 2,790 miles of distribution pipeline and 2,150 miles of sewer, and almost every practical question about a drain here begins with which of the two you are dealing with and where the boundary of your responsibility falls on it. This page starts with the senses, moves to the ownership line, and finishes with the one thing Atlanta is unusually specific about: what may not go into the other network at all.
Book Drain Cleaning in AtlantaPlumber Atlanta: The Main City Page
A Sensory Test Beats a Diagram, and the City Knows It
Across this series of city pages we have written up jurisdiction maps, ownership diagrams, code sections and responsibility tables. All of them are accurate and none of them is any use to somebody standing in a garden at seven in the morning looking at water that was not there yesterday.
Atlanta's test is usable from that position. Clear and chlorinated is treated drinking water that has escaped on its way to somebody. Cloudy and foul is water on its way from somebody. That distinction determines which crew is dispatched, and it determines whether the problem is urgent for health reasons or merely expensive.
The chlorine part is the clever bit. Treated water in Atlanta carries a disinfectant residual, which is a deliberate feature of the distribution system rather than an accident. A residual that can be smelled at a leak is the system telling you where the water came from. It is the same principle as a gas odorant, arrived at from the opposite direction.
Then the City does something else useful in the same breath: it lists where each kind of leak can be, and quietly settles the ownership question while it is at it.
Water system leaks, in its own list, can be at hydrants, at meters, in distribution lines from the meter to the house, in distribution lines from the main to the meter, or in transmission lines. Beside two of those it prints the answer: repairs from the meter to the house are the homeowner's responsibility, repairs from the main to the meter are the City's, and repairs to transmission lines are in general the City's.
Sewer system leaks get a shorter list: in pipes from the house to the main, and in transmission lines. The absence of a responsibility note on that second list is itself informative, and it is the thing to establish for a specific address rather than assume.
What It Looks and Smells Like, and What That Tells You to Do
Every card grid in this series so far has sorted a city's rules by an institution: who decides, which clock runs, what unit is measured. This one sorts by what is actually in front of you, because that is how Atlanta itself has chosen to publish.
Clear, and it smells of chlorine
Likely the water system. Report it. Whether it is yours or the City's depends on which side of the meter it is, and the City publishes that boundary in the same list.
Cloudy, and it smells of sewage
Likely the sewer system, in a pipe from the house to the main or in a transmission line. The Customer Care Call Center is described as active around the clock with crews on standby for exactly this.
Brown water at the tap
Normal sediment stirred up, usually iron coming off older pipes when a line is turned off for repairs or a main breaks. The City states the water is safe to drink but will stain white clothes in the wash.
Brown water that will not clear
The published self-help is specific: run your cold water for 15 to 20 minutes, from an outside tap. If the colour does not go, the outside lines may need flushing, and that is when to report it.
Low pressure, in your house only
The City points at debris in the pipes, valves not fully open, or leaks, and says plainly that you should call a plumber and have your system checked. A utility conceding that a problem is not its own is worth noticing.
Low pressure across several houses
A sudden drop affecting neighbours as well may be a water main leak or a pump station malfunction. The City states that its own crews will be needed, so this one is a report rather than a call-out.
Cards five and six are the pair worth remembering, because they are the cheapest diagnostic in this whole page. Before phoning anybody about pressure, ask a neighbour. One house is a plumbing job. Several houses is a utility job, and calling a plumber for it buys you an expensive confirmation of something a doorstep conversation would have told you free.
Card four is worth doing properly. Twenty minutes is longer than most people run a tap, and from an outside spigot rather than a kitchen mixer, so the sediment goes onto the garden instead of through the aerators and appliances you were trying to protect.
The Other Network
Atlanta Prohibits, Rather Than Permits, and the Reporting Form Gives the Game Away
The second half of any honest drain page is what may not go down the other pipe, and Atlanta takes the prohibition route rather than the permission route.
The City states that the discharge of any polluted water, sewage, oil or other material into any natural outlet in the City, including any storm drain or catch basin, roadside ditch, stream or manhole, is strictly prohibited. Not a list of what is allowed, with everything else implied. A flat bar, with examples.
Its own examples of what to report are worth reading because they describe real behaviour rather than regulatory categories: lawn clippings and leaf litter dumped into or near storm drains, foam or bubbles or a milky appearance in a ditch, strange odours, motor oil, antifreeze or brake fluid poured into a catch basin, an unusual pipe carrying wastewater to a creek from a washing machine or a floor drain, outdoor washing equipment using chemicals, and sediment coming off a construction site.
Then the reporting protocol, which is the most revealing part. The City asks for the date, the time, the location, the source and type of pollution, the responsible party, and the vehicle tag number, all where known. Your own contact information is explicitly not required, though it is helpful.
A form with a number plate field and an optional name is a form designed around somebody arriving in a vehicle, doing something, and leaving. That tells you what the City expects the problem to be, and it is a useful thing for any property owner to know before they hire someone to take waste away.
Atlanta Publishes the Pool Water Condition That Sacramento Names and Does Not State
On our Sacramento drain cleaning page we printed a row reading NOT READ, because the district there permits pool water to the sewer under conditions set out in two documents we did not open, and guessing at a condition somebody acts on by opening a valve would have been worse than a gap.
Atlanta publishes a condition in plain text, in its stormwater guidance, and it is short enough to quote in full. When discharging chlorinated pool water, do so into a sanitary sewer system, or hold the water until chlorine and temperature levels are acceptable to spread over a permeable surface before entering a storm drainage system.
Three separate ideas sit in that one sentence and all three are useful.
| The instruction | What it actually means |
|---|---|
| Discharge to the sanitary sewer | The preferred route sends the water to a reclamation centre, where chlorine is somebody else's problem. This is a plumbing connection question rather than a garden hose question. |
| Or hold it until chlorine levels are acceptable | Chlorine dissipates with time and exposure. The instruction is to wait, which costs nothing and is the reason most pool water incidents are avoidable. |
| And until temperature is acceptable | The one almost nobody thinks about. Warm water entering a stream is a pollutant in its own right, and it is on the City's list beside the chemical. |
| Then over a permeable surface | Not straight into a drain. Letting it move through ground first is the last barrier, and it is why the volume and the rate matter as much as the chemistry. |
Our Sacramento drain cleaning page keeps its blank, because a condition published by one city is not evidence about another city's rules. What this does show is that the condition is publishable, which makes its absence elsewhere a choice rather than an impossibility.
The general form of the Atlanta rule matters more than pools. Anything discharged in volume from a property has to arrive somewhere lawful, and in a city with separate networks, choosing the wrong one is a prohibited discharge rather than a bad habit.
The Drain That Is Not a Plumbing Job
A Large Share of What Atlanta Searches For Is Not Ours to Clean
An honest local page should say when a query is not its business, and a substantial part of the drain cleaning demand in this city is about storm drains rather than sanitary ones. Those are different structures with different owners and, usually, a different trade.
The City sets out its own test in three parts. In general it is responsible for stormwater infrastructure that is located within the City of Atlanta's right of way along municipal roadways, that has been formally deeded to and accepted by the City of Atlanta, or that is located on City of Atlanta property.
Certain portions of that infrastructure are maintained by the City and other portions are the responsibility of private property owners or homeowners associations, and the network it is describing includes pipes, catch basins, yard inlets and open ditches.
The phrase to notice is formally deeded to and accepted. A pipe that a developer built and the City never accepted is a private pipe, whatever it looks like from the pavement, and in an infill city that arrangement is common. If a yard inlet or a run of pipe on your land keeps blocking, the ownership question has to be settled before anybody argues about whose crew comes out.
To report a drainage problem, or an illicit discharge or illegal dumping into the storm drainage system, the City directs residents to 311 from any phone within the City of Atlanta, or to the published number from outside the city limits.
Drain Cleaning Atlanta: Sorting Your Problem Into the Right Network
The colour and smell test, where responsibility changes hands, what is prohibited from the storm system, and the pool water condition Atlanta actually publishes.
Use the City’s own test. If the leak runs clear and smells like chlorine, it is likely a leak in the water system. If it is cloudy and smells like sewage or stormwater, it is likely a leak in the sewer system. The chlorine is a disinfectant residual carried deliberately by treated water, so smelling it means the water escaped on its way to somebody rather than from them.
The City’s own list is clear on this one. Repairs to distribution lines from the meter to the house are the homeowner’s responsibility. Repairs from the main to the meter are the City’s, and repairs to transmission lines are in general the City’s. Its sewer list does not carry an equivalent note, so settle that one for your address rather than assuming.
The City states that brown water occurs when normal sediments in the lines are stirred up, usually iron coming off older pipes, and that although it is undesirable the water is safe to drink. It will stain white clothes in the washing machine. Try running your cold water for 15 to 20 minutes from an outside tap, and report it if the colour does not clear.
It depends how many houses have it. For pressure problems inside your home the City says plainly that you should call a plumber and have your system checked, naming debris in the pipes, valves not fully open, or leaks. A sudden drop affecting several homes in an area may be a main leak or a pump station malfunction, and that one is a report to the utility.
The discharge of any polluted water, sewage, oil or other material into any natural outlet in the City, including any storm drain or catch basin, roadside ditch, stream or manhole, is strictly prohibited. The City’s own examples run from motor oil poured into a catch basin to lawn clippings dumped near a drain and sediment coming off a construction site.
The City publishes a condition rather than a ban. When discharging chlorinated pool water, do so into a sanitary sewer system, or hold the water until chlorine and temperature levels are acceptable to spread over a permeable surface before entering a storm drainage system. Note that temperature is named alongside chlorine, which is the part most people miss.
Usually not, and it is worth saying so. Storm drains, catch basins, yard inlets and open ditches are a separate network. The City is responsible for stormwater infrastructure in its right of way along municipal roadways, formally deeded to and accepted by the City, or on City property. Everything else belongs to a private owner or an association.
The City asks for as much as possible: date of incident, time of incident, location, the source and type of pollution if known, the responsible party if known, and the vehicle tag number if known. Your own contact information is explicitly not required, though it helps if they need to follow up.
That is what the Department publishes. It states that the Customer Care Call Center is active 24/7 and that it has crews around the clock waiting to respond to sewer needs, and it directs all sewer related problems to the same customer care number. Our Atlanta emergency plumbing page covers what its own published list of severe problems includes.
Because the reason is usually condition rather than contents. The main Atlanta page covers the ground: clay that holds water and moves seasonally, older intown laterals in clay pipe with root pressure on every joint, and ridge and hollow terrain that gives long runs with real fall. A line that closes repeatedly is describing its own condition, and a survey answers a question that another clearance does not.
Sources, and the Things Deliberately Left Out
The colour and smell test, the leak location lists, the responsibility notes, the brown water guidance, the pressure guidance and the round-the-clock call centre all come from the Department of Watershed Management's report a problem page. The illicit discharge prohibition, the reporting protocol, the pool water condition and the stormwater maintenance tests come from its stormwater management page.
A subject killed before it was written. The first plan for this page was built on smoke testing, which the City uses to find defects and which lands on private property in a way nobody expects. A scan of our own published pages found the technique already covered 76 times across 27 of them, so it was dropped at the planning stage rather than rewritten at the drafting stage. Dye testing was refused for the same reason.
A source that would not open. The main City of Atlanta municipal site and the Clean Water Atlanta consent decree site both refused automated access while this page was written. Everything above comes from the Watershed Management site, which served normally. Nothing has been approximated from a page we could not read.
Deliberately not covered because other pages own them: the eight signs of a failing drain and the snaking versus jetting comparison, which our national drain cleaning page carries; red clay and what it does to a buried line, which belongs to the Atlanta city page; the closed list of allowable non-stormwater discharges, which our Phoenix hydro jetting page approaches from the permitted side rather than the prohibited one; and the billing clocks behind a sewer charge, which sit on our Denver and Los Angeles drain pages.
Related Atlanta page: emergency plumbing. General technique lives on our guide to unclogging a drain without chemicals. For the wider region see our Georgia service areas, or get in touch.
No office, address, crew or response time of ours is stated for Atlanta, and we are not claiming to be based in this city.
Everything above was read from published City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management material at the time of writing. Reporting routes, responsibility boundaries, prohibited discharges and maintenance rules all change, and which authority owns a given pipe is not something this page can determine for a specific address.