Who is responsible for the water and sewer pipes in your front yard? How about from your property line to the sewer main? If you guessed the city, you would likely be wrong. In some towns, for many years, the city, town, or village assumed responsibility for everything from your property line to the sewer main. That is no longer the case.
As you can imagine, if the sewer line running from your house to the sewer main becomes clogged with tree roots, or collapsed due to its age, quite a mess can occur. To begin with, a clogged or blocked line can cause water and sewer backup. When your water and sewage has nowhere to go, it backs up into your basement. Unfortunately, an unadorned homeowners insurance policy doesn’t cover losses due to water or sewer backup. To cover losses of this type, you will need a homeowners insurance endorsement. Fortunately, this endorsement is relatively inexpensive. Call our office to confirm you have this coverage, or to get it added before a loss of this type occurs.
Getting back to the cause of this mess in your front yard. There is no doubt that you have driven by a house and saw a front yard dug up because of needed repairs or replacement of the upper or lower lateral of a sewer line. Not only is it a big mess, but it’s also expensive as well.
Generally speaking, you will need to hire a plumber to dig up and replace your sewer line, and you will likely have to have the city involved as well. Is this starting to sound expensive?
Fortunately, you can also buy insurance coverage for the repair or replacement of your sewer lines as well. In addition to water and sewer pipes, some insurance companies even provide coverage for repair or replacement of gas lines, electric lines, as well as telecommunications lines. The even better news is that it is relatively inexpensive. Again, call our office for a quote before you have to have your front yard dug up.
We hope that this article educated you a bit on the costs to repair damages inside your house due to water or sewer backup, as well as the cost to repair the root of the problem as well. Call our office for details. We would be happy to help.
