Sewage cleanup handled under Category 3 protocols

A small toilet overflow on tile, cleaned up right away with gloves and a disinfectant, may be manageable. Anything that reached carpet, drywall, cabinets, or more than one room needs professional Category 3 cleanup, because porous materials hold contamination that household cleaning will not reach.

Often, if the affected area can be sealed off and you have a working bathroom elsewhere. Young children, older adults, pregnant women, and anyone with a weakened immune system or a respiratory condition should stay away from the work area, and sometimes out of the home until cleaning is done. We will give you our recommendation once we see how far the contamination reached.

Under the IICRC S500 standard, porous materials that absorbed sewage are removed, including carpet and pad, drywall, insulation, upholstered furniture, mattresses, and most particleboard. Hard, non-porous items such as tile, metal, and glass can usually be cleaned and sanitized. Photograph everything before it is discarded, for your claim.

Only if your policy includes it. Many standard policies exclude water backup from sewers and drains unless you bought a backup endorsement, and that endorsement usually has its own limit. Damage from a broken drain pipe inside the house may be treated differently, so ask your carrier and read the exclusions section.

Repeated backups in a home built before the 1980s often point to the cast-iron drain line: scale buildup, cracks, or a sagging section under the slab. Tree roots in the line to the street are another common cause. A plumber can run a camera through the line to find the problem; until it is repaired, each backup will need the same cleanup.