Who pays for the sewer lateral in Redwood City, CA
Which part of the pipe is yours
Yours from the cleanout to your building
Why, and what to do
Who is responsible for which part
First find out who serves you: the City says your provider is "either the City of Redwood City or San Mateo County", and warns that it "may provide your water but not your sewer". Where the City is the provider, it is one of the few in California that looks after the half under the road - "the lower lateral is from the property line to the sewer main and is maintained by the City", and the upper lateral is yours. The cleanout at your property line is yours too, and the City will not install one.
- Redwood City
- The lower lateral, from the property line out to the main. The City states that "the lower lateral is from the property line to the sewer main and is maintained by the City", and its FAQ puts the handover at the cleanout: the public side "refers to the section of the lateral between the sewer cleanout (usually located at the resident's property line) and the sewer main line out in the street". Its code defines the term the same way - a sewer lateral is "that portion of a building sewer located in the public right-of-way which extends from the sewerage facilities to the street property line or limit of public right-of-way or easement".
- The property owner
- The upper lateral, the cleanout, and everything inside the property line. The City states that "the upper lateral is the property owner's responsibility" and that "the property owner must maintain sewer lines on the owner's side (everything past the property line, including the upper lateral and plumbing within the home)". Its FAQ adds the cleanout itself to that: the private side "refers to all plumbing lines located inside the property line, including the cleanout", and asked whether the City will install one, the answer is "No. Sewer cleanouts belong to the property owner. It is the responsibility of the property owner to install a property line cleanout". Asked whether the City fixes sewer lines on private property: "No. The area between the sewer cleanout and the house (owner's side) is the responsibility of the property owner and must be repaired/serviced by the owner or designated service personnel".
- What else is worth knowing
- Two things decide what this answer is worth to you, and the first one is not about the pipe. Redwood City is not the sewer provider everywhere inside its own boundary: its FAQ says your provider is "either the City of Redwood City or San Mateo County", its ordinance separately excludes connections to sewers "maintained by the West Bay Sanitary District or the Fair Oaks Sewer Maintenance District within the City", and the City's advice is to check which agency is on your sewer bill, or to open the City's GIS map and switch on the Sewer Service Area layer. Everything else here is about properties the City serves. The second is the cleanout. The City's half is stated without conditions, so a missing cleanout does not hand you the run under the road - but it does cost you the service that goes with it, because the free snaking is offered "only to households that have sewer cleanouts located at the resident's property line", and residents "must make this clean out accessible to City staff for maintenance and inspection of the lower lateral". The cleanout is yours to install and yours to keep clear, and the City is explicit that it will not put one in for you.
What is required
Repairing a sewer lateral in Redwood City needs a permit, and the City inspects the work: "A permit is required to repair the sewer lateral. A city engineer will inspect the lateral to validate that the work was performed according to code." Installing the cleanout at your property line is yours as well - asked whether the City will do it, the answer is "No. Sewer cleanouts belong to the property owner." Work that reaches the public right of way is separately an encroachment: the code forbids anyone to "excavate, erect, construct, place or maintain any pipe, conduit, wire, cable or other structure, on, over or under the surface of any right-of-way or City property, for any purpose whatsoever, without first obtaining a permit".
What to do: Before you hire anyone, find out whether you have a property line cleanout - it is usually within five feet of the property line, about four inches across, with a steel or plastic cover. Then ring the Engineering and Construction Division on 650-780-7380 for the repair permit, and ask in the same call whether your job reaches the public right of way, because that is a second permit. If there is no cleanout, ask what it costs to add one at the same time as the repair.
City of Redwood City, SewerWhy this matters
Redwood City maintains the lower lateral, which is unusual and good news - and the thing that makes that duty usable is a cleanout the City will not install. The free cleaning service is offered "only to households that have sewer cleanouts located at the resident's property line", so a property without one has a City maintenance obligation it cannot call on. If you do not have a cleanout, putting one in is the single change that turns the City's half of the pipe from a paragraph into a phone call. And because the City inspects lateral repairs, the permit is not paperwork after the fact: a repair done without one is a repair nobody has validated against the code.
Who governs and serves this area
- Jurisdiction
- Redwood City (municipality)
What BelowGrid cannot say yet
- No assistance or grant programme has been reviewed for this jurisdiction yet.
How this compares to neighbouring cities
1 of the 4 nearest cities draw the line somewhere else. No single authority publishes that comparison, because each knows only about itself.
Look up a specific address
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