Sewage & Category 3
Contaminated Water Is Not A Mop Job
Sewage backups carry bacteria, viruses, and parasites, and they aerosolise. Keep people and pets out, and let a crew with containment, negative air, and proper PPE remove it. Then dry and rebuild the space under one contract.
Free inspection on restoration work · Licensed C-10 & General B · Answered 24/7
Before anything else
Keep people and pets out of the affected area. Do not run a household or shop vacuum through it, do not run the HVAC, and do not attempt to clean it with domestic products. All three spread contamination, instead of removing it. If contaminated water has reached outlets or a panel, do not enter to switch anything off; tell us when you call.
The problem is not the water. It is what is in it.
A clean supply-line break is an extraction and drying job. A sewage backup is a decontamination job that happens to involve water, and the two are not handled the same way at any stage.
Category 3 water means grossly contaminated: bacteria, viruses, and parasites, in a medium that soaks into every porous material it touches and disperses into the air as it is disturbed. Which is why the wrong first move. A shop vacuum, the HVAC left running, a family member mopping. Reliably turns one contaminated room into a contaminated building.
Porous material that absorbed it does not get cleaned. It gets removed, bagged inside containment, and disposed of under protocol. Then the structure gets sanitized, dried, and rebuilt.
Six sources we respond to.
Including one that starts out clean and becomes Category 3 purely by sitting.
Toilet Backflow
Anything that comes back past the trap is Category 3 from the moment it enters the room, regardless of how it looks.
Main Line Backups
Blockage in the lateral or the municipal main, typically presenting at the lowest fixture in the building first.
Failed Ejector Pumps
Basement and below-grade bathrooms that rely on a pump. When it fails, the discharge goes back into the room it came from.
Rising Groundwater
Storm intrusion and hydrostatic pressure through slabs and foundations, contaminated by whatever it passed through on the way in.
Long-Standing Water
Clean water that sat for days becomes Category 3 by microbial growth alone. Time changes the classification.
Commercial Grease & Waste
Restaurant and multi-unit systems where the volume and the contamination are both an order of magnitude larger.
Six steps, and the order is not optional.
Containment comes before removal, always. Removing first is how the rest of the building gets contaminated.
Isolate & Contain
Occupants out of the affected zone, work area sealed, and negative air with HEPA filtration established before anything is disturbed.
Stop The Source
Backflow halted at the source where possible, and the plumbing cause identified so the cleanup is not undone by a second backup.
Extract & Dispose
Contaminated water extracted and affected porous material cut out and bagged inside containment, following disposal protocols, instead of going into your own bin.
Clean & Sanitize
Salvageable structure and non-porous surfaces cleaned and treated with appropriate antimicrobials, including the cavities the contamination reached.
Dry To Standard
Air movers and dehumidifiers with daily documented readings, exactly as on any water loss, until affected materials reach dry standard.
Rebuild
Drywall, insulation, flooring, finishes, and electrical restored under our General B, same contract, same crew.
Sewage cleanup questions
Next on the same job.
24/7 Emergency Response
Stay out of it. Call us instead.
Licensed C-10 & General B · CSLB #1158693 · Bonded & Insured
