Austell, GA Sewer and Drain Service: Local Rules

Georgia Sewer clears, inspects and repairs the private side of sewer and water lines for homes served by the City of Austell's Sanitary Sewer Division in Austell. The city code puts the building sewer from the house to the municipal property line on the owner; when the trouble is at the city's connection or in the public sewer, or sewage is overflowing in the neighborhood, the city's crews handle it, and we tell you when that is the call to make.

Austell is a small Cobb County city that keeps its own water and sewer crews. It doesn't treat sewage itself: the city collects wastewater in its service area and feeds it into Cobb County's system, where it is treated at the South Cobb plant (Austell Water Division). So inside Austell's service area, the street sewers and the crews who answer a sewer complaint are the city's, even though the treatment plant is the county's.

Austell's Sanitary Sewer Division maintains and repairs more than 51 miles of sanitary sewers, more than 700 manholes and two sewage pump stations, and it says roughly one million gallons of wastewater move through those lines each day. Its work is both preventive and corrective (Austell Sanitary Sewer).

The city's service area doesn't match the city limits. Austell's Water Division page explains that the service areas for both water distribution and wastewater collection are set by contracts between the county water system and the six municipalities. Austell's area is bounded by Clay Road to the north, the Douglas County line to the south, Noses Creek to the west and Buttermilk Creek to the east, and about 63 percent of the system's water customers are inside the city limits (Austell Water Division). The city installs and maintains the water and wastewater lines along major streets, and in new subdivisions the developer builds the lines and then hands them over to the city to maintain (same page).

To be sure you're an Austell sewer customer, look at your utility bill; for account or billing questions the city sends you to City Hall (Austell Sanitary Sewer). If your bill comes from Cobb County Water System instead, see the Cobb County page.

The City of Austell requires a plumbing permit to install, remove, alter or replace any plumbing, gas or drainage pipe work, or any fixture or water heater, and its permits page links the city's online application portal (Austell Permits).

Work on the public side has its own rules. No one may uncover, connect to, alter or disturb a public sewer without a written permit from the public works director, and the trench for a building sewer may not be backfilled until the work has been inspected (Austell Code § 46-140). If the job needs a permit, we tell you before work starts.

Any trench toward the property line, where Austell's tap connection is made, needs a Georgia 811 ticket first: Georgia 811 asks everyone for a free request at least three business days ahead, and state law requires one before digging with machines (Georgia 811; Georgia dig law). Austell's own locating help under that law stops at the right-of-way line.

Austell's code forbids discharging stormwater, surface water, groundwater, roof runoff, subsurface drainage or cooling water into any sanitary sewer; that water belongs in a storm sewer or another outlet the public works director approves. The same section limits fat, oil and grease in wastewater sent to the public sewer (Austell Code § 46-141). A downspout or yard drain piped into your sewer line is exactly the kind of connection the city's dye and smoke tests are designed to find.

The Sanitary Sewer Division cleans lines with high-pressure water, mechanical rodding and root saws. It uses closed-circuit TV inspection and dye or smoke testing to respond to complaints from citizens, find places where rain and groundwater get into the system, and inspect new construction (Austell Sanitary Sewer).

For kitchen grease, wipes and other household habits, see what not to flush or pour.

Inside Austell, a home within 250 feet of a public sanitary sewer that it can drain into by gravity must connect within 60 days of an official notice to do so. Where public sewer isn't available, the building sewer goes to a private system that meets county health department rules, and once sewer becomes available the owner must connect and fill in the old septic tank (Austell Code §§ 46-138 and 46-139).

Georgia's Department of Public Health sends septic record requests and inspections to county environmental health offices (Georgia DPH); for the Cobb side of Austell that is Cobb & Douglas Public Health, which also covers Douglas County (Cobb & Douglas Public Health).

On the owner's side of the property line, our technicians handle drain cleaning and main sewer line cleaning for backups, sewer camera inspection to find where a problem sits, root intrusion removal, sewer line repair and replacement of the building sewer, and water line repair on your property. To book a visit, call Georgia Sewer at (404) 482-2527 or request service.