Paulding County Sewer and Drain Service: Local Rules

Georgia Sewer clears, inspects and repairs the private side of sewer and water lines for homes served by Paulding County Water System in Hiram and the rest of Paulding County. A blockage or break past the cleanout at the road right-of-way, or sewage coming from a manhole, belongs to the county; everything from your house to that cleanout is ours to handle, so call us at (404) 482-2527.

Paulding County's water and sewer utility is a county department, the Paulding County Water System, and its customers have addresses in Dallas, Hiram, Acworth, Powder Springs, Rockmart and other towns. Because the county, the City of Dallas and private septic systems all handle sewage here, the first question we ask a Paulding customer is which of the three serves the house.

The Water System says it serves more than 60,000 customers with addresses in Acworth, Powder Springs, Dallas, Rockmart, Douglasville, Temple, Hiram and Villa Rica (Paulding County Water System). It buys water from the Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority and treats its own at the Richland Creek Reservoir, and it has three wastewater plants: one near Pumpkinvine Creek in the north of the county, one off Bill Carruth Parkway in the center and one off Highway 61 in the south (Paulding Water brochure). Its Waste Water Division operates the Pumpkinvine, Coppermine and Upper Sweetwater water reclamation facilities (Paulding Treatment & Laboratory Division).

In Hiram, the city's zoning code, for zoning purposes, treats sanitary sewer as available only inside the service areas mapped for the Coppermine and Pumpkinvine plants or the Sweetwater drainage basin, and only where a gravity connection with capacity is within 1,500 feet or a funded extension or development agreement provides one (Hiram Code § 210-80.14). The City of Hiram sells water at some addresses and sends others to Paulding County Water to start service (City of Hiram).

Dallas is a special case. The county bills for City of Dallas sewer in several places where it supplies the water, and it tells those customers to report a backup to the City of Dallas (Paulding Water brochure); see the Dallas page. Your bill shows whose sewer you have.

Paulding County's Building and Permitting Division issues building, electrical, heating and air-conditioning and plumbing permits for all uses, and its inspectors carry out the inspections for those permits (Paulding Building & Permitting). Hiram's building permit questions also go to the county, as the table notes. If your job needs a permit, we tell you before work starts.

County code adds sewer-specific steps. No one may uncover, alter or connect to a public sewer without a written permit from the director, and the permit applicant must tell the director when the building sewer is ready so the connection and testing can be done under the director's supervision (Paulding Code §§ 66-91, 66-99).

The county's maintenance starts at the right-of-way, so a dig there needs a Georgia 811 ticket first: Georgia 811 asks for a free request at least three business days ahead, and state law requires one before digging with mechanized equipment (Georgia 811; Georgia dig law). Under that law, the county helps designate laterals only out to the edge of the public right-of-way.

Paulding County Water calls fats, oils and grease the number one cause of sewer system blockages in metro Atlanta, explaining that grease sticks to the walls of household plumbing and the sewer and builds up until the pipe is blocked. For commercial kitchens, the county posts grease trap specifications and a pumping manifest form to return (Paulding FOG).

The code keeps rainwater out: no one may connect roof downspouts, foundation drains, areaway drains or other surface runoff or groundwater to a building sewer that drains to a public sanitary sewer. If a house sewer lets infiltration or inflow into the system, the county may require repairs, charge a higher sewer rate or require the house to disconnect (Paulding Code §§ 66-98, 66-103). Household tips are in what not to flush or pour.

Septic permits, repairs and evaluations in Paulding go through Paulding County Environmental Health, one of Northwest Georgia Public Health's county offices (NW Georgia Public Health offices). The district's onsite sewage page says an existing septic system is evaluated before loan closings and refinancing, mobile home relocations, swimming pools and home or structure additions, and it posts the application for repairing or modifying a system (NW Georgia Public Health). For maintenance, see septic tank pumping in Georgia.

Find the cleanout where your line meets the road right-of-way. If our camera shows the blockage beyond it, call the county's 24-hour line before paying for digging; under county code, that section is the county's to repair. On your side, we do sewer cleanout installation and repair, main sewer line cleaning, sewer camera inspection and sewer line repair in Hiram, and the same work elsewhere in the county through our sewer camera inspection and sewer line repair services. Call Georgia Sewer at (404) 482-2527.