Sewer & Drain Cleaning in Clarendon Hills, IL

The Village of Clarendon Hills Handles Your Water and Storm Sewer. A Completely Separate Agency Handles Your Sanitary Sewage. Here’s What That Split Actually Means When Something Backs Up.

 

If you’re dealing with basement flooding, groundwater, or yard drainage in Clarendon Hills, our guide to plumbing and flood control in Clarendon Hills covers the Flagg Creek watershed, DuPage County’s clay soil, and the county drainage assistance programs available to you. This guide covers something different: the sewer lines, drains, and pipes inside and beneath your home, and a detail almost no homeowner here knows until they need it — the Village doesn’t actually treat your sewage. A separate agency does.

 

A Village Planned Like Riverside, Built to Stay Independent

 

Clarendon Hills was platted in 1873 with curving, contour-following streets deliberately modeled on Frederick Law Olmsted’s design for nearby Riverside, rather than the straight grid used by most Downers Grove Township communities. Founded by Henry Middaugh, it didn’t incorporate until 1924, and when it did, the driving motivation — like several other DuPage and Cook County villages covered in our other guides — was to avoid annexation, in this case by neighboring Hinsdale. The village still carries the nickname “The Volunteer Village” today, a reflection of the small-government, resident-driven character that’s defined it since incorporation.

 

Today it’s a small, dense village of roughly 8,700 residents built around a Metra BNSF station — rebuilt between a 2020 groundbreaking and a 2022 ribbon-cutting — and a downtown business district with more than 100 businesses along Ogden Avenue and 55th Street, an area the village has actively targeted for reinvestment through its own downtown improvement and revitalization planning. Infrastructure work tied to that kind of downtown redevelopment is exactly the sort of project that can affect water and sewer connections for existing businesses along the corridor — worth knowing if you own or lease commercial space there.

 

Two Agencies, One Backup: Who Actually Handles What

 

Here’s the detail that surprises most Clarendon Hills homeowners: sanitary sewer service isn’t provided by the Village at all. The Flagg Creek Water Reclamation District (FCWRD), a separate special district reachable at 630-323-3299, handles sanitary sewage for Clarendon Hills and the surrounding area. The Village of Clarendon Hills, through its own Public Works Department, handles the water distribution system and the storm sewer system — a genuinely different agency with a genuinely different phone number for a genuinely different problem.

 

 

What doesn’t change regardless of which agency the main line belongs to: the private sewer lateral running from your home to the point of connection with the public system is your responsibility to maintain, not the Village’s and not FCWRD’s. If you’re not sure whether a sewer issue is on your side of that connection or in the public system, that’s exactly the kind of question a licensed plumber can answer on-site before you spend time calling the wrong agency.

 

Lead Service Lines: What the Village’s Own 2023 Testing Actually Found

 

The Village of Clarendon Hills completed its mandated Lead and Copper Rule sampling in September 2023, with a 90th percentile result of 2.19 parts per billion — well under the 15 ppb federal action level — and more than 65% of homes tested came back completely non-detect. That’s a genuinely reassuring result, but it isn’t the same as knowing your own home’s specific service line material. Per the Village’s own guidance, homes built before 1930 most likely have a lead service line, homes built between 1930 and 1960 may have one, and homes built after 1960 most likely have copper. The Village is responsible for the service line from the water main to the b-box valve, typically located in the parkway; the property owner is responsible for everything from that b-box into the house. If you haven’t confirmed your own home’s service line material and your house predates 1960, that’s worth doing before assuming the village-wide averages apply to your specific address. Our team handles full lead service line replacement with permits for Clarendon Hills homeowners who need it done.

 

Backflow Prevention: A Separate Requirement From Flood Control

 

Worth distinguishing clearly, since the term gets confused constantly: this is not the same backflow prevention covered in our flood control guide. That guide discusses sewer backwater valves that stop sewage from surging back into a basement during a storm. This is the Village’s Cross-Connection Control Program, designed to protect the municipal drinking water supply from contamination — an entirely different system, addressing an entirely different risk.

 

Under Illinois EPA mandate, the Village of Clarendon Hills requires every backflow prevention device — the kind installed on irrigation systems, fire sprinkler systems, boilers, and swimming pools — to be tested annually by a certified plumber or certified irrigation company, with results submitted to the village at rpz@clarendonhills.us. The village also conducts a biennial survey of residential water customers to identify cross-connections that could allow contaminants to flow backward into the drinking water supply. Property owners are responsible for installing, testing, and maintaining their own backflow preventer, and for contracting with a licensed professional to perform the required annual test. If you have an irrigation system, a fire suppression line, or any commercial water connection in Clarendon Hills and haven’t confirmed your device is current on testing, that’s a compliance gap worth closing before it becomes a service disconnection notice. Our complete guide to backflow prevention requirements and costs across Chicagoland covers the device types, testing process, and what to expect.

 

Drain Cleaning for Clarendon Hills’ Older Housing Stock

 

Homes near Clarendon Hills’ downtown and Metra station skew older, with cast iron kitchen drain lines and clay tile sewer laterals that are commonly 65 to 100 years old. Chicago-area Lake Michigan water, delivered here through the DuPage Water Commission, is hard enough to leave a steady buildup of mineral scale and grease inside those older cast iron lines over decades — the kind of buildup that produces the same drain backing up every few months no matter how many times it gets cleared.

 

The same construction-era breakdown that determines your lead service line risk is a reasonable guide to your drain and sewer line risk too. In a pre-1930 home, expect original clay tile laterals and cast iron branch drains now nearing or past a century old, where root intrusion and joint displacement are common enough that a baseline camera inspection is worth having on file before you ever need it. In a 1930-1960 home, drain materials are a mixed bag — some original clay tile, some early replacement work — and condition varies more by prior maintenance history than by age alone. In homes built after 1960, cast iron and PVC drain lines are generally in better structural shape, though age-appropriate maintenance still matters as these homes now approach 60-plus years old themselves.

 

A technician working a steel cable and cutting head through your cleanout — what’s known as sewer rodding — breaks up the current blockage and restores flow fast, which is the right call for an active backup. A full interior scouring using pressurized water at up to 4,000 PSI — a service called hydro jetting — removes the wall buildup that rodding just pushes past. If a drain in an older Clarendon Hills home has needed clearing more than twice in the past year and a half, that repetition is the real signal it’s time to switch methods rather than keep clearing the same symptom.

 

Water Heaters and Clarendon Hills’ Hard Water

 

The same DuPage Water Commission-delivered Lake Michigan water that serves Clarendon Hills’ drains also runs through every water heater in the village, and at roughly 130 to 150 parts per million of dissolved calcium and magnesium, it leaves mineral scale on a heating element and tank floor every time the unit fires. In an older home near downtown where the water heater may already be a mid-life replacement rather than original equipment, a rumbling or popping sound from the tank is scale superheating at the burner chamber floor — worth acting on before it fails outright, particularly with a household depending on it during a DuPage County winter.

 

What Sewer Camera Inspection Actually Finds

 

A camera run through an unmaintained clay tile lateral in one of Clarendon Hills’ older homes near the Metra station typically turns up one of three things: root intrusion at open joints — the mature, established trees along the village’s curving Olmsted-inspired streets have had up to a century to find their way in — joint displacement from decades of ground movement, or a pipe belly where a section has settled below grade. Each of the three requires a genuinely different fix, and none of them look different from the surface; they all just present as a slow or recurring backup. A full camera inspection of the actual line condition is the only way to know which one you’re dealing with before paying for a repair that might not address the real cause.

 

Plumbing for Clarendon Hills’ Downtown Business District

 

With more than 100 businesses concentrated along Ogden Avenue and 55th Street, and a downtown dining scene active enough that the village held its first-ever Restaurant Week in 2025, commercial kitchen drain maintenance is a real consideration for property owners and tenants in Clarendon Hills’ business district, not just an afterthought. A grease trap sized or scheduled for a much smaller operation will keep backing up regardless of how consistently it’s serviced. Our restaurant plumbing services and dedicated grease trap cleaning cover the downtown corridor directly.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

My basement is flooding — is that covered in this guide?

Not this one. Basement flooding, groundwater, sump pumps, and yard drainage in Clarendon Hills are all covered in depth in our separate guide to plumbing and flood control in Clarendon Hills, including the Flagg Creek watershed context and DuPage County’s drainage assistance programs. This guide focuses specifically on sewer lines, drain cleaning, and lead service lines.

 

I have a sewer backup. Do I call the Village or the Flagg Creek Water Reclamation District?

It depends on where the problem actually is. If the issue is on the private lateral between your home and the public sewer connection, that’s your responsibility to have repaired by a licensed plumber, regardless of which agency the main belongs to. If you suspect the problem is in the public system itself, FCWRD (630-323-3299) handles the sanitary sewer main; the Village’s Public Works Department handles water and storm sewer issues. A licensed plumber can usually tell you which side of that line the problem is on before you make any calls.

 

Should I be worried about lead in my water given the Village’s 2023 test results?

The village-wide results are genuinely reassuring — a 90th percentile of 2.19 ppb, well under the 15 ppb action level, with the majority of homes tested coming back non-detect. But that’s an aggregate result, not a guarantee about your specific address. If your home was built before 1960, it’s worth confirming your own service line material directly rather than relying on the village average.

 

Do I need a backflow prevention device tested even if it’s not connected to my sewer?

Yes, if you have an irrigation system, fire suppression sprinklers, a boiler, or a swimming pool connected to your water supply. This is a completely separate requirement from anything related to sewer backup — it’s about protecting the drinking water supply from contamination, mandated by the Illinois EPA and enforced by the Village. Annual testing by a certified plumber or irrigation company is required regardless of how often the system is used.

 

My home was built in the 1940s. What should I actually expect from my drains?

A 1930-1960 Clarendon Hills home is in the range where drain materials vary the most — some original clay tile laterals, some early replacement work depending on prior owners’ maintenance history. Age alone isn’t as predictive here as it is for pre-1930 homes; a camera inspection is the only reliable way to know your specific line’s actual condition rather than assuming based on the decade your home was built.

 

Can I clear a recurring clogged drain myself with a store-bought chemical cleaner?

Not effectively, and not safely long-term. Chemical drain cleaners dissolve the soft leading edge of a clog enough to temporarily restore flow, but they don’t reach deposits embedded in a decades-old cast iron pipe wall, and repeated use accelerates the interior corrosion that makes the pipe rougher and more clog-prone over time.

 

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Suburban Plumbing Sewer Line & Drain Cleaning Experts
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