24/7 Emergency Call Line
Category 3 water does not get mopped up.
Homeowners: call, say what is coming up and where (a floor drain, a toilet, a tub) and you will be connected with an independent provider equipped for contaminated water.
Answered 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Tap to call (843) 555-0142Sewage coming up a floor drain, toilets backing up together, gray-black water in a tub or shower, sewer smell with wet flooring, a backup after heavy rain — anywhere in the Charleston metro.
Before anyone arrives
Worth doing now
Where to stop
Restoration standards treat sewage as grossly contaminated water. In the first minutes the goal is containment; cleanup comes later. Insurers may deny claims where DIY handling made contamination worse.
Process transparency
Calls to (843) 555-0142 are answered 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. No form: the call is the intake.
Where the sewage is surfacing, how far it has spread, whether it followed rain or a blockage, and the property address.
Matched to an independent provider that handles Category 3 contamination work in that part of the Charleston metro.
Scope, timing, and pricing are agreed directly between the homeowner and the provider: containment and removal first, drying after.
Why this is a Charleston problem
A sewage backup in Charleston is rarely random. The metro sits low, the collection system works hard in every downpour, and what backs up into a house is decided by where the blockage sits: in the public main or in the private lateral. Three things worth knowing before anyone arrives:
The industry water-damage standard, IICRC S500, classifies sewage as Category 3: grossly contaminated water. Under that standard, porous materials it soaks (carpet and pad, drywall, insulation, particle-board flooring) are typically removed and discarded rather than sanitized in place. That is why a sewage job is scoped so differently from a burst-pipe job.
Source: IICRC — Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification
Charleston Water System operates the public sewer mains for most of the metro. If the blockage is in the public main, CWS responds to the overflow; if it is in the private lateral (the pipe between the house and the main), clearing it is the homeowner’s side of the line. Calling CWS to check the main costs nothing and settles the question early.
Source: Charleston Water System
Most homeowner policies in South Carolina treat water that backs up through sewers or drains as an optional endorsement, separate from the sudden-water-damage coverage in the base policy. Whether that endorsement is on the policy is worth confirming before the cleanup conversation. The state insurance regulator publishes consumer guidance on what standard policies do and do not include.
Insurance, plainly
Sewage backups sit in a specific corner of homeowner insurance: many base policies exclude water that backs up through sewers or drains unless a water backup endorsement was added. If the endorsement exists, it typically covers removal, disinfection, and repairs up to its own sub-limit.
Either way, the claim is built on documentation from the first hour: photos of the water line, a list of what it touched, and the time it started. Nothing here is a coverage determination; the policy and the carrier decide.
Filing a claim in South Carolina? How water damage claims work in SC: what to document and in what order. Wondering about the numbers? What restoration work costs in Charleston.
Straight answers
It depends on volume, on how far the contamination spread, on how much porous material — carpet, pad, drywall, insulation — has to be removed rather than cleaned, and on how many days of drying the structure needs. A contained backup in one bathroom is a different job from a finished room or a crawl space. Providers quote after seeing the property; pricing is agreed directly between the homeowner and the provider.
Often only through a water backup endorsement; many base policies exclude water that backs up through sewers or drains. If the endorsement is on the policy, it usually covers cleanup and repairs up to its own limit. Check the declarations page or ask the carrier; coverage always depends on the individual policy.
Long enough that time alone is not a cleanup strategy. Depending on the organism and the surface, survival runs from hours to weeks. That is why the restoration standard treats sewage-touched porous materials as removals and hard surfaces as disinfection work, rather than letting anything simply dry out.
For anything beyond a small, contained spill on a sealed hard floor: containment first, then removal of soaked porous materials, disinfection of hard surfaces, and controlled drying, with protective equipment throughout. A household mop-and-bleach pass leaves contamination inside walls and under flooring, and insurers may deny claims where DIY handling worsened the damage.
Charleston metro coverage
Calls to (843) 555-0142 from anywhere in these ZIP codes are routed to an independent provider covering that part of the metro.
Related situations
Storm flooding often carries the same contamination; outside water is treated as Category 3 too.
If the water is clean (a supply line, an appliance), the job is different from a sewage backup.
What to document, in what order, and where the water backup endorsement fits.
Market ranges for cleanup and drying work in the Charleston area, with sources.
24/7 Emergency Call Line · Serving the Charleston Metro