Excess rain can cause all kinds of problems for Kansas City homeowners.
“We got a card in the mail and I was like, why would they need to do that but okay,” said Sheri Onwiler.
She’s lived in her south Kansas City, Missouri, home for the past decade and a half.
Onwiler is part of a Kansas City Water Services program where technicians reach out to homeowners across the metro to check their plumbing connections and drainage systems.
“It took about 15 minutes,” Onwiler said. “They went downstairs, looked at my sump pump and other pipes down there where your air conditioner drains, that kind of thing. Then we came outside and looked at all the downspouts and the French drains and to see where the sump pump was actually coming out and no issues.”
Through the free program - called Keep Out the Rain KC - technicians disconnect gutter downspouts, sump pumps and other drainage mechanisms that are improperly connected to sewers and can end up overwhelming the city's entire system.
“For a house that has a sump pump, sometimes the plumbers when they put the sump pump in, they connect it to the house sanitary sewer system which gets into our system. Instead we can disconnect that, run that water out onto the yard someplace and we will keep that water out,” explained KC Water Services director Terry Leeds.
Over the next six years, technicians will inspect 55,000 homes throughout the city. If changes need to be made, they'll do it for free.
“We have a federal [agreement] with the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce the amount of water that overflows from our sewer system during rainfall events. As a part of that work, we looked at our system -- we have about 2,800 miles of pipe. We looked at ways we can keep that rain water out. We also know that a lot of the excess water comes in from private sewers so every house and every building has a private sewer that connects their building to our sewer,” said Leeds.
Photo of Keep Out the Rain KC address search courtesy KC Water Services.
Does your home or business qualify for the program? Enter your address into the KC Water Services search bar to find out.
If it does, you can set up an appointment to have technicians come to your home to inspect your piping. If they discover issues, they will reconnect the pipes. The entire program is free of charge.
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Terra Hall can be reached at terra.hall@kshb.com.
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