About this guide

Independent guide. Not affiliated with the City of Philadelphia or the Philadelphia Water Department. We are not a government site, we are not plumbers, and we don't do repair work. This site explains the City's process in plain English and, if you want, passes your repair request to licensed plumbers you choose.

Who runs it

Philly Sewer Line Guide is run by Drzik Company LLC, 229 Lyceum Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19128. Contact: [email protected].

Where the facts come from

• Every factual statement links to its source: City of Philadelphia pages on phila.gov, Philadelphia Water Department pages and documents on water.phila.gov, or PWD's published regulations. One background figure comes from an older PWD handout hosted on treephilly.org, and we say how old it is wherever we use it.
• All sources were last opened and read on October 6, 2026. Each page shows that date. If a City page now says something different, the City's page is right and ours is out of date; please tell us.
• We quote the City's own words where precision matters (deadlines, who pays, permits) and keep our own explanations separate.
• We don't publish repair price ranges, because we haven't found a current, checkable source for Philadelphia. The costs page shows the City's actual permit fees and explains what moves the price.
• The pipe diagram is our own drawing, based on PWD's documents. It uses no City logos or seals.
• Pages were drafted with AI assistance and checked line by line against the cited sources.

How plumbers join the request service

• During the pilot, any plumber can take part if they hold an active Philadelphia master plumber licence (we check it on the City's L&I Contractor Lookup) and agree to our pilot terms: reply to requests within one business day, honour any request to stop calling or texting, and never resell or share a homeowner's request.
• We list participating plumbers in no particular order. We don't rank them, call anyone "best," or publish reviews.
• A plumber's name appears on this site only after they have agreed to be listed.
• Homeowners choose which plumbers get their request. We never add a plumber after you send it.

How the site is paid for

Right now it isn't: the pilot is free for homeowners and free for plumbers. If we ever charge plumbers for requests, we will say so on this page before it starts, and it will never affect which plumbers you can choose or the order they appear in. Homeowners will never be charged.

Corrections

Found an error or an out-of-date fact? Email [email protected] with the page and the source. We fix confirmed errors and update the "sources checked" date.