5.5 MILES FROM FEDERAL WAY
Plumber in Des Moines, WA
Des Moines is the shoreline neighbour directly north of us, and the boundary between our two cities is genuinely blurry underground. Lakehaven's Redondo treatment plant sits right on that line, and the sewer district serving much of Des Moines reaches into Federal Way too.
One city, several utilities, none of them obvious
Sewer service across much of Des Moines comes from the Midway Sewer District, which was originally called the Des Moines Sewer District when residents of a two hundred acre area downtown petitioned it into existence in July 1946. It is a special purpose district run by an elected board rather than a city department, which catches people out when they try to call the city about a sewer question.
The district covers about ten square miles and reaches into SeaTac, Normandy Park, Burien, Kent and Federal Way as well as Des Moines. Roughly forty eight thousand people live inside its boundary, served through more than a hundred and fifty miles of sewer main, around four thousand manholes and thirteen pump stations, with its own treatment plant at Des Moines Creek dating from 1965.
Not every Des Moines address is on it, and water comes from a different provider again. So before anyone calls an agency about a problem in the street, the name printed on your actual utility bill is a better guide than the city on your mailing address.
Good to know about Des Moines
- ZIPsStreet delivery is mostly 98198, with 98148 at the northern edge. Worth knowing that USPS lists Seattle as the primary city name for 98198, with Des Moines as an alias.
- SewerMuch of the city is served by Midway Sewer District, a special purpose district formed in 1946, not a city department.
- TreatmentDes Moines Creek plant, in operation since 1965, plus Lakehaven's Redondo plant on the Federal Way line.
- TerrainMarine bluff along Puget Sound with neighborhoods stepping up behind it.
- DistanceAbout 5.5 miles from Federal Way, one of our shortest runs.
- PopulationAround 31,221.
Postal geography here is genuinely confusing, which is why we ask for a cross street rather than a ZIP when booking.
Bluff, beach and the ground in between
The shape of the city drives the work. Des Moines runs along Puget Sound with a marine bluff behind the waterfront and residential neighborhoods stepping up from it, and that grade difference is what makes properties here behave differently from the flatter ground inland.
Water moves downhill through the soil rather than sitting, which is generally good news, but it concentrates. Properties partway down a slope collect what is draining from everything above them, and a crawl space on that kind of lot can take water every winter without any plumbing fault existing at all.
Sloped lots also put load on laterals. A line running down a gradient with jointed pipe has hydraulic conditions that a level run does not, and infiltration through weeping joints is a familiar finding on a camera run here.
The Redondo line runs through both our cities
Redondo is the part of the map where Federal Way and Des Moines effectively merge. Lakehaven operates a treatment plant there, the Redondo plant, designed for an average flow of around four and a third million gallons a day, and it sits at the boundary between the two cities.
Practically that means addresses near the line can be on Lakehaven for one service and somebody else for the other, and it means we are working both sides of that boundary constantly rather than treating Des Moines as a trip out of area. It is about five and a half miles from our base and is one of the shortest runs we make.
The housing near the water skews older and more varied than the newer inland developments, with more small original cottages that have been extended over the decades. Additions built in different eras onto the same house are one of the more reliable sources of odd plumbing, because each one brought the materials and standards of its own decade with it.
What we get called out for here
Crawl space water in the wet months, which as often as not turns out to be ground rather than pipe. The meter test settles that quickly and it is worth running before booking anything, since a still meter with a wet crawl space is a drainage question rather than a supply leak.
Lateral work on the sloped lots and the older waterfront properties. Drain and root problems on the wooded streets, which behave much as they do in Federal Way because the tree cover and the build era are similar.
And the ordinary rest of it, heaters, fixtures and emergency calls, on exactly the same footing as at home. Nothing is priced differently for crossing into Des Moines and nothing needs to be, given the distance.
What Des Moines calls usually turn into
Des Moines work divides between ground and pipe. A wet crawl space with a still meter is drainage, a turning meter is leak detection, and a lateral misbehaving seasonally on a sloped lot is a camera job before it is anything else.
We cover the neighbouring shoreline and valley cities on the same terms, including SeaTac to the north and Kent inland.
QUESTIONS
Des Moines plumbing questions we get asked
Who do I call about a sewer problem in Des Moines?
Check whether Midway Sewer District appears on your bill. Much of the city is served by that district rather than by a city department, and it is governed by its own elected board of commissioners.
If the problem is clearly in the public main rather than on your property, that is the district's to deal with. If it is in your lateral, it is yours, and that is the more common situation by a wide margin.
My crawl space floods every winter. Is that a plumbing fault?
On a sloped lot here, frequently not. Properties partway down the bluff collect groundwater draining from everything above them, and that arrives every wet season whether or not any pipe is leaking.
Run the meter test with every fixture shut. If the dial does not move, you are dealing with drainage and vapour control rather than plumbing, and we will tell you that rather than sell you a repair.
Is Des Moines actually in your service area?
Very much so. It is about five and a half miles out and Redondo sits on the boundary between our two cities, so we work both sides of that line as a matter of routine.
There is no travel surcharge and the same dispatch hours apply. If anything, parts of Des Moines are a shorter run than the far north end of Federal Way.
My house has been added onto several times. Does that matter?
It matters more than almost anything else you could tell us. Each addition brought the materials and the plumbing conventions of its own decade, so a single house can contain galvanized, copper and plastic supply lines all connected together.
Dissimilar metals joined without proper separation corrode at the junction, which produces failures that look random until somebody traces where the eras meet. Worth mentioning on the phone.
Redondo sits on the line between us
Parts of your city are a shorter run than parts of ours. Call and give us the cross street.
CALL A PLUMBER NOW(253) 478-2671