2491 W Iliff Ave, Denver, CO 80219

Service Area

Sewer and Water Line Service in Denver, CO

An independent, licensed plumbing contractor. Not affiliated with Denver Water or the City and County of Denver.

Sewer line, water line, and underground infrastructure work in Denver, City and County of Denver. Denver Sewer and Water scopes the line before quoting, pulls the permits, and handles the excavation with our own crews.

Our shop is at 2491 W Iliff Ave in southwest Denver, so most of the city is a short drive for a scope or an emergency call.

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Sewer Lines
Water Lines
Fire Lines
Storm Drains
Septic Systems

Independent, family-owned. Not Denver Water or a city agency.

Denver Sewer and Water LLC is a privately owned, licensed and insured plumbing contractor. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Denver Water or any government entity. Visit denverwater.org for utility billing, meters, or city water service.

Family Owned and Operated, Not the City Utility
Licensed and Insured
Second-Generation Specialists
Fast Response Across the Denver Metro

Underground Line Work in Denver

Denver Sewer and Water repairs, replaces, and taps sewer and water lines across the City and County of Denver. We scope the line with a camera before quoting anything that involves digging, we pull the Denver permits ourselves, and our own crews do the excavation and the restoration. That is the whole answer to what we do here.

Denver is not one kind of underground. The pre-1950 core from Baker and Capitol Hill out through Park Hill and the Highlands is largely vitrified clay laterals in short jointed sections, with cast iron inside the building and galvanized or older water services out to the main. Those neighborhoods fail at the joints, and mature street trees do most of the finding. Postwar Denver, roughly Harvey Park through Virginia Village, mixes clay, early cast iron, and Orangeburg, which deforms instead of cracking. Newer Denver, Green Valley Ranch, Central Park, and the redeveloped corridors, runs PVC and copper, and the calls there are usually construction damage, settlement, or a belly rather than material failure.

The other thing that makes Denver work different is the street. In Denver the property owner owns the sanitary lateral all the way to the main, including the run under the sidewalk and under the pavement. When a defect sits in the right-of-way, the repair adds permitting, traffic control, and a restoration spec written to the surface we cut. We plan that into the quote instead of discovering it on the second day.

We also do the work most plumbing companies subcontract out. Sewer taps, water taps, fire line taps, deep excavation, and coordination with Denver Water on the tap side are in-house here. If the job is buried and it is bigger than a snake, it is our lane.

Areas we cover: Capitol Hill, Baker, Washington Park, Park Hill, Highlands and LoHi, Five Points and RiNo, Sloans Lake, Berkeley and Sunnyside, Harvey Park, Virginia Village, Green Valley Ranch, Central Park.

Tree lined Denver residential street with 1920s brick bungalows and mature elms
Older Denver blocks: shallow clay laterals, alley mains, and mature tree roots.

Local Infrastructure Context

Contractor reviewing utility permit plans on a work truck tailgate with locate marks on the pavement
Locates, permits, and the right authority get handled before the first cut.

Who Has Authority Over Underground Work in Denver?

Three separate authorities can touch one Denver job. Denver Water owns the water main and the tap and sets the tap application. Denver's wastewater side reviews and inspects sanitary sewer work and the connection to the main. Denver's transportation and infrastructure department controls any opening of the street, the alley, or the sidewalk, and it sets the restoration standard.

In practice a water service replacement and a sewer lateral replacement on the same property follow two different approval tracks even when it is one trench in the ground. We carry both, schedule the inspections, and stay on site for them.

  • Water main and tap authority: Denver Water.
  • Sanitary sewer review, connection, and inspection: City and County of Denver.
  • Street, alley, and sidewalk opening: Denver right-of-way permitting, with traffic control where the street width requires it.
  • Tree protection rules apply along parkways and protected tree lawns.
  • Restoration is specified by the surface that was cut, not by what is cheapest to place.

Tap and Connection Notes

  • A new or resized water tap in Denver is applied for through Denver Water, and the fee schedule is set by meter size rather than by the length of your service line.
  • Sewer taps into an existing Denver main require the main to be located and the new connection inspected before any backfill. We do not cover a connection that has not been seen.
  • Fire line taps carry their own sizing, backflow, and acceptance requirements, and the fire protection scope has to agree with the civil drawings before the tap goes in.
  • Right-of-way work in the older grid usually needs a traffic control plan because the residential streets are narrow and the parking is dense.
  • Concrete gets replaced with concrete. Restoration in Denver follows the surface spec for what was opened.

Typical Pipe Eras in Denver

  • Pre-1940 core: vitrified clay sewer laterals, bell and spigot, short sections, many joints.
  • Original water services in galvanized steel, with lead-era goosenecks on some of the oldest connections.
  • 1950s and 1960s: cast iron and early copper, often replaced only from the house to the property line.
  • Orangeburg in postwar infill and in mid-century repairs, failing by deforming rather than cracking.
  • Post-1990 and redevelopment areas: PVC laterals and type K copper water services.

How Lines Fail Here

  • Root intrusion at clay joints, heaviest under mature parkway trees.
  • Offset joints and bellies from decades of soil movement and expansive clay soils.
  • Galvanized water service scaling shut from the inside, which shows up as falling pressure rather than a leak.
  • Cast iron corroding through at the transition to the older clay run.
  • Shallow alley laterals cracked under repeated heavy truck loading.
  • Construction settlement and crushed pipe in redeveloped blocks and scrape lots.

Denver Sewer and Water Questions

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Camera-first diagnosis, permits handled, and honest answers about what the line actually needs.