Plumber in Oakland County, MI

Plumbing in south Oakland County starts with what runs under the street. Fourteen communities, among them Royal Oak, Ferndale, Berkley, Hazel Park, Madison Heights and part of Troy, send their sewage into the George W. Kuhn system, which began as the Twelve Towns Drain in 1962. Many of those suburbs were built with combined sewers that carry rain and sewage in one pipe. When a big storm fills that system, the water looks for the lowest opening it can reach, and in an older house that is usually the basement floor drain. Our office is on Stephens Rd in Warren, east of Dequindre Road, which is the county line, so these inner-ring suburbs are the part of Oakland closest to us.

Twelve Towns sewers and the basements that fill first

In dry weather, everything in the Kuhn district flows to the regional treatment plant in Detroit. In a heavy rain the flow spills into the Kuhn basin, a tank that holds up to 150 million gallons under a strip of county land between John R and Dequindre. When even that fills, screened and disinfected overflow goes into the Red Run at the Macomb County line. The basin is rarely overwhelmed. August 11, 2014 was one of those times, when 4 to 6 inches fell on southern Oakland in about four hours.

For a house, the problem starts before the basin is full. A combined street sewer that is running high pushes back up the lateral, and a floor drain a few feet below the street has no way to stop it. A clay lateral with root-packed joints makes it worse, because the house drain cannot empty even when the street has room. That is why we usually pair basement floor drain cleaning with a look at the lateral before anyone buys a valve.

The age of the houses lines up with the age of the pipes. Census estimates for 2020 to 2024 put the median Oakland home at 1975, a number pulled up by the newer subdivisions in the north and west of the county. The inner ring is older. About one in five of the county’s 561,000 housing units went up between 1940 and 1959, the median Hazel Park home dates to 1955, and Madison Heights follows at 1961.

Crossing Dequindre from Warren on 12 Mile and I-696

Dequindre is where Oakland begins for us. We leave Stephens Rd on Hoover Road, pick up 9, 10 or 12 Mile or I-696, and head west past Van Dyke and Mound. We cross Dequindre on I-696 or on the mile roads into Hazel Park, Madison Heights and Troy, and Woodward and I-75 take us into Royal Oak, Ferndale and Berkley. The suburbs along that line are a short hop from our office. Homes farther north and west get scheduled around other jobs heading the same way, and we say plainly on the phone where your visit fits.

In a 1940s bungalow off Woodward, the first stops are the floor drain, the cleanout and the main stack, and we ask whether the basement has taken water before. A newer house up toward Troy or Rochester Hills usually sends us to the sump pit, the water heater or a supply line leak instead.

Rouge River basins, the Water Resources Commissioner and your permit

Not all of Oakland drains to the Red Run. Birmingham and Beverly Hills also sit on the Rouge River side, where the county runs the Acacia Park, Birmingham and Bloomfield Village retention basins. The Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner, on One Public Works Drive in Waterford, operates and maintains systems for 22 municipalities, and runs the drinking water system in places such as Pleasant Ridge, Royal Oak Township and Bloomfield Hills. Many south Oakland cities buy water through the Southeastern Oakland County Water Authority, which purchases it wholesale from the regional system.

Permits are a separate matter. Under Michigan rules, plumbing code enforcement can sit with the state, the county or the local unit, so the inspector for a water heater or a sewer repair depends on your city. The state keeps a jurisdiction list if you are unsure, and our post on who owns the sewer line covers the question homeowners ask next.

A basin under a golf course and a drain outfall on a county line are odd things to list on a plumbing page. They explain why a Berkley or Hazel Park basement can take water after the rain stops: the system is still full, and the floor drain is the lowest point it can reach.

See every city we serve around Warren · Floor drain plug or backwater valve for sewer backups · Who owns the sewer line between your house and the street

Last updated October 25, 2026