Covington, Kenton County
Plumbers for the oldest of the river cities
MainStrasse, Licking Riverside, Wallace Woods, Old Seminary Square, Peaselburg and Latonia, four communities of nineteenth-century masonry on steep ground above two rivers, nearly all of it on a combined sewer.
Open 24 hours. Give us the street and what is happening.
- Erlanger · Ft Mitchell · Burlington
- Combined sewer through the core
- Stone cellars and cast iron
- 24/7 emergency response
Italianate row houses on a hillside
Covington was substantially built between 1850 and 1900, and the housing stock is the plumbing problem. Italianate row houses with shared party walls, hand-laid stone cellars reached by steep original stairs, cast iron waste stacks and galvanized supply that have been in service for well over a century. Very little of it has been comprehensively replaced.
The row-house arrangement matters more than people expect. Party walls mean a burst pipe in one building reaches the next, a lateral often runs beneath a shared alley, and there is frequently no route for heavy plant to the pipe at all. Trenchless methods and small-tool work are the norm here, not the exception.
The hillsides add the second problem. Soils on these slopes creep downhill slowly and continuously, so a buried line running across a hill is under constant shear. Failures are progressive rather than sudden, and a rigid repair that ignores the slope gets pulled apart again within a few years.
Then the sewer. The older core carries combined sewers, one main for storm water and waste, so a hard summer storm raises the level under the street and the lowest opening in the house becomes the relief point. Sanitation District No. 1 runs the sewers here and will confirm what serves your address.
Sewage smell in a cellar after rain
Do not run the washer or a shower, you are adding to a main that is already full. Ask specifically about a backwater valve.
Water in a stone cellar? Say whether it is rising or dripping and we will tell you what to shut off.
Get Help FastNeighborhoods
Where we work in Covington
From the riverfront back up the hills to Latonia.
MainStrasse Village
Dense 1850s–1880s row housing on narrow lots, party walls and alley laterals throughout.
Licking Riverside
Substantial nineteenth-century houses on the low ground where the Licking meets the Ohio.
Old Seminary Square
Italianate and Queen Anne stock immediately south of downtown, extensively renovated.
Wallace Woods
Early twentieth-century houses on the hillside, larger lots, basements throughout.
Peaselburg
Working-frame housing in the valley south of the core, closer to Latonia.
Latonia
Early twentieth-century housing around the old racetrack, on flatter ground.
Austinburg & Eastside
Older frame and brick stock on the eastern hillsides above the Licking.
Lewisburg
The western hillside neighborhood, steep streets and long service runs.
If your street sits on a boundary between two of these, it makes no difference to the call.
Coverage detail
Communities we cover around Covington
Covington, ZIPs 41011 and 41014 and 41016, and the surrounding Kenton County communities. One crew covers the whole area, so it makes no difference which side of a town line your street sits on.
Also covered in Kenton County
Not sure which town you are technically in? Give us the street name and we will sort it.
Ground conditions
What a pro expects to find in Covington
Nineteenth-century masonry, hillside movement, combined sewer, and almost no access.
Hillside movement
Slow ground, broken lines
Slope soils creep downhill continuously. A line laid across a hillside is under permanent shear, so failures are progressive and repeat.
Repairs that ignore the slope fail again. Trenchless replacement with correct bedding is the durable answer.
Combined sewer
Storm and waste together
The older core carries both in one main. Heavy rain raises it and the lowest opening in the building takes the overflow.
A backwater valve plus a sized sump. In a row house it protects the neighbors as much as you.
Row-house access
Party walls, alley laterals
Buildings a few inches apart, laterals under shared alleys, cellars down steep original stairs. Heavy plant frequently cannot reach the pipe.
Small-tool and trenchless work. A pro tells you what is possible on site rather than after starting.
Any hour, anywhere in Covington.
The services called for most in Covington
Nineteenth-century pipe, combined sewers and hillside lines.
Towns near Covington
Also covered across Kenton County, on the same number and the same crew rota.
Questions
Covington questions
On a Covington hillside that is usually the ground rather than the workmanship. These slopes move slowly and continuously, so a rigid repair on a line running across the slope goes straight back under shear once it is buried. A durable fix accounts for the movement, flexible couplings, proper bedding, or a replacement run that is not fighting the hill.
Often no, and it is better to know before anyone commits to a method. Row houses sit inches apart with laterals running under shared alleys, and cellars are reached by steep original stairs. Trenchless replacement and hand work are routine here rather than exceptional. A pro will look and tell you honestly what is possible.
Three places worth checking: the meter pit at the property line, the point where the supply comes through the foundation or crawl space, and the cold inlet on top of the water heater for the hot side alone. In older Covington houses the indoor valve may be seized, which is worth knowing in advance.
Walk the house looking for pipe you can see and touch: those are the ones that freeze. Cover them, leave a cabinet door open under an outside-wall sink on a bad night, and know where the shutoff is, because a split line does its worst in the twenty minutes before someone finds the valve.
Ten to twelve years is a fair working life, and past that you are trading a planned replacement for an unplanned flood. Check the date on the label. If it is a tank in a finished part of the house and it is over ten, replacing it on your terms is cheaper than replacing it on its terms.
Look for an access lid, a drain field you avoid with the mower, and no sewer line on the bill. In Kenton County plenty of properties on the outskirts are on tanks while the centre of town is on a main. Knowing which you have decides whether the fix is a pump-out or a rod.
The house side, meaning the tank, switch and controls, is where we start, and that is where most of these faults live. Around Kenton County plenty of properties run on wells, and the same pattern turns up: a tank past its life making the pump do ten times the work it should.
Kentucky sits on limestone, so hard water is the default rather than the exception. Scale shortens the life of heaters and valves and blocks aerators. It is treatable with the right softener, sized to the household and plumbed with a bypass so the outside taps are not softened too.
Repeat blockages are a sign of a defect, not bad luck. Roots, a belly in the line, or a cracked clay joint all behave this way. In older parts of Covington clay laterals under mature trees are the usual suspects.
MainStrasse, Wallace Woods, Peaselburg or Latonia
One number for Covington and the rest of Kenton County, answered around the clock.