West Brandywine Township Municipal Authority

Plumbing Basics

A sanitary sewer is an underground carriage system specifically for transporting sewage from houses and commercial buildings through pipes to treatment or disposal.

Pipes conveying sewage from an individual building to a common gravity sewer line are called laterals. Branch sewer mains typically run under streets receiving laterals from buildings along that street and discharge by gravity into trunk sewers at manholes. 

A pump station is a gravity sewer sump with a pump to lift accumulated sewage to a higher elevation. The pump may discharge to another gravity sewer at that location or may discharge through a pressurized force main to some distant location.