Plumbing in North Lebanon Township, PA

A township with every kind of house

North Lebanon Township wraps around the north side of Lebanon city, mostly in ZIP 17046, and its housing is the most varied in the area. More homes went up in the 1970s than in any other decade. More than a thousand have been built since 2000, in developments like Homestead Acres, the Crossings at Sweetbriar and Narrows Glen. Several mobile home parks sit inside the township too. And there are still villages like Ebenezer, Sand Hill and Heilmandale with older houses of their own.

Each of those comes with a different set of plumbing problems, so where you live in the township tells a plumber a lot before arriving.

2026 is a septic pumping year

Not every property here is on public sewer. Where a house has an on-lot system, the township’s program has the septic tank pumped and inspected every three years, in 2023, 2026, 2029 and so on.

That matters for plumbing because a tank that is due can look like a drain problem. Slow drains through the whole house, gurgling, or a toilet that struggles after laundry day can be a full tank rather than a clog in the pipe, and running a cable down the line does nothing for a full tank. Tell us whether the house is on septic and when it was last pumped, and the right problem gets looked at first.

Water from the city, and the mains changing hands

Most of North Lebanon drinks City of Lebanon Authority water. Since 2004 the township built roughly 12 miles of its own water mains, serving about 800 customers northeast of 8th Avenue and Maple Street, including Briar Lake and Sweetbriar, and those mains are being handed over to CoLA.

The township’s own Wastewater Department looks after more than 60 miles of sewer and seven pump stations, and the sewage goes to the City of Lebanon Authority’s plant for treatment. Its authority does not allow clean water on that system: no sump pumps, roof drains or yard drains tied into the sanitary sewer.

Mobile homes in a cold snap

The supply line into a mobile home runs under the floor, behind the skirting, with very little between it and the January air. That is where the freezes happen. Heat tape that has failed, skirting with a gap in it, or a cold night with the heat turned down is usually how it starts, and a split line under the floor can run for a while before anyone notices the water.

If it happens, close the shutoff for the home and call. Emergency plumbing covers what to do in the first few minutes.