Hoover and around

Areas covered

Homeowners anywhere in Hoover can call, from Bluff Park and Green Valley down to Riverchase, Trace Crossings and Inverness, and out to Greystone and Meadowbrook on the Shelby County side. So can people in the towns around it.

Call (205) 555-0115

Local detail

Towns with their own page

Each of these city halls publishes its own guidance on drainage, flood zones or permits. The pages pick out what is useful to someone with water under or in the house.

Vestavia HillsWhich drains the city looks after, which are yours, and who checks a flood zone by address.
HomewoodShades Creek, Griffin Brook and what the city requires for work in a flood hazard area.
PelhamWho answers flood questions at City Hall and how repair permits work there.

Also covered

Helena, Alabaster, Chelsea and Mountain Brook. Homeowners there can call the same way and describe the same things: what they are seeing, in a crawl space or a basement, and whether it follows rain.

These towns do not have separate pages because there was nothing verified to add that would change what you do. The service pages apply as written. For a permit or flood zone question, your own city hall is the place to ask, since each town runs its own building department.

What changes from town to town

The ground and the weather are much the same across these suburbs. What differs is the paperwork and the pipes.

Permits. Each city issues its own. A company working in Pelham deals with Pelham's building department, not Hoover's.

Flood zones. FEMA draws the maps, but the person who will look up your address sits in your own city's engineering or inspections office. The Hoover contacts are on the local rules page, and each town page gives its own.

Sewers. Even inside Hoover, three different bodies run the sewer depending on the neighborhood. A sewer backup is not a waterproofing matter, but it is often mistaken for one.

Alabama 811. The digging rule is statewide and identical everywhere on this page.

Two counties, one city

Hoover straddles the line between Jefferson County and Shelby County. If you are on a septic tank, the health department for your county is the one involved. If you are on a sewer, the county decides who runs it outside the three neighborhoods the city serves itself. For everything else on this site, the county makes no difference.