Home services across Upper Darby Township
One number for plumbing, electrical, heating & cooling, roofing, handyman work and more in Upper Darby.
Part of our Delaware County service area · median home here was built around the mid-1940s
What breaks in Upper Darby
The age of the housing decides the work.
Upper Darby Township holds about 34,000 housing units and roughly 61 percent of them were finished before 1950. Under a quarter are detached. The rest are brick and stone rows, twins and 1920s apartment courts, so a repair here is rarely contained inside one property line. The township also inspects before a property changes hands, inspects again before it will issue a rental license, and wants a camera down the sewer lateral either way. That is where most of our Upper Darby work starts, with a list that already has a date on it.
The lateral goes on camera before the sale closes
Upper Darby is one of the few townships that makes a plumber a required party to a house sale. Nothing transfers or changes use here until a camera has been down the sewer lateral, run by someone the township licenses, and the result filed on its own form. What it is looking for is inflow and infiltration, storm water finding a way into the sanitary system. The result expires after 90 days, so timing it matters as much as passing it.
Fourteen business days, and the township books the inspection
You do not control the schedule here. The township books the use and occupancy inspection, the application has to be in well ahead of a closing, and the township's own recommendation is considerably longer than its minimum. There are three ways it ends. A clean certificate. A temporary one that lets you occupy while minor items are corrected. Or a temporary access certificate, where the problems are substantial and existing occupants may stay but nobody new can move in.
Wired for 1920, loaded like today
The largest single cohort of housing here predates 1940, and a house from that wave started on a small fuse box with knob and tube behind the plaster. Four generations of owners have added to it. In an attached house there is nowhere to relocate a panel to, the service usually comes in off the back, and PECO has to be part of any upgrade. So electrical work in Upper Darby starts as a question about where things can physically go.
Naylors Run runs under the township
Naylors Run is a four and a half mile tributary of Cobbs Creek, and thousands of feet of it were channeled into culverts so the ground above could be built on. It stays underground from Sherbrook Boulevard to Walnut Park Drive, where it joins Cobbs Creek. That is the backdrop to the township's interest in what is connected to your sanitary lateral. A small, fast, mostly buried watershed under a century of roofs and paving has very little tolerance left in it.
What we run in Upper Darby
What actually gets called in the most here
Plumbing
Upper Darby makes a plumber a required party to every property transfer, because the sewer lateral certification has to come from a plumber licensed with the township and reported on the township's own form, and on a 1920s row that camera goes into clay pipe under a street lined with mature trees.
See plumbing →Handyman
Rental licences here come up for renewal on a cycle, not once at settlement, so a landlord with a few doors in the township is working through the same short list of alarms, handrails and cover plates several times a year rather than once.
See handyman →Electrical
The stock here was wired for a 1920s load and it is attached, so a service upgrade is first a question of where the panel and the meter can physically go on a house that shares both walls, and second a question of what PECO will do at the drop.
See electrical →On the ground in Upper Darby
Upper Darby is not one place. Drexel Hill is part of this township and reads nothing like the east side, and Bywood, Fernwood, Highland Park, Kirklyn, Primos and Secane all sit under one municipal government while looking like different decades. The sections near the 69th Street terminal are dense rows and 1920s apartment courts. Go west and the same build wave produced stone and brick twins on wider streets. Same township, same inspection department, very different houses.
The borders confuse people, and that matters because licensing and permits are municipal in Pennsylvania. East Lansdowne, Millbourne, Lansdowne, Yeadon, Darby, Clifton Heights and Aldan all touch this township, and in this corner of Delaware County a mailing address is often a post office name rather than the municipality that inspects your house. Tell us the street and we will confirm which one you are in before anyone applies for a permit in the wrong town.
Upper Darby questions
Straight answers for Upper Darby.
Do I need a sewer lateral inspection to sell my house in Upper Darby?
Yes. No property in the township transfers ownership or changes use without one, and it has to be a camera inspection performed by a plumber licensed with Upper Darby and filed with Licenses and Inspections on the township's own certificate. The township records any defect that could let storm water or anything else into the sanitary sewer. The certification is only valid for 90 days, so running it too early on a long settlement means running it twice.
How early do I need to start the Upper Darby use and occupancy?
At least 14 business days before settlement, and the township itself recommends four weeks. The window exists because the township schedules the inspection rather than you, and anything it turns up has to be corrected and reinspected inside the same clock. Minor violations can still get you a temporary certificate. Substantial ones get a temporary access certificate, which lets existing occupants stay but permits no new occupancy at all.
I rent out a house in Upper Darby. What does the township require?
A rental license for every non-owner-occupied dwelling, and an inspection to go with it. The licence runs on an annual cycle and the township will not issue or renew it until the unit passes, so this comes round every year rather than once when you buy. Confirm the current renewal date and fee with the township, because both move. Converting an owner-occupied house into a rental is itself a change of occupancy, so it triggers the use and occupancy process as well. The list that comes back is alarms, handrails and guards.
My neighbor's roof leaks and now mine does. Whose problem is it?
On an attached house it is usually one problem rather than two. A row or a twin has a continuous roof surface and a shared party wall, so water getting in over one house runs along the deck and shows up in the next one. Common gutters across a row do the same thing. Establish that before you pay for a repair on your side that does nothing, because the entry point is next door.
Why does the township care what my downspout is connected to?
Because a roof leader tied into the sanitary lateral is precisely what the camera inspection is looking for. Storm water in a sanitary sewer surcharges the system in heavy rain, and this township sits over a small, fast, largely culverted watershed with no spare capacity in it. On a row it is worth checking next door too. The grade and the gutter are shared, so what fills your basement often starts on the other side of the wall.
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