Pressure washing costs in Detroit

The grate at a Detroit curb leads somewhere you might not expect. DWSD says catch basins carry stormwater off city streets and nearby properties into the city's combined sewer system.

Detroit is working to keep rain out of those pipes where it can. In July 2026, the city and DWSD finished a project in Far West Detroit that put in a new storm sewer network for about 213 acres around Rouge Park. Rain from those streets now goes to two new basins in the park instead of the combined sewer, and the project cuts combined sewer overflows to the Rouge River.

That river ties the city to its suburbs. The Rouge watershed covers 466 square miles of the most built-up land in southeast Michigan, and more than a million people live in it. The Alliance of Rouge Communities, a group of local governments and counties, publishes a guide for power washers there. In Michigan, it says, contaminated wash water has to stay out of streets, ditches and storm drains. Water carrying oil, chemicals or heavy metals counts as hazardous waste.

Once the wash is done, look at the grate out front. In a 2020 flood warning, DWSD asked Detroiters to clear leaves, trash and other debris from above and around the catch basin in front of their house, and to keep garbage and recycling bins off the grate.