Drayton is an unincorporated community on the east side of Spartanburg, first counted as a census-designated place in 2020 with 1,115 residents. Its post office dates to 1904, and its name honors William Henry Drayton, a South Carolina delegate to the Continental Congress. The community took shape around Drayton Mills, which opened in 1902 and ran as a textile mill until 1958.
The mill was listed on the National Register in 2012, and its spinning and weaving buildings were restored into 289 loft apartments, followed by Drayton Mills Marketplace with restaurants, shops and offices. Around the mill, the village houses are still standing, now owned or rented as individual homes.
Because Drayton is not incorporated, Spartanburg County Building Codes issues plumbing and gas permits. Water and sewer come from Spartanburg Water and the Spartanburg Sanitary Sewer District, and Piedmont Natural Gas serves the area. Drayton is within the Gas Guys service area, close to the city, with the phone answered 24/7.
Drayton at a glance
- Natural gas
- Piedmont Natural Gas. Piedmont Natural Gas serves the Spartanburg area around Drayton; in the older village houses, any gas piping was added long after they were built.
- Water
- Spartanburg Water
- Sewer
- Spartanburg Sanitary Sewer District
- Permits
- Spartanburg County Building Codes
- Housing
- Early 1900s mill village houses around the restored Drayton Mills, which now holds 289 loft apartments.
Plumbing and gas in Drayton: what to know
Lofts versus houses
If you live in the Drayton Mills Lofts, plumbing inside your unit goes through property management first, since the building systems are theirs. If you own a house in the village, everything from the water meter to your fixtures, and from your drains to the sewer tap, is yours. Most of this page is about the houses.
Roots in old laterals
The mill village has mature trees, and roots find the joints of old clay tile and cast iron sewer laterals. The pattern is slow drains that come and go, then a backup in the lowest fixture, often worse in late summer and fall. Root cutting clears the line, and a camera shows whether replacing a section is the lasting fix.
Fixtures from many decades
Bathrooms in these houses were usually added after construction and redone since, so one house can have an old cast iron tub, a newer toilet on an old flange and a sink drain run through the floor. A rocking toilet or a stain on the ceiling below usually means a failing wax ring or a rotted flange, which is worth fixing before the subfloor goes.
Adding gas appliances
Owners who want a gas range or a tankless water heater in an older Drayton house should start with the existing gas line. We add up the load already on it, check the pipe size back to the meter and run a properly sized branch. New piping gets a pressure test before it is put into service.