Sewer pipe failing - suggestions?

rangerssuck · 2012-04-23T17:20:01+00:00

A week ago, on of my neighbors had his sewer back up into hisbasement. His house was built at the same time as mine (about 90 yearsago). My wife pretty much ordered me to do whatever it takes toprevent this from happening here. Coincidentally, I received a couponfrom a plumber for a $39 camera inspection of my sewer pipe. THAT is avery good price, I know people who have paid over $200 for thatservice.So, the guy came, and he was friendly, knowledgeable and thorough. Hespent over two hours looking and explaining. Long story short, thepipe is fucked. There are no tree roots, but there are major depositsand lots of rust. It's likely that the pipe is paper thin along itsbottom. There's standing water in some places (though not very deep),and when he pulled out the camera, there was dirt (like dirt from theground) on it.Digging is not a very good option, as there is a large (and I meanLARGE) tree at the curb line, right above the pipe. Either the treewould have to go or they would have to open the street, which runsinto over $10K just for the permits and insurance and paying two cops$65/hr to direct traffic (we see maybe ten cars a day on my street),The other option is to hydro-blast the crud out - they can vary thepressure from 10Kpsi to 50Kpsi which will leave the pipe clean andeven more fragile. Then they would reline it with this stuff: leaves about a 3/16" very smooth plastic wall inside the pipe.This involves jackhammering in two places in my basement - one tobypass the whole-house trap wich is no longer required by code, andthe other to gain access to the pipe just past the main stack. Thereis no digging required outside.All this comes with a lifetime warranty, transferrable once, and aprice tag of $7700. It takes a full day (he says there are threetrucks and six people here all day), and then its done.Good idea? Bad idea? Run like hell?

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Stormin Mormon 14 years ago

That's a big price shift, from $7,700 to free. Thanks for the follow up, field report.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

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he said, "Call Matt at Bardia." Of course I had no idea who Matt was or where Bardia was, but he gave the his phone number, and off I

Long story short, Matt said that if this were his house, he'd just leave it alone, but if it would make me (and my wife) more comfortable, running a snake through the pipe would cost under a couple of hundred bucks, and since his machine is currently broken, he referred me to another plumber.

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bob haller 14 years ago

sewer line with tree roots? no problem it becomes a maintence issue.

just put rock salt water down the sewer 4 or 5 times a year, espically early spring right before trees leaf out. do this as last person leaves for day, so the salty water kills the roots but leaves trees unharmed......

must be over 15 years of me doing this. we dont have the bucks to replace the line

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Lloyd E. Sponenburgh 14 years ago

bob haller fired this volley in news:a1923b76-e3e4- snipped-for-privacy@s9g2000vbg.googlegroups.com:

Yeah... and it's JUST FINE for cast iron pipes, too! (not!)

There are relatively inexpensive organo-phosphate based sewer root killers that do the same thing. Although they're mildly low in pH, the little bit of acidic state they present won't corrode iron pipes like salt will.

LLoyd

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Garrett Fulton 14 years ago

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Since this subject has been opened, does anyone here have any experience with this Orangeburg sewer pipe. My home was built in '58, and the French drains around the full basement outside the base of the wall feed out into a leach field. Also 3 basement floor drains. From the drain at the bottom of the basement steps outside, I apparently have this type pipe to the leach field. Had it cleaned twice to remove roots over the past 10 yrs., and slivers of the paper/bitumen material came out the last time about 6 inches long. The man who does the pipe cleaning is knowledgeable and said he's sure I have the Orangeburg pipe. This drain line is at least 6 ft. deep at the basement steps to a depth of approx. 2 ft. 150 ft. out to the leach field. Under buried lines to field hydrants and electrical cable to the garage. Ugly job to replace, big time. Is there a way to pull a liner through inside the deteriorating pipe? It's grey water from the washer/basement shower, and water from the French drains after heavy rains. Not sewage. Any ideas welcomed.

Garrett Fulton

bob haller fired this volley in news:a1923b76-e3e4- snipped-for-privacy@s9g2000vbg.googlegroups.com:

Yeah... and it's JUST FINE for cast iron pipes, too! (not!)

There are relatively inexpensive organo-phosphate based sewer root killers that do the same thing. Although they're mildly low in pH, the little bit of acidic state they present won't corrode iron pipes like salt will.

LLoyd

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bob haller 14 years ago

dspringcom@216.168.3.70...

orangeberg is all bad news, just dig it all up and replace.......

in the pittsburgh area cast iron isnt used below grade, its nearly all terracotta, clay tile which isnt effected by rock salt.....

and even if it were, the lne is getting replaced anyway, so what do you have to lose??

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Pilgrim 14 years ago

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area there are Co's that only dig up the ends of the lines, feed in replacement pipe with a head that expands breaking the old line so the new pipe can be pulled in behind. I have not seen it in action. Just word of mouth from a friend. CP

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HeyBub 14 years ago

My city did that to the sanitary sewer in my neighborhood. The original was (I believe) 8" concrete. The replacement was 10 or 12" plastic of some kind.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP went the machine for hours 'til they had the entire block done. The contractors came along with an itty-bitty back hoe, dug up the individual connections, and attached the intervening houses to the new line.

Then they covered up their mess, laid new sod, and repaired the fences they had to take down for access.

I was impressed.

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Martin Eastburn 14 years ago

Many pipes are left in place and a sleeve is inserted into the existing pipe. This is done after a PIG is run through cutting all of the roots and obstacles and flushing them down the tubes.

I liked what I saw the Phone company did - put in a grid array of tubes using concrete array of tubes something like 64 tubes in a square - each placed and sealed to another end-to-end.

It allows expansion of more fibre lies and rental to other custom lines.

Mart> Here in the San Francisco Bay Area there are Co's that only dig up the

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Jon Elson 14 years ago

My daughter bought a house last year. Some people recommended the pipe video, and since I earlier had a house with horrible sewer pipe problems, I urged her to do it. The pipe was rusted through in two places, where traps were under the floor slab. The seller ended up footing the bill for the repairs, which ran about a grand, I think. The plumber did a good job, just broke two small holes in the slab to access the traps. If you didn't know where to look, you'd miss the repairs.

The rest of the drain line was installed about 20 years ago when the area went from septic tank to sewer mains, it was PVC and in good shape.

So, it was a very CHEAP $200 inspection for us. We got a DVD of the whole inspection.

Jon

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