Sewer pipe failing - suggestions?

[Jim Wilkins]

"hr(bob) [e-mail]" wrote

-I still like the idea of putting in a whole new PVC line to the street

-and just bypassing all the old line. I bet it would be less costly

-than trying to dig up the old line till you get to the tree and then

-having to reline that portion of the pipe.from the tree to the street.

-Less skilled labor involved in putting in a whole new line than

-digging around the old line and then a different crew of folks to do

-the relining of the remaining pipe.

That depends on having frontage outside the root area and the cost and difficulty of digging up, tapping and repaving the line in the street. Both could be quoted and compared.

Scheduling two crews was a problem in my sewer installation. The truck finally came to pump out the septic tank at 7PM, and I wasn't his last job of the day.

jsw

[rangerssuck]

The existing pipe goes directly under the tree which is at the curbline. Any sort of digging operation would involve either cutting down the city-owned (and there's no way I'm cutting down this perfectly healthy tree just for my convenience) tree or opening the street. Either of those will certainly cost more than the relining. I suppose that one could tunnel under the sidewalk and tree, but that would require much more than a trench - you'd have to put in some structure to keep the whole mess from collapsing. I can't imagin that would be cheap.

It will be another day or so before my work schedule opens up so that I can get competitive quotes and stop by a couple of plumbing supply places.

[not in response to this post, but relevant nonetheless] I mentioned to my wife that I was getting good responses from this group, and that someone had suggested that it would be a bigger PITA to have the pipe fail on December 23 with a foot of snow on top of it, and she reminded me that about ten years ago, our water heater had a catastrophic (spectacular!) failure on Jan 31, with a nor'easter predicted for that night. It did cost a few extra bucks, but we did get it taken care of before the storm.

I saw, painted on a septic tank pump truck, "It smells like money to us!"

[Stormin Mormon]

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

.

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.

[bob haller]

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

[Lloyd E. Sponenburgh]

bob haller fired this volley in news:a1923b76-e3e4- [e-mail]:

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

[CRNG]

On Sat, 23 Jun 2012 14:33:22 -0500, "Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" wrote Re Re: Followup: Sewer pipe failing - suggestions?:

Bullshit.

[Garrett Fulton]

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- [e-mail]:

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

[bob haller]

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??

[Pilgrim]

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

[HeyBub]

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.

[Martin Eastburn]

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

[Jon Elson]

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