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Failing Sewer line


MikeyB

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This past Tuesday & Wednesday me and my 2 boys were home sick with a bug, Wenesday afternoon my sewer decides to back up. So I get out of my pj's and throw on the work cloths and grab my sewer cleaner out of the garage and have at it.

Now  we have been in this house for only 2 years and it's a split level and I have yet to locate my house trap. So now I finally had the chance to locate it.. Well it could not have been in a worse spot to access. , so I tried to snake out the sewer from the fresh air intake from the front of the house and no luck with that, so I pulled my bowl,off the floor and snaked from there 3 times, sinking all the wire from the snake into my sewer and clearing the line ( at least I though I did?)  . Reset the bowl, cleaned up the tools, everything was working/draining fine.

This morning I'm taking a shower when the sewer decides to back up again! So I said I need to get a company here with a camera to view the line cause I think I have a major problem now. 

So the guys show up and I give them the low down on my problem and they gain access to my trap remove both plugs and throw the sea snake in the line. Yep, the line from my foundation out to the main is failing. Roots, dirt, opening in the pipe, etc, etc.

So the Super mentions that they can line my sewer from the outside of my foundation to the street. This would eliminate excavating the front lawn, sidewalk, tree removal etc, etc. I have seen this relining done on some of my companies large residential buildings in NYC and have had with great results when you just cannot access the pipe for replacement. It's quite an impressive thing to watch. 

So they snake out the sewer line to clean as much as they can and dig up outside to gain access to my main to snap out a section of pipe to install the liner. They fill the liner  with compressed air and let it sit over night. Tomorrow they will come back and remove the bladder, splice in a spool piece and install a vertical section/tee for a clean out. The 4" pipe inside my house is bell and spigot cast Iron. The pipe on the outside going to the street transitions to 5" Asbestos pipe (which is now lined) when the liner cures it looks exactly like pic pipe. They are giving me a 25 year guarantee on the liner. I'll post more pics tomorrow as the put it all back together.  This sure was an expensive day, but it could always be worse...... The Ridgid sewer cleaner is my machine into the pic...

The liner is close to 45 feet long!!!!! 

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That's always a bad day for anyone that happens to.

That system is very cool way to redo sewer lines. We're not setup for anything that involved and we just excavate the yard, i don't know of anyone around here using that method. Very cool way to do.

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Thanks guys, when I first saw this done last year I was like holy shit what a freaking great idea. I just didn't think I would be on the Side shelling out all that cash foe this work...  Lol, 

When I tried to get to my  trap plugs I knew that would be a challenge for another day, but these guys were machines and I'm glad they got those plugs off because they would not have been able to run the sea snake through the sewer to find the problem right away.

I knew it right away when I saw that video screen that today would be an expensive day... Lol 

like I said it could have been worse, if we had to excavate we would need permits, and most likely a hotel. So I'm glad we can stay in the house tonight and use the plumbing sparingly to get us through to the morning... 

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Well, now i'm real curious to see how they transition between the house and the new pipe. That's true about the permit and inspection, but now I can't make a guess as to which way would be more expensive. 

For comparison, permits aren't a big hassle, but then locating service would have to come out and mark for gas, water, cable, electric, anything that is buried in your yard; that can happen fairly quickly if emergency is requested. By that time, a permit would have been acquired, and then the digging can start. It's a common enough occurrence for me, so it's all memorized and we can make it happen within two days time. I have never had a situation where the customer needed to stay the night somewhere else, it's dug up and replaced all in the same day. They may want to go somewhere else, if a family member is close by and it's convenient, or if it has backed up so bad, it has stopped draining altogether, that's beyond our control. Usually, when I run the snake through the sewer, I can clear it until they make up their mind about replacing the pipes at some point in the near future, it buys some time. If I can't get the auger through, because roots are so ingrown and too big to cut through, or a pipe actually broke, whatever the reason, the customer might then find another place to stay.

Sometimes, the blockage has been going on for months, and they don't know it because everything just comes out the clean out pipe, the old ones never have covers on, so there is nothing stopping overflow come out, making a little sewer pool right outside their house, and they don't even realize it because bushes are hiding it or something. At that point, I just tell them to keep using it until we can put in the new line because the damage is done (yuk).

 

Mikey, did they dig another hole at the other end out toward the street to cap that end the liner? What if they couldn't get the liner through the old pipe? What if the sewer took a 45 deg turn one way or even a vertical drop? Would they have been able to do this method? Just curious if you know the answers, how much detail they passed on to you.

 

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Thanks BigMike. Carl they insert this black bladder a few Inches ahead of the liner ( they didn't need to open another hole at the other end) so when that bladed is blown up to fit the liner to the shape of the pipe the liner will be an open end when they pull the bladder out, no issues with 45's or ell's. The guys said they can line any pipe from 3" up to 8"' and their truck has every thing they need. Like a Well  Oiled Machine! 

They came back this morning to finish the job.

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That sucks Mikey I hate unexpected repairs especially expensive ones, at least its fixed now. I have only seen a liner job on YouTube, the first place I saw it was on a channel called Swift Plumbers maybe 5 years ago. I don't think anyone does it here, we just dig it up and replace. It gets super expensive when the pipe inside the house fails, you basically have to tear half the house down. The homes are on slabs here so you have to chip out most of the floor and slab to change pipe. I don't think this system works on wye's, tee's, or combo's just on straight pipe. I could be wrong

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That sucks Mikey I hate unexpected repairs especially expensive ones, at least its fixed now. I have only seen a liner job on YouTube, the first place I saw it was on a channel called Swift Plumbers maybe 5 years ago. I don't think anyone does it here, we just dig it up and replace. It gets super expensive when the pipe inside the house fails, you basically have to tear half the house down. The homes are on slabs here so you have to chip out most of the floor and slab to change pipe. I don't think this system works on wye's, tee's, or combo's just on straight pipe. I could be wrong

Nor would it work on collapsed pipe that has created a mini septic tank in their yard! Fun!

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