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Sewer Line Repair

When waste is coming back up into the house, stop putting water down every drain in the building until the line has been inspected.

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When this becomes an emergency

What a pro does

The lateral is the pipe from the house out to the public sewer, and in most of Pennsylvania's older boroughs it's the homeowner's to maintain. A lot of it is vitrified clay laid in short lengths with mortar joints, and that's the material's weakness. Roots from the street trees that line so many Pennsylvania blocks find those joints, get in as hair-fine threads and thicken into a mat that catches everything passing. The plumber cables or jets the line open first to restore service, then puts a camera down to see what's actually there. That inspection decides everything after it. Roots at an otherwise sound joint may be manageable on a schedule. A collapsed section, an offset where two lengths have shifted apart, or a run that's sagged into a hollow in the ground is a repair. Repairs split into open cut and trenchless. Open cut means digging to the pipe, which under a Philadelphia sidewalk or a narrow Lancaster street is the expensive part of the day. Lining or pipe bursting avoids most of the trench and suits a long run under paving, though not every defect can be lined.

Frequently asked questions

They exploit it rather than break it outright. Roots follow moisture and vapour to the joints between clay lengths, slip through a gap far too small to see, and then grow. Given years, that growth widens the joint and lets soil in behind it, which is when the pipe genuinely starts to fail.
In most Pennsylvania towns you own the lateral all the way to the connection at the public main, which can mean under the pavement and the street. A few systems draw the line at the property edge instead. Your local sewer authority can tell you which applies before any digging is planned.
Sometimes. A cured liner pulled through the old pipe rebuilds it from the inside, and pipe bursting drags a new line through the path of the old one from two small pits. Both need the existing run to be reasonably continuous, so a completely collapsed section usually still means opening the ground.
Rain raises the level in the sewer and pushes gas back up the line. If your lateral has an open joint or a damaged section, that gas escapes into the soil beside the foundation and finds its way into a basement, which is why the nose sometimes finds a defect before a backup does.

Sewer Line Repair?

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