Video: Trenchless Sewer Replacement Caveats

SAN JOSE — Host, Sarah Rutan: Trenchless sewer replacement can be a great option if you have certain plumbing issues, but it’s not always a feasible solution. Today we’re in San Jose with Diamond Certified Expert Contributor Steve Schafer of Allstar Plumbing to learn more.

Diamond Certified Expert Contributor, Steve Schafer: Trenchless sewer lines are something that is spoken of quite often these days and for a lot of reasons, it’s a good idea. If you need to – if your sewer line runs under a asphalt or a driveway or a nice area that – of vegetation or planter area – yeah – trenchless might be a good idea. There are some things that you need to be aware of, though. The first of which, is that two holes have to be dug and there has to be room to get at least 20’ of pipe in one end and the machine in the other. So, that is one thing that you are going to need to consider. The other thing, too, is that there are situations where trenchless might not be a good idea.

One of those is if you have too many changes in direction in your existing sewer line, the pipe bursting machine might not make it through those bends. Now, a 45 is okay usually. A 90° and maybe not. The other thing that you need to be aware of is that if your existing line has, what’s called a belly, then it’s not going to work and here’s why: a belly is where a part of the sewer line is actually backwards graded. It doesn’t slope down; it slopes backwards. And that will collect sewage and block – and create blockages and – and what not. Now, if you are to go ahead and pipe burst through that, the new pipe will follow the same pipe as the old pipe which means, now, your brand new sewer line will also have bellies that can create blockages.

One of the way – one of the things that we want to do if we’re ever going to bid a trenchless sewer line is that we want to make sure we get a video camera down the line first, before we even talk about it. Then, once we’re done, we’re going to want to camera it again prior to the city inspection and make sure that all the seams are good and that there are bellies in the line. And that is actually required by the city inspectors. Almost every city in the Bay Area, the inspector wants to see a video shoot of the inside of the line to make sure that there are no bellies. Now, assuming that you don’t have any bellies and that you have room for the excavation for the two points – the beginning and the end point, then yes, trenchless might be a good option for you and it’s usually less expensive than, you know, digging the whole trench by, you know, by hand or with an excavator.

Host, Sarah Rutan: To learn more from local, top rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified Expert Reports at experts.diamondcertified.org.