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Save Your Lawn with Trenchless Pipe Repairs

A backed up sewer-line is always a major problem, it’s even worse when the backup is due to pipe damage from a shifted foundation, aging piping, or aggressive tree roots. When your plumber says you need a replacement sewer line, we know what you imagine, a torn-up yard that takes months or a very expensive landscaper to fix and return to normal. Traditional pipe replacement requires a deep trench and multiple days of digging, replacement work, and restoration work before it’s finally complete.

So it’s great news that mandatory yard damage is no longer the case! For many repairs you can avoid most of the digging and get quality, long-lasting pipe replacement without all the yard damage and heartache. Trenchless repairs come in two different styles depending on your needs: Cured-In-Place Piping and Burst Piping.

Cured-In-Place Pipe (CIPP) Relining

Fast and affordable, CIPP trenchless repair (also known as pipe relining) is effective for patching holes and restoring old piping to usefulness once again. Since this system is designed to restore old pipe, the current sewer line needs to be cleared, usually with a pipe snake. Tree roots, dirt, and any other obstructions are cleared out the same as any other drain cleaning.

The difference here is that a special inflatable bladder, coated with an epoxy resin, is pulled through the pipe and inflated. The resin is allowed to dry and cure (hence “cure in place” repiping), forming a new pipe inside the old one. A special robotic tool is sent down the pipeline to locate and reopen passages to separate drain branches. When the repiping is finished, a new sewer drain has been built that’s resistant to roots and stronger than the old pipe was when the repair started.

Pipe Bursting

CIPP pipe replacement is inexpensive and fast, but it can’t do much when the old pipe has been effectively destroyed by sinking ground, giant roots, general degradation of the sewer line. Rather than rebuilding or reinforcing the existing pipe with a smaller internal pipe, burst pipe replacement completely removes and replaces the existing pipe.

As you can see in the video below, pipe bursting is an effective method for completely replacing old and damaged piping and drains. Two holes are dug at either end of the pipe to be replaced. The new pipe is pulled through as the older pipe is destroyed by a bursting drill head. The older, damaged pipe is pushed out of the way while the newer, root-resistant pipe is laid down behind it.

Both of these methods can often be done in a single day. They have separate uses based on the current condition and location of existing pipes and drains, but both are far more cost-effective when compared to the price of landscaping after extensive plumbing repairs in your yard.