Pipe Bursting in Cleveland

The pipe under a Cleveland house

Cleveland's housing stock is old by American standards. The East Side and West Side neighborhoods that fill the city between the lake and the inner-ring suburbs were largely built between 1890 and 1930, and even the post-war streets in West Park, Old Brooklyn and Lee-Harvard were finished by the early 1960s. That age shows in the sewer laterals. The typical Cleveland lateral is vitrified clay tile in two- or three-foot lengths, joined with mortar or, later, rubber gaskets, running from a cast iron stub at the foundation wall out to the street main. Under the basement floor and through the wall the pipe is usually cast iron, and in the oldest houses the basement floor drain and the storm connection share the same line.

Clay tile itself lasts a long time. The joints do not. Every joint is a place for a root to enter and for the pipe to shift, and a Cleveland lateral may have forty of them between the house and the main. Cast iron under the slab fails differently: the bottom of the pipe channels out from decades of acidic sewage sitting in it, so the pipe looks fine from the top on a camera pass and is paper-thin underneath.

Soil, water and trees

The city sits on the Lake Erie lake plain, and most of it is heavy glacial clay with a high water table, especially in the flats along the river and the lake. Clay holds water against the pipe, moves with freeze-thaw cycles, and settles under driveways that were poured decades after the sewer went in. The result is offset joints and bellies, low spots that hold water and collect grease and paper. Cleveland's tree lawns are planted with maples, sycamores and oaks that are now sixty to a hundred years old, and their roots find every joint in the lateral beneath them. Root intrusion is the single most common finding on a sewer camera inspection in Cleveland.

Combined sewers and who owns what

Much of the older city is served by combined sewers that carry sanitary flow and stormwater in one pipe; the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District operates the regional interceptors and treatment plants, while the city and each suburb maintain the local sewers in the street. The lateral from the house to the main is, in nearly every case, the property owner's responsibility for its whole length, including the part under the sidewalk and tree lawn. That is why a failed lateral is a homeowner problem and not something the city fixes, and it is why repair work in the public right of way needs a permit and an inspection in addition to the plumbing permit for the work on the lot.

Which trenchless method fits a Cleveland lateral

A camera inspection decides this, not a sales visit. The footage usually points one of three ways.

• Cured-in-place pipe lining is the answer for the most common Cleveland finding: clay tile with root-intruded, slightly offset joints that still holds its shape and slope. A resin-saturated liner cured inside the old pipe seals every joint at once and leaves a jointless pipe rated for decades. It also handles channeled cast iron under the basement floor without breaking up the slab.
• Pipe bursting is for a lateral that has collapsed, has a long belly, or was undersized to begin with. A new fused polyethylene pipe is pulled through the path of the old one from a pit at the house and a pit near the main, so the driveway and the tree lawn between them stay put.
• Sectional point repair fixes one crushed joint or one root ball on an otherwise sound line, which is common where a lateral crosses a gas trench or runs under a driveway apron.

Open trenching still makes sense on a short, shallow run under open lawn, and an honest contractor will say so. Under a driveway, a mature tree or a city sidewalk, trenchless is almost always the cheaper total job once restoration is counted.

What a Cleveland job looks like

Expect a hydro jetting pass first, because a root-choked lateral cannot be inspected or lined until the wall of the pipe is visible. Then the camera pass, with the locator marking depth and position on the lawn. Lining is done from the basement cleanout or a small access at the foundation and is usually finished in a day, with the water off for a few hours during the cure. A second camera pass records the finished pipe, and where the work touched the right of way the city inspects before anything is backfilled. Keep the video; it is the best record of the line you will ever have, and it matters at resale.

Pipe Bursting in Cleveland

How pipe bursting works

A steel cable is threaded through the old sewer line from a pit at one end to a pit at the other. A cone-shaped bursting head, with new high-density polyethylene pipe fused to it, is pulled through by a hydraulic unit. The head splits the old clay or cast iron outward into the soil and the new pipe follows in the same alignment at the same depth. The result is a single fused length of pipe with no joints for roots to find.

When bursting is the right call

• Collapsed sections — a liner needs a host pipe to hold its shape; a collapsed run has none.
• Bellies — a low spot that holds water stays a low spot after lining. Bursting lays new pipe on a fresh bed.
• Undersized lines — bursting can upsize a 3-inch lateral to 4 inches; lining slightly reduces diameter.
• Badly deformed pipe — Orangeburg that has flattened, or cast iron with most of its bottom gone.

What the job looks like

One pit at the house or cleanout, one at the property line or the street connection, each a few feet square. Utilities that cross within a foot or two of the sewer path are located and potholed first. The pull takes an hour or two; the whole job, including fusing, connections, inspection and backfill, is usually one day.

Permits and the street

If the downstream pit is in the sidewalk, parkway or street, a right-of-way permit and restoration to city standards are required in addition to the plumbing permit. If the connection at the main is replaced, the city inspects it before the pit closes. Confirm who is handling this before work starts.

ZIP codes served in Cleveland

Pipe Bursting is available throughout Cleveland, including ZIP codes 44101, 44103, 44104, 44105, 44106, 44108, 44109, 44110, 44111, 44112, 44113, 44114, 44115, 44118, 44119, 44120, 44121, 44124, 44125, 44126, 44127, 44128, 44129, 44130, 44134, 44135, 44143, 44144, 44181, 44188, 44190, 44191, 44192, 44193, 44194, 44195, 44197, 44198, 44199.

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