Pipe Bursting in Solon

Subdivision pipe with a few old exceptions

Solon was a crossroads village surrounded by farms until Interstate 480 and the industrial parks arrived, and then it grew quickly. The colonials off Aurora Road and SOM Center Road from the 1970s, the larger homes around Thornbury and the golf courses from the 1980s and 1990s, and the newer plats on the east side toward Bainbridge all have PVC laterals, glued in long lengths with a PVC or cast-iron stub through the foundation. The village center near Solon Road and the oldest streets around it have vitrified clay laterals from the 1920s through the 1950s, and a few of the farmhouses on large lots were on septic until a main reached them.

Those septic conversions are worth a careful camera look. The connection from the house to the new main was sometimes made with mixed materials, and the abandoned tank or the old line to it can still be tied in somewhere.

Wet till, headwater streams, and settling

Solon sits on glacial till over shale, with headwater branches of the Chagrin River and Tinkers Creek crossing the city. The till holds water, and in spring the water table rises close to the surface in low-lying plats. Lateral trenches backfilled with that till settle unevenly, and the pipe follows, leaving bellies where water stands and solids drop out. Frost reaches roughly three feet, and the shallow run near the house heaves every winter. Over thirty or forty years, even a solvent-welded PVC joint can rock loose, and a clay joint will have opened long before that.

Street trees in the subdivisions, mostly pin oaks, silver maples, and sycamores, are now mature, and the willows and maples along the stream corridors are aggressive. Roots do not break PVC, but any joint that weeps draws them in. Solon's sanitary sewers are separate from the storm system and flow to the city's own treatment plants, so basement backups are usually a lateral problem rather than a surcharged main.

Matching the method to the defect

Because Solon laterals tend to have one or two problems rather than failure along the whole length, sectional point repair gets used often here. A short liner on a packer is positioned over the separated joint or crack, inflated, cured, and the packer removed. The rest of the pipe is left alone.

Full cured-in-place lining fits the clay laterals in the old center and any PVC line with multiple defects. After hydro jetting and a camera pass, an epoxy-saturated felt liner is inverted from the cleanout and cured with hot water, steam, or UV. The pipe must be round and passable end to end. A belly cannot be lined out; the liner simply takes the same dip. A deep belly, a crushed section, or a lateral that needs to be upsized for a finished basement is a pipe bursting job, pulling fused HDPE through the old path from two pits.

Permits, inspection, and Solon's own system

Solon issues sewer repair permits through its building department, and the engineering department handles the right-of-way. Unlike most of the county, Solon treats its own sewage at municipal plants rather than sending it to the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, so the city's own sewer regulations govern connections and the prohibition on storm water, sump pumps, and footer drains in the sanitary lateral. The inspector reviews the post-cure video for a liner or sees the connection before backfill for a bursting job.

Ask the installer who pulls the permit and whether the quote includes the inspection fee and any bond for opening the street. In most communities the owner's responsibility ends at the main; confirm it for your plat.

The day of the job and finding the right installer

A point repair is a few hours with drains off. A full liner takes a day: jetting, filming, wet-out, cure, reinstatement, and a final video. Bursting brings an excavator for the pits, a pulling rig, and a dewatering pump in a wet season, with a second day for restoration of the lawn and any sidewalk panels.

Compare bids on the same scope, with the method, footage, liner thickness or HDPE size, and the plan if the camera finds a surprise such as an old septic tie-in. To find installers who have been verified for training and insurance, find a verified CIPP contractor and ask for a reference on a similar subdivision lot in Solon or a neighboring community. A contractor who has handled a septic-conversion lateral here will know what to look for.

Pipe Bursting in Solon

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 Solon

Pipe Bursting is available throughout Solon, including ZIP codes 44139.

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Questions we hear in Solon