Trenchless Sewer Repair 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.

Trenchless Sewer Repair in Solon

What "trenchless" actually covers

Trenchless sewer repair is not one method. It is a family of ways to fix or replace a buried sewer line from inside the pipe or through one or two small access pits, instead of opening a trench along its whole length. The two that do most of the work on residential lines are cured-in-place pipe lining, which rebuilds the pipe from inside, and pipe bursting, which replaces it along the same path. Sectional point repair handles a single bad spot, and spray-applied lining handles cast iron with too many bends for a felt liner.

How the method gets chosen

Every one of them starts the same way: a camera inspection that shows what the pipe is made of, where it fails, how deep it is, and whether it still holds its shape and slope. A line that is round and holding grade can be lined. A collapsed or bellied line cannot; it gets burst or replaced. One crushed joint on an otherwise sound line gets a point repair. The footage decides, and you should be shown it before anyone quotes a price.

When trenchless is the wrong answer

A lateral that has been undersized from the start, a run that crosses a foundation footing within inches, or a line with a long stretch that has lost all grade may be better served by spot excavation or a new route by directional bore. An honest contractor says so. The point of trenchless is not to avoid digging at any cost; it is to avoid digging that does not need to happen.

What to expect on the day

Cleaning with a hydro jetter, a camera pass, the repair itself, a post-repair camera pass, and, where the work touched the right-of-way, a city inspection. Most residential jobs are done in one day with water off for a few hours. The permit is the contractor's job; ask who is pulling it.

ZIP codes served in Solon

Trenchless Sewer Repair is available throughout Solon, including ZIP codes 44139.

More trenchless services in Solon

Questions we hear in Solon