Pipe Bursting in Struthers

A mill town's housing and plumbing

Struthers grew with the steel mills along the Mahoning River, and its housing is almost entirely from the first four decades of the 1900s: narrow frame houses, doubles and brick foursquares on small lots along Fifth Street, Elm Street, Wilson Avenue and the streets climbing toward Poland. The building sewers are vitrified clay in short jointed lengths, connected to cast iron through the foundation, and many run steeply downhill to a main on the street or alley below.

A handful of 1950s and 1960s homes at the edges of town, toward Poland Township and the Route 616 corridor, may have Orangeburg. The old core does not; it predates that product entirely. What the camera finds in Struthers is almost always clay, with the condition depending on the slope, the trees and how close the house is to the river.

Shale slopes, river bottom and old trees

The hills of Struthers are clay over shale, and the clay creeps slowly downhill when it is wet. A lateral laid across or down the slope gets pulled at every joint, and after a century the offsets add up. Frost reaches 36 inches, and shallow runs near the house heave and settle each winter. On the low streets along Yellow Creek and the Mahoning, the ground is alluvium with a water table that rises close to the surface in spring, and old clay joints there admit groundwater into the sewer and let surcharged sewer water back out.

The street trees are the same age as the houses. Silver maples, Norway maples and sycamores along the river have root systems that span the narrow lots, and every open clay joint is an entry point. Root intrusion is the most common camera finding in Struthers, followed by offset joints and, on the river streets, infiltration.

Lining the slope, bursting the collapse

Cured-in-place pipe lining fits Struthers well. After hydro jetting and root cutting, the installer inverts or pulls an epoxy-saturated felt liner into the clay pipe and cures it with hot water, steam or UV. The liner follows the steep grade and the bends, seals every joint against roots and groundwater, and is installed from the basement with nothing dug on the hillside. The host pipe has to be round; a joint offset by more than about a quarter of the pipe diameter is beyond lining.

Where creep has pulled a joint apart that far or crushed a section under the street, pipe bursting replaces the whole run with fused HDPE through two pits, or a short excavation at the bad spot lets the rest be lined. For a single failed joint on an otherwise sound lateral, which is common on these older streets, a sectional point repair installs a few feet of liner over just that location. A backwater valve is worth adding on any river-street home while the work is being done.

City permits and the right-of-way

The City of Struthers runs its own sewer collection system and issues the lateral permit, and its inspector reviews the open pit or the post-installation video. Any pit or excavation in the sidewalk, tree lawn or street requires a separate city right-of-way permit with pavement restoration conditions. The owner is responsible for the lateral all the way to the main.

On the narrow lots here, the receiving pit for a bursting job frequently lands in the public right-of-way, which is one reason lining or a point repair, both done from the house end, are often the first choice. The inspector will want to see that the liner is sealed at the main, since the city has an interest in keeping groundwater out of the system.

The installer and the day

A good crew starts at the basement cleanout with a camera and a locator, maps the lateral down the slope, records depth at the sidewalk and street, then jets and inspects again before choosing a method. The liner cures over a few hours during which the house cannot drain. The final video shows a continuous bore from house to main.

Ask for that video, the pre-inspection video, the liner specification and the warranty against root re-entry, and ask how they would handle a joint the camera shows as offset. To compare installers who work in Struthers, find a verified CIPP contractor and request a camera report from each before accepting a quote.

Pipe Bursting in Struthers

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 Struthers

Pipe Bursting is available throughout Struthers, including ZIP codes 44471.

More trenchless services in Struthers

Questions we hear in Struthers