Pipe Bursting in Lowellville

A river village on rock

Lowellville grew around the river, the railroad and the limestone quarries, and its housing is a mix of 1890s and early 1900s frame homes on the flat along Water Street and Washington Street, with later 1920s to 1940s houses climbing the hillside streets. Nearly all of it sits on vitrified clay laterals in short jointed lengths, with cast iron through the foundation. There is almost no postwar subdivision housing and therefore almost no Orangeburg; the camera finds clay, and the question is its condition.

The hillside houses have a particular layout. The main is usually in the street below, and the lateral drops steeply from the basement to reach it, sometimes through only a shallow layer of soil over limestone bedrock. Those runs are short but hard to excavate, which is why trenchless methods are attractive here.

Limestone, shale, frost and the river

The hills around Lowellville are limestone and shale with a thin cover of clay, and that clay creeps downhill when wet. A clay lateral laid down the slope gets pulled at every joint over the decades, and the offsets add up. Frost reaches 36 inches, and a shallow lateral over rock is within the frost zone for its entire length, so it heaves and settles every year. On the river flat, the ground is alluvium with a high water table, and open clay joints there admit groundwater into the sewer and let surcharged sewer water back into basements during high water.

The maples planted along the village streets a century ago are now enormous, and sycamores and willows line the river. Roots enter every open joint. Root intrusion and offset joints are the two findings on nearly every Lowellville camera inspection, with infiltration on the lowest streets.

Lining the slope, repairing the spot

Cured-in-place pipe lining suits these laterals. After hydro jetting and root cutting, the installer inverts or pulls an epoxy-saturated felt liner from the basement cleanout down the slope to the main and cures it with hot water, steam or UV. The liner follows the steep grade, seals every joint against roots and groundwater, and requires no digging in the thin soil over rock. The pipe must be round and the offsets must be modest.

A joint pulled too far apart by creep, or a section crushed under the street, cannot be lined over. Pipe bursting replaces the run with fused HDPE through two pits, though on a rock lot the pits may be slow to dig and the bursting head may struggle against bedrock close to the pipe. In that case a short excavation at the bad spot, followed by lining the remainder, is often the practical answer. For a single failed joint on an otherwise sound line, a sectional point repair installs a few feet of liner over just that location.

Village permits and the right-of-way

The Village of Lowellville issues the lateral permit and its inspector reviews the open pit or the post-installation video. Any pit in the sidewalk, tree lawn or street requires a separate village right-of-way permit with pavement restoration. The owner is responsible for the lateral to the main, and the contractor pulls both permits.

Because the mains are under the street and the lots are narrow, a bursting job's receiving pit is likely to be in the right-of-way, which is one more reason lining or a point repair from the house end is usually the first choice. The inspector will want to see a tight seal at the main, since infiltration is a cost to a small village system.

What to expect and how to choose

A good crew starts in the basement with a camera and a locator, maps the lateral down the slope, records depth and notes where rock is close to the surface, then jets and inspects again before committing. The liner cures over a few hours with the house unable to drain. The final video shows one continuous bore from the house to the main.

Ask whether the contractor has worked on steep, shallow laterals over rock, and ask how they would handle a joint the camera shows as badly offset. Request the before and after videos, the liner specification and the warranty. To compare installers who serve Lowellville, find a verified CIPP contractor and get a camera report from each before deciding.

Pipe Bursting in Lowellville

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 Lowellville

Pipe Bursting is available throughout Lowellville, including ZIP codes 44436, 44436.

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Questions we hear in Lowellville