Pipe Bursting in Boardman

Boardman's housing by decade

Boardman began as a farming township with a village center at the Boardman-Canfield Road and Market Street crossroads, and a few homes there date from before 1940. The rest came in waves. The late 1940s and 1950s filled the streets between Market Street and Glenwood Avenue with capes and ranches on vitrified clay or Orangeburg fiber pipe. The 1960s pushed south and west toward Route 224 and the mall area with split-levels and colonials, many on Orangeburg. The 1970s and later subdivisions near Western Reserve Road used PVC.

Nearly every Boardman home has a full basement, so the first stretch of the building sewer is cast iron through the foundation wall, and that iron is now 50 to 70 years old. The camera sees the iron first, then the clay or fiber beyond the wall, and the method chosen often has to address both.

Flat ground, heavy clay and a high water table

The township sits on lake-plain and glacial till clay that barely drains. Water sits in the trench around a lateral for months, and the frost line reaches 36 inches in a normal winter. Wet clay freezing and thawing around a pipe is exactly what breaks clay joints and crushes Orangeburg over time. Boardman has a well-known history of basement flooding in heavy rains, and leaking private laterals are part of that picture because they both admit groundwater into the sewer and let surcharged sewer water back out.

The trees finish the job. Silver maples, pin oaks and sweetgums planted on the postwar lots now have mature root systems that reach the sewer, enter at any joint or crack, and grow into mats that catch everything. On Orangeburg they do not need a joint. A homeowner who sees water at the floor drain after a storm, or who has snaked the line more than once, has a lateral problem worth a camera.

Sealing the joints or replacing the pipe

Cured-in-place lining is a strong fit for Boardman's infiltration problem. After hydro jetting and root cutting, the crew inverts or pulls an epoxy-saturated felt liner into the clay or iron pipe and cures it with hot water, steam or UV. The liner seals every joint, which keeps groundwater out of the sewer and sewage out of the basement, and it is installed from one access point. The host pipe must be round and continuous.

Deformed Orangeburg is a pipe bursting job. The installer digs a launch pit at the house and a receiving pit near the main, pulls a bursting head through, and tows fused HDPE behind it. In Boardman's wet ground those pits often need a pump running while the crew works. For a single broken joint or a bad connection at the main, a sectional point repair covers that spot without touching the rest. Any Boardman lateral job is also the time to add a backwater valve.

County permits for a township

Boardman is not a city, and its sanitary sewers are owned and operated by the Mahoning County Sanitary Engineer's office. That office issues the lateral permit and sends the inspector to see the open pit or review the post-installation video. The township permits any disturbance of a township road right-of-way, and the county engineer handles county roads. The owner is responsible for the lateral to the main, so the contractor pulls these permits on the owner's behalf.

Lining typically avoids the right-of-way altogether, so only the sanitary permit applies. Bursting with a pit near the road brings the road permit in and may add restoration conditions. The inspector will want to see that the liner or new pipe is properly sealed at the main, since infiltration is the county's main concern.

What the day looks like and who to hire

The crew runs the camera, locates the line across the lawn, records depth, jets the pipe and inspects again before committing to a method. Lining cures over a few hours, during which the house cannot drain. Bursting takes a day or two with the pits and the pumping. Both finish with a video of the completed line from house to main.

Ask whether the contractor has worked on your street, because Boardman's Orangeburg is well known to local crews. Ask for the before and after video, the material specification and the warranty against roots and infiltration. To compare installers serving Boardman, find a verified CIPP contractor and get a camera report from each before deciding.

Pipe Bursting in Boardman

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.

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