Pipe Bursting in Campbell

Company housing and the pipe it came with

Campbell was built for the mills. The streets off Wilson Avenue, Robinson Road, McCartney Road and Coitsville Road filled with frame doubles, brick foursquares and small cottages between about 1910 and 1935, and the historic district holds rows of poured-concrete homes a steel company built for its workers. Nearly all of it was connected to sewer when new, on vitrified clay laterals in two-foot jointed lengths, with cast iron through the foundation wall and under the basement floor.

There is very little postwar housing in Campbell and almost no Orangeburg. What the camera finds is clay and iron, both at the end of a long life. The iron, which handled every drop of waste for a century, is often channeled through at the bottom and rusted at the hubs. The clay beyond the wall is cracked, rooted and offset, especially where the lateral drops downhill toward a main on the street below.

Hillside creep and river-bottom water

Campbell's upper streets sit on clay over shale, and that clay creeps downhill slowly when saturated. A lateral laid down the slope gets pulled at its joints a little each year, and over a century the offsets add up. Frost reaches 36 inches and shallow runs near the house heave and settle every winter. Down near the Mahoning River, the ground is alluvium with a high water table, and the open joints in old clay take in groundwater that overloads the sewer and comes back during storms.

The trees are as old as the houses. Silver and Norway maples along the streets and sycamores near the river have roots that span the narrow lots, and every open joint is an entry. Root intrusion, offset joints and corroded iron are the three findings on nearly every Campbell camera inspection, in that order.

Lining both materials, bursting the worst

Cured-in-place pipe lining can address both the iron and the clay in one pass. After hydro jetting and root cutting, the installer inverts or pulls an epoxy-saturated felt liner from the basement cleanout, through the corroded iron and out the clay to the main, and cures it with hot water, steam or UV. The liner seals the channeled iron, the cracked clay and every joint, and it is installed from inside with no digging. The pipe must still be round and the offsets must be modest.

Where a joint has pulled apart too far or a section has collapsed, that stretch cannot be lined. Pipe bursting replaces the entire run with fused HDPE between two pits, or a short excavation at the bad spot lets the rest be lined. A sectional point repair, a short liner over one failed joint, suits the many Campbell laterals that are sound except for one spot. A backwater valve installed during the work protects the low streets from surcharge.

City permits and the street

The City of Campbell issues the lateral permit and inspects the open pit or the post-installation video. Because the mains are under the street, any bursting pit or dig near the curb also requires a city right-of-way permit with pavement and sidewalk restoration. The owner is responsible for the lateral all the way to the main, and the contractor pulls both permits on the owner's behalf.

Lining and point repairs done from the basement avoid the street permit entirely, which on Campbell's narrow lots is usually the deciding factor. The inspector will check the connection at the main for a tight seal, since infiltration from old laterals is a concern for the city's system.

What the day involves and who to hire

Expect the crew to start at the basement cleanout with a camera and a locator, record the iron-to-clay transition, map the route to the street and note depths, then jet and inspect again. The liner cures over a few hours during which the house cannot drain. The final video shows one continuous bore from the basement to the main.

Ask the contractor how they handle the iron section, because some crews line only the clay and leave the corroded iron for later. Ask for the before and after videos, the liner specification and the warranty. To compare installers who work in Campbell, find a verified CIPP contractor and request a camera report from each before deciding.

Pipe Bursting in Campbell

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 Campbell

Pipe Bursting is available throughout Campbell, including ZIP codes 44405.

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