Is Trenchless Sewer Repair Worth It? 5 Pros and 4 Limits

Pro 1: Much less to rebuild

A trench along a sewer line takes everything above it: lawn, shrubs, walkway, sometimes a driveway or a length of sidewalk. Trenchless work swaps that trench for one or two pits a few feet square, or a cleanout plus a single pit. On most jobs the savings show up in restoration rather than in the pipe work, as the factors behind the price explain.

Pro 2: Usually finished in a day

A typical house lateral is filmed, prepared and lined or burst within one working day, with a second day on harder jobs. When a liner goes in, the water stays off for a few hours while the resin cures, so plan on no showers, laundry or dishwasher during that window. The crew will also need clear access to the cleanout. The FAQ page covers more of what to expect on the day.

Pro 3: A pipe with no joints

Old clay and cast iron lines are short sections joined end to end, and every joint is a place for roots to enter and for the line to shift. A cured liner is one continuous tube, and burst-in HDPE is fused into a single length. Roots that have been coming in at the joints for years lose their way in.

Pro 4: A long service life

CIPP liners are engineered for about 50 years of service, and the fused HDPE a bursting crew installs carries a 50 to 100 year rating. Either way, the repair is meant to be the last one that stretch of line needs for decades, not a stopgap until the next backup.

Pro 5: It reaches pipe under slabs and drives

Some of the hardest pipe to dig sits beneath a house slab, a garage floor or a driveway. A liner fed from a cleanout reaches those stretches from inside the pipe, so the concrete stays where it is. For a slab home, that point alone often settles the question in favor of trenchless.

The 4 limits

1. A full collapse. A liner needs an old pipe to follow, and a flattened or caved-in section has none. That stretch needs bursting or a targeted dig, and what happens with a collapsed line walks through the options.

2. Bellies. A liner copies the profile of the host pipe, so a sag that holds water is still a sag afterward. Correcting the grade usually means digging at the low spot.

3. A slightly smaller bore. The liner wall takes a few millimetres off the inside diameter. On most house laterals that causes no trouble, but it is a genuine trade-off.

4. Layouts that block bursting. Bursting needs a pit at each end, prefers a fairly straight run and is avoided where other utilities lie very close to the sewer line. When neither lining nor bursting fits, an open dig for part of the run is the honest answer.

What happens to the lawn

Each pit is backfilled once the work is done. Grass over a patch a few feet square is the easy part: rake the soil level, add a layer of topsoil, seed it or lay a piece of sod, and keep it watered until it roots. Backfill settles a little over the first few weeks, so topping up a low spot is normal. Next to a trench scar across the yard, the mark is small and short-lived.

So, is it worth it?

When the camera shows a pipe that still holds its shape at a workable grade, especially one running under concrete, a slab or mature landscaping, trenchless repair is usually the better deal. When it shows a collapse or a belly, part of the answer involves digging, and a fair quote says so plainly.