Express Sewer & Drain Blog

Picture the following:

You’re at your Sacramento home one day when you start to notice a really foul odor after you step outside. You search the yard for the source of the stink when you notice a really muddy, smelly patch of ground in the yard.

As it turns out, one of the sewage lines servicing your home has failed, and is now leaking raw sewage into your yard.

Chances are that you want this problem fixed right away before the smell gets worse. So, you look up the “fastest way to replace a damaged or failed sewer line” online or ask a professional plumber.

You get offers promising fast service, but how quickly will any given plumber be able to fix your failed sewer line?

Let’s compare:

Method 1: Traditional Sewer Line Repair (Trenching)

With a traditional sewer line repair solution, a plumber has to do multiple things that can take a long time.

Not only does the plumber have to verify the location & nature of the problem, they also have to take into account any potential obstacles that may be near the affected sewer line—trees, statues, sidewalks, power lines, etc.).

A timeline for a traditional sewer line repair that uses trenching will look something like this:

Day 1:

• Plumber comes out, performs an initial assessment (likely using camera inspection on the inside of the pipe).
• Survey of area surrounding pipe.
• Places call to Sacramento Utilities department to mark off underground cables (you don’t want to accidentally cut off the power to your home and your neighbors).
• Plumber checks inventory of replacement pipe to see if they have the right size and material—places order for said pipe if not in stock.
• Plumber moves on to other calls that they can service right away or goes home.

Days 2-5 (variable):

• Assessor from the county marks off locations of buried cables and other utility lines for the plumber.
• Plumber puts you back on their schedule to be serviced when there’s time.
• Trenching of the broken pipe begins.
• Plumber removes broken pipe & replaces with new pipe.

Day 6+

• Trench is filled in.
• Landscaping & objects displaced by the trenching are replaced.

It’s hard to be exact with this timeline, since there are many elements that can affect the timeliness of service—such as availability of the piping material you need, the size & depth of the trench, and how long it takes to get a county utilities assessor to your home to mark off the underground lines leading to your home.

Any one of the above issues can add days to the project timeline for a traditional trenching repair job.

A Trenchless Timeline

So, how would a trenchless sewer repair solution stack up against the timeline for digging up your yard to unearth the pipe?

Quite favorably, actually.

Day 1:

• Plumbing team arrives onsite and assesses the damage to see if trenchless repair will work.
• If trenchless repair can work, the plumbers choose an appropriate solution (lateral pipe lining, pipe bursting, etc.).
• Entry and exit points are prepared and work begins.
• Work finishes and the new pipe (or pipe lining) is given time to set.

In many cases, trenchless repair is a single-day fix. There’s no need for excessive, time-consuming labor to dig up a pipe (or replace damaged landscaping).

Also, many trenchless repair solutions can use existing entry and exit access points—so there’s less need to wait for a county assessor to mark off where buried utilities may be located. This makes for a much quicker fix in an emergency than waiting for the labor-intensive trenching solution.

Trenchless sewer line replacement or relining can be the fastest way to fix a sewer line emergency for your Sacramento home. Learn more about trenchless sewer & drain repair today!