Pipe Bursting in Portage County

Three kinds of Portage County property

Portage County does not have one housing pattern. Kent and Ravenna have the county's oldest streets, built out between the 1870s and the 1930s around the university and the county courthouse, with vitrified clay tile sewer laterals in short jointed lengths and cast iron under the house. The post-war growth in Brimfield, Rootstown, Streetsboro and the edges of Kent added 1950s and 60s ranches and split-levels, still mostly on clay laterals, some on early plastic. Aurora and the newer subdivisions of Streetsboro, Franklin Township and the lake communities around Brady Lake and Lake Rockwell were built from the 1970s on with plastic pipe. And a large share of the county is rural, on private septic systems where the relevant line is the run from the house to the tank rather than to a street main.

Each of those fails in its own way. Clay joints let roots in and shift with the soil. Cast iron under a slab channels out along the bottom. Plastic laterals crack at the connection to the house, get crushed under a driveway, or belly where the backfill settled. A line to a septic tank can do all of the above and is often shallower and more root-exposed than a municipal lateral.

Wet ground

Portage County is glacial country: clay till, kettle lakes, bogs and a water table that is close to the surface across much of the county. Wet clay holds water against the pipe, heaves with frost, and settles unevenly under anything that was built after the sewer went in. Bellies and offset joints are the routine finding on a camera inspection here, along with roots from the county's mature maples, oaks and willows, which are drawn to a leaking joint like nothing else. Where the water table is high, an open trench is a dewatered, shored excavation and not a quick dig, which is the main reason trenchless repair is worth asking about first.

Who runs the sewers

Kent, Ravenna, Streetsboro and Aurora operate their own sanitary sewer systems, and the Portage County Water Resources department serves a number of townships and unincorporated areas. In all of them, the lateral from the house to the main is the property owner's responsibility, including the part under the tree lawn and sidewalk. Repair work needs a plumbing permit from the county or the city, and work in the right of way needs a separate permit and inspection. Septic laterals fall under the county health district. A good contractor knows which office to call for your address and pulls the permit before the work starts.

Which trenchless method fits

• Sewer pipe lining is the answer for a clay lateral with root-intruded joints and small offsets that still holds shape and slope, and for cast iron under a basement floor that has channeled out. A cured-in-place liner installed from the cleanout seals every joint at once.
• Pipe bursting is for a collapsed run, a long belly in soft, wet fill, or an undersized line. Two small pits, and the new fused polyethylene pipe follows the old path.
• Sectional point repair handles a single crushed joint under a driveway apron or a single root ball on an otherwise sound line.

What a Portage County job looks like

Hydro jetting to strip roots and scale, then the camera pass with a locator marking depth and position across the lawn. Lining runs from an existing cleanout or a small access at the foundation and is usually finished in a day, with water off for a few hours during the cure. A second camera pass records the finished pipe, and any work in the right of way is inspected before backfill. Keep the video; it is the record of the line at resale.

Pipe Bursting in Portage County

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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Questions we hear in Portage County