Pipe Bursting in Hiram

Hiram's homes and the pipe that serves them

Hiram sits on one of the highest points in Portage County, and the village grew around the college that was founded on the hilltop in 1850. The homes along Route 700, Route 82 and the streets around the campus green date from the 1830s through the 1920s, many of them built for faculty and townspeople in the Greek Revival and Victorian styles. When the village sewer system was built, those houses were connected with vitrified clay laterals in short jointed lengths, often with cast iron through the foundation wall.

Below the hilltop the side streets filled in with ranches and modest two-story homes during the 1950s and 1960s, and those lots may hold clay, Orangeburg fiber pipe or asbestos-cement. Newer homes from the late 1970s on, and the lots toward the township line, usually have PVC. Outside the village, Hiram Township is largely on septic.

Clay over sandstone, steep grade and old maples

The hilltop is glacial till with a heavy clay fraction over the sandstone that surfaces at the ledges a few miles away, and in places the rock is only a few feet down. A lateral that leaves an old home near the top of the hill may be bedded on rock for part of its length and in clay for the rest, and the joints crack where the pipe bridges from one to the other. Frost reaching three feet heaves the clay sections each winter and leaves the uphill, shallow ends most exposed.

Steep grade is the other Hiram particularity. Laterals that drop quickly from the hilltop carry fast flow, which scours the inside of clay joints over a century until they are open and rough. The sugar maples that shade the campus and the older streets, and the silver maples on the side streets, send roots into every one of those joints. A camera run on a hilltop lateral usually shows eroded joints near the top, root curtains through the middle and a belly or two where the grade flattens near the main.

Choosing the method on a sloped village lot

A camera inspection and a locate come first, and on a steep lateral the locate matters because the installer needs to know how deep the downhill end sits. For a clay run that is cracked, rooted and eroded at the joints but still round, cured-in-place pipe lining is the usual recommendation. The crew cuts roots, hydro jets the pipe, then inverts or pulls an epoxy-saturated felt liner through the run and cures it with hot water, steam or UV light. The liner seals the scoured joints and bridges the rock-to-soil transitions with a single continuous pipe.

When the camera cannot pass a collapsed or badly offset section, pipe bursting replaces the run with fused HDPE pulled between a pit at the house and a pit near the main. On a hillside the downhill pit can be deep and needs shoring, and where the old pipe lies in a rock trench the bursting head has no room to work, so a sectional point repair or a short dig at that spot is the realistic fix. The rest of the line can still be lined.

Village permits, the right-of-way and inspection

The Village of Hiram issues the sewer permit and performs the inspection, and a pit in the street or sidewalk requires a right-of-way permit from the village. Along Route 700 or Route 82 the state transportation department may also be involved. Township properties on septic go through the Portage County health district. The inspector expects to see bursting pits open before backfill and the post-cure video on a lining job.

What to expect and how to choose a crew

Plan on water being off for several hours, a truck at the curb and a crew at the cleanout or a small pit by the foundation. Lining is normally a one-day job; a bursting job with a deep downhill pit can run to two. Before hiring, get the camera footage, a written method and the product name of the liner or pipe, and ask how the crew will manage the liner on a steep run. To compare installers, find a verified CIPP contractor and favor crews that have lined hillside laterals and worked near rock in Portage County, since both are routine here and neither is routine everywhere.

Pipe Bursting in Hiram

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 Hiram

Pipe Bursting is available throughout Hiram, including ZIP codes 44234.

More trenchless services in Hiram

Questions we hear in Hiram