Hydro Jetting 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.

Hydro Jetting in Portage County

What a jetter does that a cable cannot

A hydro jetter pushes water through a nozzle at several thousand PSI. Rear-facing jets pull the hose down the line and scour everything off the pipe wall: roots, grease, sludge, mineral scale, and the rust flakes inside old cast iron. A cable machine drills a hole through the blockage and leaves the rest on the wall, which is why cabled lines re-clog on a schedule.

Where it fits in a repair

Jetting is step one before lining, because a liner has to bond to clean pipe, and step one before an honest camera inspection, because a line full of roots or scale hides its own condition. It is also legitimate maintenance on its own for a structurally sound line that roots keep finding.

When a line should not be jetted

Cast iron that is paper-thin at the bottom can be opened up by an aggressive descaling pass. A collapsed clay section will not let the hose through. Orangeburg can delaminate under pressure. An experienced operator checks the line first, matches the nozzle to the material, and stops if the pipe is not holding up.

Maintenance versus repair

If the camera shows sound pipe, annual or semiannual jetting is a cheap way to stay ahead of roots. If it shows open joints, channeled cast iron or offsets, jetting is a stopgap and the money is better spent on lining, which removes the joints the roots are using.

More trenchless services in Portage County

Questions we hear in Portage County