Sectional Point Repair 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.

Sectional Point Repair in Portage County

Fix the spot, not the line

A sectional point repair treats a short length of pipe, usually two to six feet, instead of the whole lateral. A short fiberglass or felt liner saturated with resin is positioned over the defect on an inflatable packer, pressed against the wall, and cured in place. The rest of the line is untouched. Where the defect cannot be lined, the alternative is a small excavation at that exact spot, made possible because the camera and locator have already marked it to within inches.

When it makes sense

One identifiable defect, or two or three close together, on a line whose remaining footage is sound: a joint crushed when a driveway was poured over it, a single root-intruded joint under a parkway tree, a break where the lateral crosses another utility trench, or the transition where under-slab cast iron meets the clay or ABS running to the street.

When it does not

If the camera shows the same defect at every joint, or channeling along the whole bottom of a cast iron line, fixing one spot moves the next backup a few feet down the pipe. A full liner costs more today and far less over the next few years.

A fair test

Ask to see footage of the pipe on both sides of the proposed repair. If it is clean for the full run, a point repair is honest and economical. If it is not, ask why a full liner was not proposed.

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Questions we hear in Portage County