Pipe Bursting in Aurora City

Aurora's two housing worlds and their pipes

Aurora is one of the oldest Western Reserve towns in the county, and the village center around the green and along Route 306 holds homes from the early 1800s through the 1920s. Those houses were connected to sewer with vitrified clay laterals in short jointed lengths, usually with a cast iron section through the foundation wall. The rest of the city is much younger: the lake subdivisions, the golf-course neighborhoods and the colonials along Route 43 and Route 82 were built from the 1960s through the 2000s.

The 1960s and early 1970s lots may hold clay, Orangeburg fiber pipe or asbestos-cement, and Orangeburg turns up often enough in that era's subdivisions to be worth expecting. Everything from the mid-1970s on is PVC, which has few joints but relies on the soil beneath it staying stable. In much of Aurora, it does not.

Wet clay, the Chagrin headwaters and old trees

The city sits on flat glacial till with a high clay content, drained slowly by the Aurora Branch of the Chagrin River and the ponds and wetlands that feed it. Lateral trenches in that ground stay wet much of the year, and backfill settles unevenly for a long time after construction, leaving bellies in laterals of every age. In a hard winter the frost reaches three feet and heaves the saturated clay, lifting jointed pipe unevenly and nudging PVC fittings apart.

The silver maples and pin oaks planted when the subdivisions were new are now mature, the village center is shaded by old sugar maples, and willows and sycamores grow along the river and the lake shores. All of them send roots to the moisture that leaks from a cracked joint or a separated fitting. A camera run on an older Aurora lateral commonly shows root curtains at joint after joint; on a newer one it shows a single root mass at a failed fitting and a belly holding water downstream of it.

Lining, bursting and point repair on an Aurora lot

The camera inspection and a locate come first. For a clay or Orangeburg lateral that is cracked, rooted and leaking 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 is a jointless structural pipe that roots cannot enter and that stands on its own even as Orangeburg deteriorates around it.

When the camera finds a collapse, a flattened Orangeburg section or a deep sag, pipe bursting replaces the run with fused HDPE pulled between a pit at the house and a pit near the main, at a grade the crew controls. For a single failed PVC fitting on an otherwise sound line, a sectional point repair over that spot is the economical fix, and it leaves the landscaping alone.

Permits, the right-of-way and inspection

Within the city, the sewer permit and inspection come from Aurora's engineering and utility departments, and a pit in the street or tree lawn requires a right-of-way permit as well. Some subdivisions are served by Portage County sewer and go through the county water resources department instead, and the city or county can confirm which system owns the main on a given street. The inspector wants to see bursting pits open before backfill and the post-cure video on a lining job.

How the day goes and how to choose a crew

Expect a truck and reel at the curb, water off for several hours, and a crew at the cleanout or a small pit by the foundation. Lining is normally finished in a day; bursting may take two with restoration. Ask each bidder for the camera footage, a written method and the product name of the liner or pipe, and ask where the pits will go before anything is dug. To compare installers, find a verified CIPP contractor and favor crews that have worked on landscaped subdivision lots in wet Portage County clay, where protecting plantings and controlling grade on the new pipe both take experience.

Pipe Bursting in Aurora City

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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