Pipe Bursting in Garrettsville

A mill village and the pipe under its streets

Garrettsville grew up around the mills on Silver Creek and Eagle Creek, and its core, the brick and frame buildings along Main Street, the homes on the side streets off Route 82 and Route 88, and the blocks near the old mill race, was built between the 1830s and the 1920s. When the village sewer system was built, those homes were connected with vitrified clay laterals in short jointed lengths, usually with cast iron through the foundation wall. Many are still in service.

The village added ranches and modest two-story homes through the 1950s and 1960s on the streets toward the school and the edges of the corporation, and those lots may hold clay, Orangeburg fiber pipe or asbestos-cement. Newer homes from the late 1970s on, and the lots along the township line, generally have PVC. Outside the village most properties are on septic.

Sandstone, clay and the creeks

Garrettsville sits where the glacial clay of the county thins over the sandstone that outcrops dramatically a few miles away at Nelson Ledges. In parts of the village bedrock is only a few feet down, and a lateral trench dug in the 1900s may have been blasted or chiseled into rock in places and dug through clay in others. A pipe that bridges from rock to soil moves differently at each end, and frost to three feet cracks the clay joints at those transitions. Where the lateral runs in clay alone, it heaves and settles like everywhere else in the county.

Silver Creek and Eagle Creek keep the water table high in the low ground, so an opened joint takes on groundwater all spring. The sugar maples and silver maples that shade the older streets, and the sycamores and willows along the creeks, send roots into any joint that leaks. A camera run on a village lateral typically shows root curtains at several joints, water trickling in at others, and sometimes a crack running the length of a pipe section that was laid directly on rock.

Lining, bursting and point repair where rock is near

Every job begins with a camera inspection and a locate. For a clay lateral that is cracked, rooted and leaking but still round, cured-in-place pipe lining is the obvious choice in a village where digging may mean breaking rock. The crew cuts roots, hydro jets the line, 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 cracks and joints and bridges the rock-to-soil transitions with a single continuous pipe.

Pipe bursting replaces a collapsed or badly offset run by pulling fused HDPE between two pits while a bursting head splits the old pipe outward. It works well in clay but poorly where the old pipe lies in a narrow rock trench, because the head has nowhere to push the fragments. In those sections a sectional point repair, a short liner cured over the bad spot, or a short hand dig is the practical fix, and the rest of the line can still be lined.

Village permits, the right-of-way and inspection

The Village of Garrettsville 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 82 or Route 88 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 the day looks like and how to pick an installer

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 repair that involves rock can take longer. Before signing, get the camera footage, a written method and the product name of the liner or pipe. To compare bids, find a verified CIPP contractor and ask each candidate how it handles a lateral that runs partly on rock, since that is the question that distinguishes an experienced crew from one that will be surprised on the day.

Pipe Bursting in Garrettsville

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 Garrettsville

Pipe Bursting is available throughout Garrettsville, including ZIP codes 44231.

More trenchless services in Garrettsville

Questions we hear in Garrettsville