Sewer Pipe Lining (CIPP) 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.

Sewer Pipe Lining (CIPP) in Aurora City

How cured-in-place lining works

A felt or fiberglass tube is saturated with resin, pulled or inverted into the cleaned host pipe, pressed against the wall with air or water, and cured with hot water, steam or UV light. When it hardens you have a new, jointless pipe inside the old one. The liner takes up a small amount of diameter, but its smooth wall flows better than corroded cast iron or offset clay. Lateral liners are typically rated for a 50-year service life.

What has to happen first

A camera inspection to map the line and every branch connection, hydro jetting to strip roots and scale so the resin bonds to clean pipe, and measurement so the liner is cut to length. After the cure, branch connections are reopened from inside with a robotic cutter and the line is filmed again.

When lining is the right fix

• Root intrusion at joints, longitudinal cracks, small offsets, pinholes or channeling in cast iron — on a pipe that is still round and holding grade.
• Lines under slabs, driveways, mature landscaping or streets, where the cost of a trench is mostly the cost of restoring what is above it.
• Coastal and high-water-table lots where an open trench means dewatering and shoring.

When it is not

Collapsed pipe, bellies that hold standing water, and lines that were undersized to begin with. A liner follows the host pipe's shape, so a bad shape stays bad. Those lines get pipe bursting or a spot replacement. Under-slab cast iron with several tight bends usually gets a spray-applied liner rather than felt.

Questions worth asking

What resin system and cure method will be used, what the liner's rated life is, whether the branch connections were counted, who pulls the permit, and whether you will receive the before-and-after video. A contractor who does this every week answers all five without hesitation.

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