Pipe Bursting in Cincinnati

Old houses on steep ground

Cincinnati is a city of hillsides and hilltop neighborhoods, and its sewer laterals reflect that. The basin neighborhoods such as Over-the-Rhine and the West End, and the first hilltop communities of Mount Auburn, Clifton, Walnut Hills and Price Hill, were built between the 1860s and the 1920s. Hyde Park, Oakley, Westwood, College Hill and Pleasant Ridge filled in through the 1940s. Nearly all of these houses were plumbed with vitrified clay tile laterals in short lengths, often with a long cast iron run under the house, and many of them drain to sewers that were built as brick tunnels and still are. Post-war neighborhoods on the city's edges and in the county's first-ring suburbs used clay or bituminous-fiber pipe into the 1960s.

Because the mains follow the valleys, a lateral from a hilltop house can be unusually long and can drop several stories on its way to the street. A steep lateral scours itself clean, which is good, but a steep clay lateral with open joints also carries fast-moving water straight into the soil around it, which is not.

Shale, clay and moving hillsides

The bedrock under most of Cincinnati is interbedded shale and limestone, capped with clay-rich colluvium on the slopes. That soil creeps. Cincinnati has one of the highest rates of hillside slippage of any American city, and even where nothing dramatic happens the ground moves enough over decades to open joints, offset pipe and create bellies. Add a hundred years of tree roots on streets lined with sycamores, oaks and maples, and the typical camera finding in Cincinnati is a clay lateral with roots at most joints and at least one offset where the ground has shifted.

Sewers, backups and permits

The Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati operates the sanitary and combined sewers for the city and most of Hamilton County. Much of the older city is on combined sewers that carry storm and sanitary flow together, which is why a marginal lateral backs up in a thunderstorm. The lateral from the house to the main is the property owner's responsibility. Repair work needs a plumbing permit through the city or county building department, and anything in the sidewalk or street needs a right-of-way permit and an inspection before it is closed. A good contractor pulls both.

Which trenchless method fits

• Sewer pipe lining is the usual answer for a Cincinnati clay lateral with root-intruded joints and small offsets that still holds its shape and slope. A cured-in-place liner installed from the basement cleanout follows the pipe down the hill and seals every joint in one pass. It is also the way to fix channeled cast iron under a basement floor without breaking the slab.
• Pipe bursting is for a collapsed section, a long belly in soft fill, or an undersized line. Two small pits and a new fused polyethylene pipe that follows the old alignment, even down a slope.
• Sectional point repair handles one crushed or sheared joint, which on Cincinnati's hillsides is often the spot where the lateral crosses from moving soil into stable ground.

The economics are simple here. A trench down a steep front yard to a main under a narrow, hilly street means shoring, a right-of-way closure and restoration of retaining walls, steps and sidewalks. Lining and bursting leave all of that alone.

What a Cincinnati job looks like

A hydro jetting pass clears roots and scale so the camera can see the pipe wall. The camera pass and a locator mark every defect with its depth, which matters on a lateral that may be four feet deep at the house and fifteen at the street. Lining or bursting is usually done in one day, with water off for a few hours during a liner cure. A second camera pass records the finished line; where the work touched the right of way, the inspection happens before backfill. Ask for the video and keep it.

Pipe Bursting in Cincinnati

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 Cincinnati

Pipe Bursting is available throughout Cincinnati, including ZIP codes 45201, 45202, 45203, 45204, 45205, 45206, 45207, 45208, 45209, 45211, 45212, 45213, 45214, 45216, 45217, 45218, 45219, 45220, 45221, 45222, 45223, 45224, 45225, 45226, 45227, 45230, 45231, 45232, 45233, 45234, 45235, 45236, 45237, 45238, 45239, 45240, 45241, 45242, 45243, 45244, 45246, 45247, 45248, 45249, 45250, 45251, 45253, 45254, 45255, 45258, 45262, 45263, 45264, 45267, 45268, 45269, 45270, 45271, 45273, 45274, 45275, 45277, 45280, 45296, 45298, 45299, 45999.

More trenchless services in Cincinnati

Questions we hear in Cincinnati