Pipe Lining Explained Without the Sales Pitch

What this site is

SewerPipe-Lining.com is a resource on trenchless pipe rehabilitation: the methods, the conditions that make one method right and another wrong, and the local rules that decide whose pipe it is once it crosses the sidewalk. It is written for the homeowner with a backup, the property manager with a restaurant row, the engineer with a culvert and the public works director with a consent decree, because all of them are deciding between digging up a pipe and rebuilding it from inside, and the right answer is the same kind of answer in every case: look at the pipe first. The site went online in 2012 as a directory of lining contractors. It is now a guide first and a directory second, and the directory is held to a standard the old one was not.

What gets explained

Eight methods, running from the first camera pass to the last:

• Sewer Pipe Lining (CIPP): A resin-saturated liner cured inside the old sewer becomes a jointless new pipe, installed from a cleanout or manhole with nothing dug up.
• Pipe Bursting: A bursting head splits the old pipe underground and pulls a new fused polyethylene line in behind it, between two small pits.
• Sectional Point Repair: A short liner, two to twelve feet long, cured over one defect, leaving the sound pipe on either side alone.
• Spin-Cast Pipe Lining: A spinning head sprays cementitious or geopolymer mortar onto the pipe wall, building a structural shell inside large-diameter sewers, culverts and manholes.
• Storm Drain Lining: Cured-in-place and spin-cast lining for corrugated metal, concrete and clay storm pipe, culverts and roof drains, without closing the road or the parking lot.
• Sewer Camera Inspection: A recorded video run through the line, with every defect located from the surface and its depth marked, before any method is chosen or priced.
• Hydro Jetting: High-pressure water strips roots, grease, scale and sediment to bare pipe wall, both as maintenance and as the required prep before a liner goes in.
• Sewer Line Replacement: When a line has lost its slope or collapsed, the honest answer is a new pipe: by bursting where the route can stay, by open cut where it cannot.

Three kinds of property, because a house lateral, a building's stacks and shared mains and a municipal main or a plant sewer are not the same job. And twenty-eight state guides, because the pipe under a Minneapolis basement, a Houston slab and a Seattle hillside fail in different ways, and the local sewer authority draws the ownership line in a different place in each.

Who is behind the listings

Installers listed here are prequalified through the CIPP Verified Installer program: five or more years in business, a 4.5-star or better Google rating, and vetting of licensing, completed work and lining equipment through an application and an interview before a listing goes live. Each covered state shows its installer by name and routes the number on that page directly to them. Where no installer is listed, the national line locates a qualified trenchless contractor near the property, screens them the same way, and makes the introduction at no charge. This site does not perform pipe work and is not a party to the contract between you and the contractor; it exists to get you to a competent one with a camera.

What to expect when you call

The camera comes first

No price on this site comes from a phone call. The installer runs a recorded camera inspection of the full line, locates each defect from above with its depth, and reviews the footage with you before any figure is written down. A scope video from a home inspection or a utility survey is welcome and saves a step.

You will be told when lining is wrong

A cured liner is a copy of the pipe around it, flaws included. Wherever a line has sagged into a belly, stepped at a joint beyond what a liner can bridge, or collapsed, lining would seal the problem in, and the scope says so and names the burst or the dig that is the honest fix. A site that sells lining ought to say this plainly, and this one does on every method page.

The permits are handled

Lining the private lateral takes a plumbing permit nearly everywhere, most sewer utilities want to see video of the finished connection, and any pit in the right-of-way takes a street-opening permit. The installer pulls the permits, schedules the inspections and calls the utility locate before anything is opened.

You see the finished pipe

Every job closes with the camera back in the pipe, running the full length of the cured liner or the new polyethylene while you watch. That recording goes in your file with the warranty, and years later it is the sewer scope the next buyer's inspector would otherwise have to order.

Contractors

If you line pipe, have been doing it for five years or more and your reviews show it, the network map shows which territories are open and the application takes a few minutes. Listing is by vetting, not by payment.

Estimates are free. Call now. (855) 804-1434