Sewer Pipe Lining in Illinois

What is in the ground in Illinois

The median Illinois home dates from the late 1960s, and Chicago's is far older: the bungalow belt, the two-flats and the greystones were built between 1890 and 1930 on vitrified clay laterals, four and six inches in diameter, laid in short lengths with a mortar joint at every bell and run deep to the city's combined sewers. A great deal of that pipe is now a century old. The postwar suburbs that filled Cook County and the collar counties, in Oak Lawn, Skokie, Des Plaines, Lombard, Downers Grove and the first Naperville and Schaumburg tracts, used clay and, across the 1950s and 1960s, a good deal of Orangeburg fiber pipe and some cast iron, with cast iron under every basement floor. Downstate, Rockford, Peoria, Springfield, Champaign-Urbana and the river towns have the same pre-war clay in their cores and the same postwar mix in their rings. After the mid-1970s the laterals turned to PVC. Illinois houses almost all have basements, so the lateral leaves below the basement floor, often with an overhead sewer or a flood-control check valve added since, and runs eight to twelve feet deep to the main, which is why a trench here is a braced excavation and a liner from the basement cleanout is the alternative nearly everyone chooses.

Soil, water and weather

Illinois ground is glacial till, dense clay with stones and sand lenses, that drains poorly and holds water against the pipe for much of the year. The frost line runs three and a half feet in the north and nearly that downstate, so laterals are deep and the ground above them freezes solid, which heaves shallow or previously disturbed joints and makes a winter dig a jackhammer job. Spring thaw and the heavy rains that follow are the season of basement backups: the combined sewers in Chicago and dozens of older suburbs surcharge, groundwater infiltrates every open lateral joint, and the water finds its way up the floor drain. The Deep Tunnel exists because of that problem, and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District's rules on private drainage are written around it. Roots from the parkway maples, elms, ash and honey locusts planted along every Illinois street fill clay joints as reliably as anywhere in the country, and in the older suburbs the trees are now sixty years old and the roots are everywhere.

What shows up on Illinois camera inspections

• Roots from parkway maples, elms, ash and honey locusts in the mortar joints of century-old clay laterals across Chicago and downstate
• Orangeburg fiber pipe collapsing under 1950s-60s subdivisions in Cook County and the collar counties
• Laterals eight to twelve feet deep below basement floors that make every open-cut repair a braced excavation
• Spring-thaw basement backups from surcharging combined sewers and groundwater infiltration
• Frost heave at shallow or disturbed joints and a digging season that ends in December
• Cast iron under basement floors and in crawl spaces scaled rough and pitted along the bottom

Which trenchless method fits

The camera decides. A line that still holds its shape is a lining job; a line that has been crushed, has lost its slope or has collapsed is a replacement job; a single bad joint in an otherwise sound run is a spot repair. Here is what each one does and where it stops being the right tool.

Who owns the pipe, and who issues the permit

Across Illinois ownership and upkeep of the sewer lateral sit with the property owner lateral, called the service or the house drain, from the building to its connection with the public main, including the portion under the parkway and street. The City of Chicago's Department of Water Management, the collar-county municipalities and the downstate cities all work that way, and Chicago requires a licensed plumber and a permit for any sewer repair, with the Department of Buildings and the MWRD each having a say in how overhead sewers, check valves and lateral connections are done. A plumbing permit from the municipality covers the private side; a pit in the parkway or street takes a right-of-way or street-opening permit from the village or city engineer; and JULIE must be notified before any excavation. Many Illinois municipalities now inspect or require video of a finished liner at the connection, and several collar-county villages run inflow-and-infiltration programs that require lateral testing. Lining from the basement avoids the deep trench, the parkway tree and the street permit together.

Lining crews in Illinois

Lining, bursting and spot repairs in Illinois are performed by Illinois trenchless crews based in DeKalb, covering Chicagoland, the collar counties and northern Illinois. They are listed in the CIPP Verified Installer directory, which means licensing, completed work and lining equipment were checked before the listing went live.

Estimates are free. Call now. (815) 827-6647

Where lining is in demand across Illinois

The pipe problems described above are concentrated in the older cities and the postwar suburbs around them. The communities below are the ones Illinois property owners ask about most, and the same methods apply everywhere in between.

A straight answer about your Illinois sewer line

An Illinois lateral is deep, old and usually sound in shape, which is the best possible combination for lining and the worst for digging. The camera confirms it, pins each fault to a spot on the ground and a depth, and you keep the footage. That turns into a written scope: which method, how much pipe, what it costs, and the reasons behind each option that was passed over, and says plainly when a collapsed section or a belly means a section has to be opened after all.

Estimates are free. Call now. (815) 827-6647