Michigan · Open territory
Sewer Pipe Lining in Michigan
Michigan's sewer laterals are deep, old and frozen solid for a third of the year, under basements in Detroit's neighborhoods, the Oakland and Macomb County suburbs, Grand Rapids and Flint. This page covers what fails in Michigan lines, why basement backups are the state's recurring sewer emergency, who owns the pipe under the street, and how it gets rebuilt without a trench.
Estimates are free. Call now. · Open 24 hours, 7 days a week
No verified installer listed in Michigan yetTell us where the property is and we will locate a qualified lining contractor near you, at no charge. Contractors: Michigan is open territory.
What is in the ground in Michigan
The median Michigan home dates from the early 1970s, but the sewer work is in the older half of the stock. Detroit's neighborhoods, Grand Rapids, Flint, Lansing, Saginaw, Kalamazoo, Pontiac and the first-ring suburbs of Dearborn, Hamtramck, Highland Park and Royal Oak were built between 1900 and 1940 on short lengths of vitrified clay with a bell joint at every one, running to combined sewers in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Lansing and a few dozen other Michigan communities. The great postwar expansion that filled Warren, Sterling Heights, Livonia, Southfield, Troy and the Grand Rapids and Flint rings used clay, concrete and Orangeburg fiber pipe in quantity through the 1950s and 1960s, with cast iron under every basement floor. Basements are universal, so the lateral leaves the house below the basement floor and runs eight to twelve feet deep to the main. Houses built since the mid-1970s have PVC laterals, which in Michigan fail at a fitting or where frost or fill settlement has pulled a joint.
Soil, water and weather
Michigan sits on glacial till and lake-bottom clay, dense and poorly drained, that holds water against the pipe for most of the year, with sand and gravel outwash in the west and north. The frost line runs three and a half to four feet in the Lower Peninsula and deeper in the Upper, so laterals are deep and the ground above them freezes solid from December to March; a shallow or disturbed joint heaves, and a winter dig is a jackhammer job. Spring thaw and the heavy rains that follow are basement-backup season: the combined sewers in Detroit and the older cities surcharge, groundwater infiltrates every open joint, and sewage comes up the floor drain. The Great Lakes Water Authority and the Oakland and Macomb county drain commissioners have spent decades on that problem, and southeast Michigan's rules on footing drains, sump pumps and private laterals are written around it. Roots from the silver maples, elms and ash planted along every older Michigan street fill clay joints, and the emerald ash borer's killing of the ash canopy has not removed the roots already in the pipe.
What shows up on Michigan camera inspections
- Roots from silver maples, elms and ash in the joints of pre-1940 clay laterals across Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint and Lansing
- Orangeburg fiber pipe collapsing under 1950s-60s subdivisions in Oakland, Macomb, Wayne and Kent counties
- Laterals eight to twelve feet deep below basement floors in wet glacial clay, making any trench 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 November
- Cast iron under basement floors 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.
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.
Best for: Root-filled clay joints, scaled cast iron under a slab, cracked concrete or Orangeburg that still holds its shape, and any line under hardscape, a building or a mature tree.
Pipe Bursting
A bursting head splits the old pipe underground and pulls a new fused polyethylene line in behind it, between two small pits.
Best for: Crushed, deformed or collapsed pipe, severe offsets, undersized lines that need a larger diameter, and Orangeburg that has gone oval.
Sectional Point Repair
A short liner, two to twelve feet long, cured over one defect, leaving the sound pipe on either side alone.
Best for: One cracked joint, one offset, one root intrusion or one leaking connection in an otherwise sound line.
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.
Best for: Corrugated metal pipe rusted through at the invert, concrete storm lines with open joints, roof drains and parking lot drainage under slabs.
Who owns the pipe, and who issues the permit
Across Michigan the owner of the property owns, and pays to maintain, the sewer lead, the lateral, from the building out to its tap on the public sewer, including the part under the parkway and street; the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Flint and the Oakland and Macomb County communities all work that way, with a handful of suburbs maintaining the portion in the right-of-way themselves. The work takes a plumbing permit from the city or township pulled by a Michigan-licensed plumber, and many communities add a sewer permit and an inspection of the connection; any excavation in the public way needs a right-of-way permit of its own; and MISS DIG 811 must be notified before any excavation. Several southeast Michigan communities run footing-drain disconnection and lateral inspection programs tied to overflow reduction, and most accept a lined lateral provided the connection is shown on video. Lining from the basement cleanout avoids the deep trench, the frost and the parkway tree together.
Finding a lining contractor in Michigan
Michigan does not yet have a verified installer listed on this site, which is why the number on this page rings the national line. Call it or send the form with the property address and what the camera or the symptoms are showing, and we will locate a qualified trenchless contractor near you and make the introduction; there is no charge for that. If you are a Michigan lining contractor with five or more years in business and a strong Google rating, the territory is open: apply to be listed.
Estimates are free. Call now. (855) 804-1434
Where lining is in demand across Michigan
The pipe problems described above are concentrated in the older cities and the postwar suburbs around them. The communities below are the ones Michigan property owners ask about most, and the same methods apply everywhere in between.
A straight answer about your Michigan sewer line
Most Michigan laterals are deep enough that lining costs a fraction of digging, and old enough that the only real question is shape: clay with roots at every joint has usually kept it, Orangeburg that has gone oval has not. The camera settles it, fixes each defect to a surface point and a depth, and leaves you the recording. The proposal that follows names the method, the run, the price and the reasons the other options were set aside.
Estimates are free. Call now. (855) 804-1434
How a job runs
Camera first. Always.
A sewer quote given without video is a guess, and guesses are how homeowners end up paying for a liner that was never going to fix the problem. Here's the sequence we follow on every job.
-
Step 1
Camera inspection, recorded
A self-leveling camera runs the full line from the cleanout, manhole or roof drain to the main. Every crack, offset, root mass, belly and connection is logged with its distance, and a locator marks each one on the surface with its depth. You get the recording.
-
Step 2
Cleaning to bare wall
A hydro jetter, with chain cutters or a descaler where cast iron or roots call for them, strips the pipe to its original surface. The camera goes through again afterward, because a cleaned pipe tells the truth about its condition in a way a dirty one cannot.
-
Step 3
A written scope, with the alternatives
The scope names the method, the footage and diameter involved, the price, the permits and inspections that apply, and the reasons the other methods were set aside. When the right answer is a dig, the scope says so.
-
Step 4
Permits and notifications
The installer pulls the plumbing permit, any right-of-way or sewer-authority permit, schedules the inspections the local authority requires and files the utility-locate ticket before anything is opened.
-
Step 5
The work, usually in a day
A residential liner typically cures in a few hours; bursting a lateral takes a day or two; a building or municipal reach is phased so no one loses their drains for more than a night. Branch lines are reinstated with a robotic cutter.
-
Step 6
Final video, with you watching
The camera goes back through the finished pipe. You see the new interior end to end, and the recording goes in your file along with the warranty and the permit sign-offs.