Sewer Pipe Lining in Mississippi

What is in the ground in Mississippi

The median Mississippi home dates from the mid-1980s, but Jackson's older neighborhoods, Belhaven, Fondren and the areas around the capitol, along with Vicksburg, Natchez, Meridian, Hattiesburg's historic districts and the Gulf Coast's pre-Katrina stock, were built between 1890 and 1940 on clay tile laterals, jointed with mortar every few feet, and cast iron under raised and early slab houses. The postwar neighborhoods that spread across north Jackson, Clinton, Pearl, the Hattiesburg and Meridian rings and the Coast went up on slabs with cast iron branch drains beneath them and clay or Orangeburg laterals to the street. Cast iron in Mississippi's wet, warm, often acidic soil corrodes quickly, and under a slab that is heaving and settling with the clay it also cracks and separates at the foundation. Houses built since the mid-1970s, which is most of DeSoto County, Madison and Rankin counties and the newer Coast, have PVC laterals that fail by geometry: the ground moves, the pipe bends into a belly or a joint pulls apart.

Soil, water and weather

Yazoo clay underlies Jackson and much of central Mississippi, and it swells enormously when wet and shrinks and cracks when dry; the same soil that heaves slabs and breaks foundations across the capital bends sewer laterals into bellies, shears them where they leave the house and opens joints an inch at a time. Jackson's own water and sewer crisis of recent years is the public face of what the clay has done to pipe laid in it for a century. North of Jackson the Loess Hills around Vicksburg and the Delta's river silts are soft and erodible; south, the Coastal Plain is sand and sandy clay with a water table that rises toward the surface near the Gulf, infiltrating open joints and flooding trenches. There is no frost to speak of. Mississippi gets sixty inches of rain a year, so inflow and infiltration through leaking laterals is a year-round problem, and the Gulf Coast's utilities have fought it since Katrina rebuilt half their systems. Live oaks, magnolias, pecans and willows fill any leaking joint they find.

What shows up on Mississippi camera inspections

• Bellies, sheared joints and pulled-apart fittings from Yazoo clay heaving and shrinking under Jackson and central Mississippi
• Cast iron under slab houses corroded through and cracked at the foundation
• Roots from live oaks, magnolias, pecans and willows in the joints of pre-1940 clay laterals
• Groundwater infiltration and sand intrusion along the Gulf Coast and across the Coastal Plain
• Orangeburg and concrete laterals under postwar subdivisions separated by ground movement
• Year-round inflow and infiltration from sixty inches of rain through leaking joints

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

In most Mississippi cities it is the property owner who owns and maintains the sewer service line from the building to the main, with the segment in the right-of-way; the City of Jackson, Gulfport, Biloxi, Hattiesburg, Meridian and the Harrison County Utility Authority all treat the lateral as private up to the main, with their own standards for the connection. The work takes a plumbing permit from the city or county pulled by a licensed plumber or contractor; any pit in the right-of-way needs a right-of-way or street-cut permit from the city engineer; and Mississippi 811 must be notified before any excavation. Many smaller Mississippi communities and all of the rural state are on septic, where the Mississippi State Department of Health governs instead. Because Jackson's clay makes any trench a moving target and the Coast's water table makes any trench a pump-out, lining from a cleanout is often the only approach that leaves the ground alone.

Finding a lining contractor in Mississippi

Mississippi 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 Mississippi 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 Mississippi

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

A straight answer about your Mississippi sewer line

On a Mississippi line the first thing to establish is how far the ground has moved the pipe, because a liner cures to the shape it finds and a belly from Yazoo clay stays a belly. The camera shows it, marks every defect on the surface with its depth, and the video stays with you. The written proposal covers the method, the feet of pipe involved, the price and, for each alternative, why it was not the right fit, including when a section has to be burst or dug because it has moved too far to line.

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