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Sewer Pipe Lining in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania has more combined-sewer communities than any other state, century-old terra cotta under its row houses, Orangeburg under its postwar suburbs, and ledge, shale and old mine workings under all of it. This page covers what fails in Pennsylvania sewer lines from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, who owns the pipe under the street, and who does the lining.
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Simple Drain RepairsPennsylvania's CIPP Verified Installer, based in West Berlin, NJ
What is in the ground in Pennsylvania
The median Pennsylvania home dates from the early 1960s, and in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Reading, Allentown, Erie, Lancaster, York and the mill and mining towns it is far older: row houses and duplexes went up between 1870 and 1930 on vitrified clay laterals with a mortar joint every few feet, often shared between neighbors, and cast iron where the lateral passes through a stone foundation, draining to combined sewers that still serve Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and more than a hundred and fifty Pennsylvania communities. The postwar suburbs, Levittown above all, along with the Philadelphia Main Line's and Montgomery County's 1950s tracts, Pittsburgh's South Hills and North Hills, and the Lehigh Valley's rings, used clay, concrete and a lot of Orangeburg, the bituminized fiber pipe of the era, through the 1960s, with cast iron under every basement floor. Basements are universal and the lateral leaves below the floor and runs deep. Houses built since the mid-1970s have PVC laterals. Much of rural Pennsylvania is on septic, and the state's Act 537 sewage facilities planning governs those.
Soil, water and weather
Eastern Pennsylvania's Piedmont is clay and saprolite over schist and gneiss, with ledge close to the surface across much of Philadelphia's northwest, the Main Line and the Lehigh Valley's hills; the Great Valley around Lancaster, Harrisburg and Allentown is limestone karst where sinkholes open and drop pipe. Western Pennsylvania is the Appalachian plateau, shale and sandstone with thin soils, steep laterals and, under Pittsburgh, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and the coal regions, abandoned mine workings that subside and shear anything laid above them. The frost line runs about three feet in the southeast and nearly four in the north and the mountains, so laterals are deep and shallow joints heave. Spring thaw and heavy rain are basement-backup season in the combined-sewer cities, and the state's utilities have operated under a generation of consent orders because of it: Philadelphia Water's Green City Clean Waters, ALCOSAN's in Pittsburgh, Scranton's 2012 decree, Lancaster's, and the EPA administrative orders on Allentown's inflow-and-infiltration-saturated separate system. Those utilities now care a great deal about private laterals that leak. Roots from the sycamores, maples, oaks and London planes along every older Pennsylvania street do the rest.
What shows up on Pennsylvania camera inspections
- Roots from sycamores, maples, oaks and London planes in the joints of pre-1930 clay laterals under row houses from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh
- Orangeburg fiber pipe collapsing under Levittown and the 1950s-60s suburbs of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and the Lehigh Valley
- Mine subsidence shearing laterals under Pittsburgh, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and the coal regions, and karst sinkholes in the Great Valley
- Ledge rock close to the surface across the eastern Piedmont that turns a trench into a rock job
- Shared row-house laterals where one owner's repair involves the neighbors, and point-of-sale dye tests and inspections
- Spring-thaw basement backups from surcharging combined sewers and deep basement laterals in a four-foot frost zone
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 Pennsylvania the property owner is the one who owns and keeps up the sewer lateral from the house to the public main, and that includes the portion under the sidewalk and street; Philadelphia Water Department, Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, the Lehigh County Authority, Scranton's Pennsylvania American Water system, Lancaster, Harrisburg's Capital Region Water and the township and borough authorities across the state all work that way, with a small number of authorities maintaining the portion in the right-of-way. Several communities, Bristol Township's Levittown prominently among them, require a lateral inspection and certification at the point of sale, and the Pittsburgh region's Allegheny County Health Department has had a dye-test requirement at sale for decades. The work takes a plumbing permit from the municipality pulled by a licensed plumber, a sewer connection permit from the authority, a street-opening or highway-occupancy permit for anything in the right-of-way, and a PA One Call notification before any excavation. Most authorities will sign off on a lined lateral as long as they can see the connection on camera.
Lining crews in Pennsylvania
Lining, bursting and spot repairs in Pennsylvania are performed by South Jersey lining crews serving New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, covering New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania from a South Jersey base. They are listed in the CIPP Verified Installer directory, which means licensing, completed work and lining equipment were checked before the listing went live.
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Where lining is in demand across Pennsylvania
The pipe problems described above are concentrated in the older cities and the postwar suburbs around them. The communities below are the ones Pennsylvania property owners ask about most, and the same methods apply everywhere in between.
A straight answer about your Pennsylvania sewer line
On a Pennsylvania lot the cost of digging is set by the rock, the sidewalk, the neighbors' shared lateral and the street, which is why lining is the default here whenever the camera finds a pipe that still holds its shape. Century-old clay with roots at every joint usually does; Orangeburg that has gone oval or a lateral sheared by mine subsidence does not. The inspection locates each defect from above with its depth and the recording is yours. You receive the scope in writing, with the method, the run length, the price and the reasons the other methods 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.