Sewer Line Repair

When this becomes an emergency

• Sewage backing up into more than one basement fixture at the same time.
• A soft, wet strip of lawn along the line between the house and the street.
• A sewer smell in the yard that's strongest after rain.
• Repeat main line backups that return within weeks of being cleared.

What a pro does

Sewer work starts with a camera, always, because nobody digs on a guess. The plumber runs the line from the basement cleanout out toward the street and marks where the trouble sits and how deep. In Omaha the finding usually falls into one of three buckets. Clay tile with roots at the joints is the classic in the older neighborhoods. Cast iron scaled and corroded from the inside shows up in houses of the same era. And out in the river bottom ground, and on the Iowa side, a line can simply sag where soft soil settled beneath it. What comes next depends on the depth and the ground above it. An open cut is straightforward under a lawn and a serious project under a mature street tree or a driveway apron, so trenchless lining or pipe bursting gets weighed against it. Frost depth matters too, because a dig in January in eastern Nebraska means breaking through frozen ground before the real work starts. Then there's permitting, since the connection to the public main is inspected work in every community around here.

Frequently asked questions

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