<p>Guides and tips on sewer line diagnosis, repair, and replacement.</p>
Two pipes leave your house and run under the same yard, through the same frost, in the same cold. In a hard January one of them can split open and flood a basement. The other almost never does. That is not luck, and it is not because one pipe is built better. It comes down […]
The number is six feet. If your water service sits below six feet in this region, frost is not going to reach it in a normal winter, and depth is doing the work for you with no equipment, no maintenance, and nothing to fail. Everything else on this page is what to do when six […]
There is a demonstration we like, and it does not prove anything. Take a cured liner sample, set it on the ground, and stand on it. It holds. People are surprised, because they came in picturing something closer to a bag or a coat of paint. It is a good moment on a sales call. […]
Most sewer work ends with a new pipe in the ground. Sometimes it ends with an old pipe being taken out of service instead, and that raises a question homeowners rarely think to ask: what happens to the line that got left behind? It is not a small detail. An abandoned sewer line that was […]
PVC is the best sewer pipe material available. It does not rust, roots cannot grow through it, and the walls are rated for 75 to 100 years. If your home was built after 1985 you almost certainly have it, and that is good news. So here is the uncomfortable part. In our experience the pipes […]
Most homes in Duluth and Superior were built long before PVC pipe existed. If your home was built before 1980, the sewer line underneath it is almost certainly made from a material that is no longer installed anywhere. In many cases, it has already outlived the lifespan it was designed for. What people usually want […]
Trenchless pipe lining is one of two main methods for repairing a failing sewer line without digging up your yard. If you have heard the term “CIPP” or “pipe rehabilitation,” they all refer to the same process: installing a new pipe inside the old one, accessed through an existing cleanout rather than a trench. Here […]
Most homeowners who call us have already dealt with the problem two or three times. They had a drain cleaning company out. The line cleared. Then it came back. At some point the question shifts from “how do I fix this backup” to “what is going on down there.” Here are the signs that your […]
Quick answer: Most homes in Duluth and Superior built before 1980 have clay tile, cast iron, or Orangeburg sewer pipe. According to the Water Research Foundation, Orangeburg pipe has a failure rate 3 to 4 times higher than clay or cast iron, and typically shows serious deterioration between 30 and 50 years of age. Clay […]