Pipe Bursting in Garden Grove

One decade of houses

Garden Grove went from strawberry fields to a city of tract homes between 1950 and 1960, faster than almost anywhere else in the county. The result is a remarkably uniform housing stock: single-story ranch houses on small lots, most on raised floors in the first tracts and on slab foundations after about 1955, plumbed with vitrified clay laterals in short jointed lengths and cast iron under the house. The few older streets near the original downtown along Main Street and Garden Grove Boulevard go back to the 1920s, and the apartment and condominium blocks along the major boulevards were added in the 1960s and 70s on cast iron and early ABS.

Seventy years is a long life for a clay lateral. The joints have admitted roots and shifted with the soil; the cast iron under the slab houses has channeled out along the bottom; and a large share of the city's lots have since had a room addition, a second unit or a widened driveway built over the sewer line, which is what makes an open trench so expensive here.

Clay soil and parkway trees

Garden Grove sits on flat alluvial ground with a lot of clay and, toward the west end near Westminster, a water table that is not far down. The clay swells in the winter rains and shrinks all summer, and seven decades of that cycle have opened joints and offset pipe under most of the city. The tracts were planted with parkway trees that are now mature, and roots at clay joints are the most common finding on a Garden Grove sewer camera inspection, followed by offsets and bellies under driveways.

Sewers and permits

The City of Garden Grove operates the local sewer system through its Public Works department, and the lateral from the house to the connection at the main is the property owner's responsibility, including the section under the parkway and sidewalk. On many tracts the main runs down the front of the lot under the street; on some the connection is at the rear in an easement.

Lateral repair or replacement needs a plumbing permit from the city, and anything in the sidewalk, parkway or street needs an encroachment permit and an inspection before the pit is closed. The contractor should pull both and say so in the quote.

Which trenchless method fits a Garden Grove lateral

• Sewer pipe lining is the answer for the standard Garden Grove finding: clay with root-intruded joints and small offsets that still holds shape and slope. It also fixes channeled cast iron under a slab without breaking the floor, and it is the only practical option for a line under an addition. A cured-in-place liner from the cleanout seals every joint in one pass.
• Pipe bursting is for a collapsed section, a long belly, or a line that needs to be upsized for a second unit. Two small pits and a new fused polyethylene pipe on the old path.
• Sectional point repair fixes one crushed joint under a driveway or one root ball on an otherwise sound line.

Crews doing trenchless sewer repair in Garden Grove see the same seventy-year-old clay lateral on street after street, and a good one will show you the footage and say plainly whether it can be lined.

What the job looks like

A camera inspection maps the line and marks every defect on the ground with its depth. Hydro jetting clears roots, scale and grease so the pipe wall can be seen and, if the line is being lined, so the resin bonds to clean pipe. Lining runs from the cleanout at the house; bursting needs a small pit at each end of the run. Most residential jobs finish in a day, with water off for a few hours during a liner cure, and you should receive the before-and-after footage. how a trenchless repair is sequenced from inspection to cure is worth reading before the crew arrives.

To compare installers who have been checked for licensing and CIPP training, you can find a verified CIPP contractor through an independent directory.

Pipe Bursting in Garden Grove

How pipe bursting works

A steel cable is threaded through the old sewer line from a pit at one end to a pit at the other. A cone-shaped bursting head, with new high-density polyethylene pipe fused to it, is pulled through by a hydraulic unit. The head splits the old clay or cast iron outward into the soil and the new pipe follows in the same alignment at the same depth. The result is a single fused length of pipe with no joints for roots to find.

When bursting is the right call

• Collapsed sections — a liner needs a host pipe to hold its shape; a collapsed run has none.
• Bellies — a low spot that holds water stays a low spot after lining. Bursting lays new pipe on a fresh bed.
• Undersized lines — bursting can upsize a 3-inch lateral to 4 inches; lining slightly reduces diameter.
• Badly deformed pipe — Orangeburg that has flattened, or cast iron with most of its bottom gone.

What the job looks like

One pit at the house or cleanout, one at the property line or the street connection, each a few feet square. Utilities that cross within a foot or two of the sewer path are located and potholed first. The pull takes an hour or two; the whole job, including fusing, connections, inspection and backfill, is usually one day.

Permits and the street

If the downstream pit is in the sidewalk, parkway or street, a right-of-way permit and restoration to city standards are required in addition to the plumbing permit. If the connection at the main is replaced, the city inspects it before the pit closes. Confirm who is handling this before work starts.

ZIP codes served in Garden Grove

Pipe Bursting is available throughout Garden Grove, including ZIP codes 92840, 92841, 92842, 92843, 92844, 92845, 92846.

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Questions we hear in Garden Grove