Pipe Bursting in Irvine

Plastic pipe, planned villages

Irvine was built village by village from the early 1970s on. The first villages, University Park, Turtle Rock, Woodbridge, Northwood and the older parts of Westpark, were plumbed with cast iron under the slab in the earliest phases and with ABS plastic through the 1980s. Everything since, from Northwood Point and Oak Creek to Woodbury, Portola Springs and the Great Park neighborhoods, uses ABS or PVC throughout. Nearly every house in the city sits on a slab-on-grade foundation, and nearly every lot is governed by a homeowners association that controls the driveways, walkways and landscaping over the sewer line.

Plastic laterals do not rust and do not have forty mortar joints for roots to find, so Irvine sees fewer sewer failures per house than the older cities. But they do fail. ABS cracks at fittings and at the transition to the cast iron stub under the house. Both ABS and PVC get crushed where a driveway was widened or a pool deck was poured over shallow pipe. Bellies form where trench backfill settled, especially on the graded pads of the hillside villages, and a low spot that holds water collects grease and paper until it stops flow. The earliest cast iron under the 1970s slabs is now fifty years old and channeling out along the bottom.

Graded pads and clay

Irvine's villages sit on engineered fill over the clay of the Irvine Ranch, and fill settles. A lateral that leaves a compacted building pad and crosses looser fill to the street is where the camera finds bellies and sheared joints. The clay under the flats swells and shrinks with the seasons, which stresses rigid plastic at the fittings. The city's street trees are younger than Santa Ana's, but a thirty-year-old sycamore or eucalyptus in the parkway will still find a cracked fitting.

Sewers and permits

Most of Irvine's local sewers belong to the Irvine Ranch Water District rather than the city, and the lateral from the house to the connection at the sewer main is the property owner's responsibility. Because the HOA controls the surface, any excavation also needs the association's approval and restoration to its standard, which is often the largest cost of an open trench.

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 an Irvine lateral

• Sewer pipe lining is the fix for cracked ABS that is still round, for channeled cast iron under a 1970s slab, and for any line that runs under HOA hardscape. A cured-in-place liner from the cleanout rebuilds the pipe without opening the driveway or the slab.
• Pipe bursting is for a crushed section, a belly in settled fill, or a lateral that was never sized for the bathrooms added since. Two small pits and a new fused polyethylene pipe on the old alignment.
• Sectional point repair handles one bad fitting or one crushed spot on an otherwise sound line, which is the most common Irvine repair.

Crews that handle trenchless sewer repair in Irvine work inside HOA rules every week, and a good one brings the association's requirements into the quote rather than discovering them later.

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 Irvine

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 Irvine

Pipe Bursting is available throughout Irvine, including ZIP codes 92602, 92603, 92604, 92606, 92612, 92614, 92616, 92618, 92619, 92620, 92623, 92697, 92710.

More trenchless services in Irvine

Questions we hear in Irvine