Fix Your Sewer and Protect Your Yard with Trenchless Pipe Lining Services
When sewer pipes break underground, pipe lining offers an alternative repair solution to excavation. Pipe lining rehabilitates your sewer lines from the inside out, eliminating damage to your yard and leaving you with an updated drainage system that lasts for decades. Flow Right Plumbing, Heating, Cooling and Electric provides commercial and residential sewer pipe lining to residents in Pueblo, Colorado Springs and the greater Southern Colorado area.
What is Pipe Lining?
Sewer pipe lining is known under a variety of different names: cured-in-place pipe lining (CIPP), sewer rehabilitation and trenchless sewer repair are the most common. Developed in the 1970s, this method for repairing cracked, collapsed and damaged sewer lines has become an innovative way to extend the life of your existing sewer lines without digging a trench in your yard to access the pipes from above.
How Pipe Lining Works
- Inspection: Our licensed plumbers use a drain camera to determine if your sewer lines are a good candidate for pipe lining. See below for reasons your pipes may not be eligible.
- Cleaning: Pipes are scoured to create a smooth, clean surface for your new pipe lining materials. This can be done with hotjetting or other pipe clearing methods.
- Liner Preparation: Our plumbers carefully formulate a resin mix designed to cure inside the pipe. The liner is saturated thoroughly with the resin to ensure uniform application.
- Installation: The liner is inserted into the pipe and positioned to ensure full coverage.
- Inflation: Once the liner is in place, the plumber will inflate the liner to create the empty space for wastewater to exit to the sewer system. Inflation also presses the lining against the walls of the old pipes to ensure total adhesion.
- Curing: After installation and inflation, the resin begins to cure, binding to the old pipe and hardening into your new and improved sewer system.
- Final Inspection: Following curing, Flow Right will re-inspect your sewer lines to ensure that the lining has cured properly and will flow properly.
What Types of Pipes Can Be Lined?
Not every pipe is a candidate for pipe lining. We love being able to provide this service for our customers, but there are occasions when pipe lining simply isn’t suitable. That’s why it is critical that we perform a camera inspection before committing to any type of pipe lining project. Pipes that can be lined include:
- PVC
- ABS
- Cast iron
- Clay
- Orangeburg
As a side note, water lines made of copper and PEX can also be lined or repaired using seamless pipe lining.
When Should Pipes Not Be Relined?
Some sewer pipes are not great candidates for trenchless sewer repair. While we love to give customers the option to avoid excavation, here are a few cases where it’s actually the most beneficial and affordable decision:
Older, Damaged Line: Pipe relining may work for some clay pipes, for example, but others may have become too degraded to benefit from pipe relining.
Corroded Cast Iron Line: The interior of cast iron pipes is prone to corrosive buildup that may not be completely removed with a line scrubbing. This can interfere with the lining attaching to the interior walls of the pipe.
Extremely Damaged Line: Yes, pipe lining is designed to reinforce the existing pipe, but it can only do so much before it’s no longer a viable solution. Root infestation, for example, can burst a sewer line, which leaves the flexible liner with nothing to adhere to and plenty of room for error. Collapsed lines have no structure for the liner to adhere to and also will not work.
Bellied Lines: Bellied lines need to be repaired and reinforced, not lined with CIPP. Sewer lines rely on proper slope on their journey to the wastewater system and bellied lines create dips where debris can collect and water will pool. CIPP will only ensure you have a very well-lined, bellied pipe that will still need to be brought back to slope — through excavation.
What Are the Benefits of Pipe Lining?
There are quite a few benefits to trenchless pipe lining, with the “trenchless” part ranking the highest. Take a look at the ones customers love most:
- Trenchless — No need to dig up your front yard, kill your grass and spend months trying to recover your landscaping. Pipe lining repairs your pipes from the inside out, leaving your yard intact.
- Seamless — As plumbers, we love this one. Pipe lining uses a seamless “sock” that creates one smooth, continuous egress for your wastewater. This helps reduce clogs and backups caused by sewage getting caught on imperfections in the piping.
- Faster — A standard pipe lining project for a residential home can take as little as a day in comparison to excavation and you won’t be left with a hole in the yard while you’re waiting.
- Easy Cleanup — With pipe lining, we do the basic, very minimal clean-up and you go back to life. No re-seeding, no replacing plants, flowers and trees, no driveway and sidewalk damage and no mud to track into the house until the landscaping recovers.
- Permanent — This system binds permanently to your old sewer line so you can rest assured it will last for decades.
Why Trust Flow Right With Your Trenchless Pipe Lining Project?
- Licensed plumbers
- Contractor A & B Licenses
- Plumbing and HVAC technicians continuing education programs
- Background checks and drug testing
- Over 25 years of industry experience
- Fully Insured
- Bonded
- Best of Pueblo
- Colorado Companies to Watch
- Best Workplaces
Our Make It Right Guarantee
We know that it can be difficult to put your home or business in someone else’s hands, which is why we offer our Make It Right guarantee. We pride ourselves on providing accurate, affordable customer service from estimate to project completion. If you are ever unsatisfied with your service for any reason, our business will work with you to Make It Right every time.
Frequently Asked Questions About Pipe Lining Services
Pipe lining is currently legal in the state of Colorado and in both Pueblo and Colorado Springs. If you live in a city or town in the greater Southern Colorado area, we’ll be able to provide you with any concerns about using pipe lining in your area.
Yes, pipe lining is ideal for sewer pipes, although there are applications for using it as a repair or reline for PEX and copper water lines. Trenchless sewer repair works well thanks in part to the flexibility of the lining before it is cured and due to the inflation process that ensures the liner adheres across the interior the full length of the project area.
Flow Right confirms that pipes are good candidates for sewer relining by conducting a pre-camera inspection to look for issues that would require excavation instead.
Pipe lining can damage pipes. That’s why it’s important to select a plumbing company that you trust that stands behind their work. Our licensed, experienced plumbers will always follow the proper steps, beginning with a camera inspection to ensure pipes are good candidates for pipe lining.
Check with your insurance company to determine if pipe lining is covered.
Pipe lining is typically more affordable than excavation. Home and business owners should also consider the cost of restoring the property and time lost to repair when determining if pipe lining is the more affordable option.
No, due to the bonding of the lining to the existing sewer pipe, pipe lining is not reversible.
Most residential pipe lining projects can be completed in about a day. You’ll receive an estimated completion time during your camera inspection.
Pipe lining can extend the length of the pipe or be used for shorter repairs. Your plumber will help you determine the right solution for your sewer lines.
If your pipes are not a good candidate for pipe relining, you will likely need to move on to excavation. Flow Right provides excavation and sewer line repair services in addition to pipe lining. Your technician will explain why pipe lining is not an option and share your alternatives during inspection.
Clearing clogs and cleaning out the lines is still standard practice. You’ll be able to clear debris or call us for hotjetting (your plumber will ensure your lines are good candidates). Since most sewer line repairs are caused by collapse, breaks or tree root intrusion, relining should extend the life of your sewer lines for a significant amount of time without the need for exterior repairs.
Call Flow Right to Learn More About Trenchless Sewer Repair & Pipe Lining Services
Flow Right has been serving Southern Colorado for decades, providing experienced, reliable and trusted plumbing and sewer services to our home city of Pueblo and all our neighboring cities and towns. We’ll help you tackle sewer problems like cracks, leaks and other damage with premium sewer pipe lining services. Give us a call today to book a sewer line inspection and learn more about trenchless sewer repair from Flow Right!