Los Angeles Sewer Repair & Replacement Guide: What You Should Know!

A Sewer Line Can Become Clogged

When your toilet and all sinks start to back up at the same time, it usually means your sewer line has become clogged. Regardless of the cause of the blockage, it will have to be cleared. So you call in a professional Sewer Line Contractor in Los Angeles, or a Plumber who inserts a video camera into the line and locates and identifies the cause of the problem.

If the blockage is located less than 100 feet into the line, it might be removed with an auguring/cabling device, also known as a plumber’s “snake”. But these cabling devices usually don’t have cables longer than 100 feet, so you then have to use a hydro-jet machine.
 These machines develop a very powerful jet of water which literally blasts away even the most stubborn obstruction. 

When the plumber believes he has removed the blockage, he will then camera the line again to make sure the obstruction has been removed. Sometimes a second pass is needed with the hydro-jet to completely remove the blockage.

Camera the line after hydro jetting
Hydrojetman, Los Angeles, CA

Once the blockage has been removed, the video camera will then show the plumber more details about the condition of the sewer line. That’s when he will be able to see if there is anything structurally wrong with the sewer line.

Many things can go wrong with sewer lines

sewer pipes can crack, break, develop leaks or holes, become separated or misaligned, can collapse, corrode or deteriorate with age, or be damaged by tree roots or earthquake activity. Or a foreign object can become lodged in the pipe and will have to be removed or dislodged and pushed away.

See illustration below:

These problems need to be addressed. If a lateral sewer line is damaged, it must be repaired. A broken part can be removed and replaced.

Damaged sewer pipe can be replaced by one of three methods:

Open trench digging: you dig a trench to get to the broken part, replace it with a new piece of pipe, then fill in the trench again. Sometimes a mechanical device like a backhoe is needed to do the digging.

The other two methods of sewer repair/replacement require little digging and are called “trenchless technology”:

Pipe bursting: this method inserts a new metal pipe into the old one, and is then pulled into the old pipe hydraulically, literally bursting away the old pipe and replacing it with the new one.

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