Seattle Drain Service
"Replace Your Pipes not Your Yard"
Located in The Wallingford District
206-632-8069
Trenchless Sewer and water line replacement and repair.
Pipe Bursting method of Trenchless sewer pipe replacement.
We are able to pipe burst 3-6 inch sewer mains 100 feet at a time. For those of you who have no idea what trench-less line replacement is i will explain it for you. If you have a home where the sewer line needs cleaning frequently and had problems with roots and breakage and needs to be replaced or a water line from your house to the water meter that needs replacement Trenchless replacement is a great way to replace those lines.
I will give a brief description of how the pipe burster or Trenchless replacement works.
We will first determine where the pipe is located and where the best entrance area would be. Then we Find where we want to exit at. That could be the street city connection or the curb or anywhere. We then excavate the exit hole and entrance hole. Find the pipe cut it and push a cable through the pipe. Once the cable is fished through the pipe we attach one end of the cable to what we call the bursting head. That head attaches to the pipe and is what breaks the old pipe pulls it apart and pulls the new pipe in behind it. We then set up the pulling equipment on the other end and start pulling the new line through. Once we are done pulling we make a few connections and wall-a we are done! I will attach a link to a short video of pipe bursting or you can watch a few clips on our you tube site.
Here are a few reasons why you should consider Trenchless or pipe bursting.
1. We are able to replace most residential lines with only 2 holes dug in your lawn. One as an entrance pit and the other where we want to stop as the exit pit. This saves time, money, your landscaping,Driveways, side walks, asphalt, the list goes on and on.
2. We are able to pull one piece of solid 4” piping through with out joints or places that could cause problems in the future. We use what is called HDPE pipe. This stands for high density poly ethylene. This is a very close relative to PEX piping the same pipe you use in your home for water piping except this pipe is larger and has thicker walls. The life expectancy of this pipe is well over 100 years. So your house is likely to fall down before you will need to replace your sewer line again!
3. HDPE piping is 3 to 4 times thicker pipe then PVC sewer pipe or any other pipe on the market currently used for sewer pipe. This gives roots, rocks and other things that could cause problems a lot harder time at getting into the line. This give you a worry free sewer line. No more worrying about what the trees in your yard might do to the sewer line.
4. When replacing water service lines from your home to the city water meter. We are able to replace the whole line for a comparable cost to try and find the water leak you have on your line. This saves landscape and other things in your yard or driveway from getting torn to shreds by heavy machinery brought in to take care of the problem. We dig a 4' by 4' hole around the meter and usually one 3x4 pit near the house.
5. The new water services have a guarantee for 50 years against pipe rupture or leakage. Try and find a copper pipe manufacturer that will guarantee his pipe for 30 years buried in the ground!
6. 99% of our jobs are done the same day. This gives you the peace of mind that you will have your water back on by the evening if we start in the morning! No more praying that your contractor that is destroying your lawn will hopefully hook up a temporary water service or sewer service when he leaves that evening. We can pull up to 15 feet a min with our sewer machine and we are even faster with the water lines!
Link to TRIC Tools Pipe Bursting Equipment that we use.
Sewer Pipe Relining method of Trenchless sewer pipe repair.
1.If a sewer is failing because of Age (over 50 years) and it has good grade to the street (no dips in the line) it may be a candidate to be relined. Relining (CIPP as it is called) is the process of creating a pipe within a pipe, it can have missing sections, cracks etc. Think of a big tube sock made of epoxy placed in your old sewer to create a seemless pipe using your old pipe as the host. It has a lower cost than traditional excavation repairs because it has less labor needed and it saves your yard or concrete.
2. Seattle Drain Service at this time is the only installer of a System Made by LMK called performance liner. There are many Sewer Liner manufactures around but we chose LMK for several reasons that are important to the homeowner. A lot of companies say they are trenchless but in fact they excavate a hole near the foundation to gain access to the sewer pipe so that they can install their system but the LMK sewer liner can be installed through a cleanout in a basement or outside with no digging needed, a truly trenchlesss system! Second the LMK sewer liner is equipped with a sewer camera port to allow a camera to be inserted in the liner before it cures to make sure the placement is correct! Others do not do this and do not find out till it's too late how the job came out. The LMK sewer lining system also uses a very special lining material that does not stretch when installed saving costly trimming after the install. And most important the LMK system can be started anywhere in the line and stopped and restarted if needed because of the camera and design of the system. The LMK Lining system is simply the best system out there! Roots are a thing of the past once installed. 50 year Warranty need I say more?
Link to LMK Performance Liner for additional Info.
camera port on the LMK exclusive feature!
3. AND MOST IMPORTANT TO SEATTLE HOMEOWNERS! In Seattle property owners are responsible for the Side sewer from their home to the city sewer in the street. The cost to make a sewer repair on the homeowners property is small compared to the cost starting at the sidewalk to the city sewer. Only a registered side sewer contractor may work in the public right of way and to be a RSSC in the city of Seattle a large Bond and insurance is needed, that cost is past onto the homeowner resulting in the sewer repair bill doubling or tripling for street, sidewalk work. But there is hope! If the side sewer is not totally collapsed and the side sewer can be opened up with Jetting or rodding or grinding then a sewer liner may be installed and since it can be installed from the property owners property there will be no costly street excavation and the sewer is now repaired. This is one of the greatest benefits to having your side sewer repaired with lining. Ingenuity or the Mcguyver mentality to problem solve the job is what sets Seattle Drain Service ahead of the pack we will exhaust all avenues to help the customer save money!
Trenchless Water Lines (Water Main Service)
1. Trenchless repair of main Water lines is possible with many different tools. We have pipe bursting to split and at the same time pull in a new water line. This works on black poly, copper, and PVC lines. If your home has galvanized lines it is still possible but instead of splitting the old line it is pushed out of the ground, not all galvanized lines can be done with the trenchless systems. You need to call us to inspect the situation to determine what can be done. 206-632-8069.
2. Sometimes we use a mole (picture a torpedo) to create a underground tunnel from point A to B and abandon the old line completly. Rockeries and concrete driveways are the most common situations we use this on.
3. Repair versus Replace the water main. Usually it is better to replace the whole line rather than repair a single spot because it is common to do a repair only to have several more breaks happen later. There are exceptions to this if the line is newer and a possible bad fitting or faulty installation is to blame.
4. If your water main is leaking and is repaired by a Real Contractor the water district usually will forgive part or all of the high water bill. Not always but most of the time. A call to your water district can answer this question.
5. If you have a situation where other contractors are scared (won't bid) or the prices are all over the place please call us, we want the jobs that nobody else will do, the challenge is what we live for.
6.If you have a water line or main that has been leaking for some time and it is under concrete or asphalt then be aware that the leaking water could have created a channel below the surface which can lead to a sink hole or cracks in the concrete since the soil is now gone and there is no support. Concrete and asphalt need support of the ground underneath. This is one of the services we offer to save the driveway or walkway is to pump high strength foam to fill the voids. Too much and the concrete can rise, too little and it was not worth even doing as cracks will form. Not every job needs this if the leak is repaired in time. The worst offender is old galvanized water mains as they will leak for awhile then the rust clogs the leak and the leak stops (kind of like getting a cut on a finger) but then the leak starts again later and this process goes on and on over time. The leak in the pipe is like a pressure washer erroding the soil around the pipe. The process is called soil stabelization or void filling. The product is high strength polyurethane foam grout. There and many uses for this when water has caused underground damage to the soil.
Directional Boring
If you need a utility line water, gas, electrical, or any kind of pipe placed in the ground where there has never been one we can do that also!
We have a hydraulic pipe pusher/puller. Called a Power Mole PD-4 it needs a 2 foot x 4 foot hole to work from and will create a straight bore in the ground to wherever it needs to go! It pushes rods to another smaller pit then either enlarges the hole back to the beginning or pulls in the new pipe! It has a locating beacon on the tip so that we always know where it is. It is steer able in the ground by use of special steering heads to avoid and go around obstructions or to maintain grade on the bore. There are many uses for this type of trenchless equipment. Pushing out and replacing galvanized water service mains, pipe bursting stubborn sewer lines, completely collapsed sewer lines! And many other trenchless uses. The fact that we have it in our tool inventory makes many jobs that where thought not possible are in fact possible!