Sand Rock Sewer in St Paul - anyone dealt with this?

[Deena Laugen]

Hi Everyone,

I have a SFR under purchase agreement in St. Paul, MN that has been a duplex in the past. The place is rough, but I'm planning to fix it up and turn it back into a duplex.

During the inspection, I ran into an interesting problem. This area of St. Paul runs on a sand rock sewer system. Basically, instead of the pipes located 7ft under ground, these pipes are drilled through solid rock and run 40-60ft underground. There’s a huge break in the line on this one (not uncommon) and it costs a minimum of $35,000 to fix these because of the depth and need for specialized equipment. It’s running fine now, but if tenants start flushing stuff they shouldn’t, a block in the pipe would be a huge ordeal. Plus, whenever I would sell, I would have to disclose that this problem exists. Then I’m the one who would be stuck with the problem.

Has anyone else dealt with this before? There were a lot of other extra issues that came up with this house and I’m going back to the sellers to renegotiate, but I’m not sure they’re going to cover this situation. If I don’t get the numbers I need, I’ll walk, but I thought I’d reach out to this incredible wealth of knowledge before that happens.

Any information or advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks BP community!