Broken Sewer Lateral - the worst case plumbing event (with pics)

[Marcus Auerbach]

I always knew it is just a matter of time until I would have to deal with the worst case plumbing issue - a broken sewer lateral under a rental property. So, I was mentally prepared for the big bill, but it still was not fun to actually go through it. For those who have not had "the pleasure" I thought I'll share...

I got a text on Thursday night from a tenant informing me that there was sewage in the basement and it was comming out of the floor drain. Fortunatley our drain contractor was able to get out there next day Friday morning right away with the big snake to clear out the sewer lateral. I had a bad feeling, because as a standard procedure we always have the entire sewer snaked before we put a new house into service and this one was just done half a year ago. (most of our Milwaukee housing stock is built in the 50s and many sewer lines have never been cleaned, so we do it as a precaution...) So I was expecting bad news..

The snake did not go through and after sticking down a camera they informed me that the line was broken and the front yard needs to be dug up. Fortunatley the problem was located outside the house and not under the house (so we did not have to get inside the house and bust up concrete!) I was lucky to get an excavator out there same day on Friday afternoon and 3 hours later we had access to the line and could inspect the problem. 

They had to dig up a massive trench, about 11 feet deep to get to the line. The individual drain tiles were in really good shape, but two of them were disconnected, because 60 years ago they had been supported by some leftover construction lumber over a soft spot (instead of crushed stone, as supposed to). As the wood was rotting away over the decades, the weight of the dirt pushed them down and diconnected them eventually. 

If I would have had the sewer line scoped as part of our purchase inspection we would have probably found the issue. I started to remember that when we had snaked the line the first time the plumbers told me they were pulling out clay, but eventually got it to work. As the tenants moved in and more water went through the line the wood started to rot out and the ground got softer from all the leaking water making the issue worse quickly until the line collapsed and filled in with dirt.

The crew worked quickly, bute very careful to not tear up the water line with the excavator - usually burried right next to sewer. Once located they had to hand dig the last foot, remove the individual tiles and the solid content inside, clean everything up and install a new PVC sewer pipe. 

Of course the remainder of the line back in the house was filled with solids, as the tenants had used the swer line for weeks despite the fact that less and less of the liquids could pass. Remembering the guys cleaning out the 15 ft slud of fresh solids helped me a lot writing the check later on... yuck! By Friday night the line was replaced and back in service.

The crew came back on Saturday with a load of gravel to propperly fill under the new pipe, we passed city inspection and then the trench could be backfilled. The remainder of the dirt had to be loaded on a truck an hauled away. The total bill came in for just over $6600 and was a little bit higher that normal, becaue they had to work on a Saturday. Understanding how much work it was I think the bill was reasonable. In the end I was glad we could do it so quickly. The tenants were glad too and relieved that they were able to use the shower and bathroom within 12 hours of reporting the issue - they had already started calling family, because they expected it to be a several week long issue.

Lessons learned? We still buy properties and will not scope the sewer lateral before the purchase, it's simply to expensive and involved compared to the probability of this happening. So we will play the odds. It's just one of those things that you have to deal with when they pop up. And in the end it really was not that bad, just a little expensive...

Here you can see an old sewer tile in the right side of the picture. Also shovels and standing water.