How the two ways of fixing a broken sewer line compare for North Shore homes
There are two ways to fix a failed sewer line. You can dig it up, or you can repair it from the inside. Trenchless repair rebuilds the pipe through one or two small access holes and leaves your lawn, driveway, and landscaping alone. Open trench excavation means digging along the full length of the pipe and replacing it, then rebuilding whatever was on top.
Per foot, trenchless usually costs a bit more. Once you add back the cost of putting your yard, driveway, and patio back together, it’s often the cheaper job, and it’s done in a day instead of a week.
Not every pipe qualifies. Before we recommend either method, we run a camera down the line and look at:
- How deep the pipe is and what it’s made of.
- What’s sitting above it: mature trees, a paver driveway, a stone patio, a front walk.
- How bad the damage is. Cracks and roots are one thing. A collapsed section is another.
- Whether the repair reaches the street or sidewalk, which changes the village permit.
Why do North Shore sewer lines fail so often?
Because most of them are old. A lot of homes here still have the original clay or cast iron sewer line, installed 50 to 80 years ago, and both materials fail in predictable ways.
Clay pipe comes in short sections with a joint every few feet. As the ground settles, the sections shift out of line, and tree roots find their way into every gap looking for water. Freeze-thaw cycles crack it further. Cast iron doesn’t have the joint problem, but it rusts from the inside. Over the years a thick layer of scale builds up along the bottom of the pipe, catches paper and solids, and the line slowly chokes down until it stops.
The first sign is usually a slow drain or a gurgle. The second sign is water coming up the basement floor drain.
What does trenchless repair cost compared to digging?
National cost guides put open trench excavation at roughly $50 to $250 per foot and trenchless repair at roughly $80 to $250 per foot. On paper, digging looks cheaper.
The per-foot number leaves out the part that hurts. An excavator has to drive onto your lawn and dig a trench the length of the pipe. Sod, walkways, retaining walls, and a paver or asphalt driveway all come up with it. Putting that back is usually a separate contractor and can easily add several thousand dollars to the job, more if a driveway has to be cut.
A typical residential sewer line runs 50 to 75 feet from the house to the street. Digging that up means moving a lot of dirt across your front yard. Trenchless needs two small pits, one at the foundation and one near the property line or the city connection.
We price both options line by line before any work starts so you can see the full number, not just the per-foot number.
How long does each method take?
Trenchless is usually finished the same day. An open trench job runs three to five days on site, and then the yard takes months to settle before it can be leveled and re-seeded. Anything hard, like pavers or concrete, waits for another contractor. A 60-foot cured-in-place liner typically takes under eight hours from setup to the final camera check. You leave for work in the morning and come home to working plumbing and a lawn that looks the same as it did.
Trenchless handles most residential sewer problems. It does not handle everything. If a section of pipe has collapsed, sagged into a low spot that holds water (a belly), or was pitched back toward the house, a liner can’t fix the shape of the pipe. Those jobs get dug.
How does trenchless sewer repair actually work?
There are two common methods.
Cured-in-place pipe lining
We start by hydro-jetting the line to blast out roots, grease, and scale. Then a felt tube soaked in epoxy resin goes into the pipe through one access point and gets pulled or blown through the full run. A bladder inside the tube inflates and presses the resin against the old pipe wall. A few hours later the resin has cured into a hard, seamless pipe inside your old pipe. No joints for roots to get into, no cracks, and a smooth interior. Liners are rated for 50 years or more.
Pipe bursting
When the old pipe needs to be replaced outright, or you need a larger diameter, a bursting head is pulled through the old line. It breaks the old pipe outward into the soil and drags a new high-density polyethylene pipe in behind it. Same result: new pipe, no trench.
The camera inspection tells us which method fits, or whether the line has to be dug.
Frequently asked questions
Will lining reduce the inside diameter of my pipe?
By about a quarter inch. Flow usually gets better anyway, because the smooth liner replaces rough, scaled walls and the joints where paper used to catch.
Is trenchless sewer repair allowed in North Shore villages?
Yes. Cured-in-place lining and pipe bursting are both accepted across the North Shore. The permit gets more involved when the repair reaches into the public street or right-of-way, and we handle that paperwork.
How long does a trenchless liner last?
Cured-in-place liners are rated for 50 years or longer. They stand up to roots, rust, and ground movement.
Can a camera inspection tell if my pipe qualifies for trenchless?
Yes. The camera shows cracks, offset joints, root masses, and low spots, and that’s what determines whether the pipe can be lined or has to be replaced by excavation.
Sewer line repair on the North Shore
Biagi Plumbing has been repairing and replacing sewer lines on the North Shore since 1989. We do camera inspections, hydro-jetting, cured-in-place lining, directional boring, and full excavation when that’s what the pipe needs, in Evanston, Wilmette, Winnetka, Glencoe, Highland Park, Lake Forest, Lake Bluff, Deerfield, Northbrook, Glenview, Libertyville, Buffalo Grove, and the surrounding communities.
If your drains are slow or your basement floor drain is backing up, don’t wait for the pipe to collapse. Call Biagi Plumbing at (847) 512-8921 to schedule a sewer camera inspection. We’ll show you the footage, tell you what’s wrong, and give you a written price for the fix that makes sense.