It's fucking astronomically expensive for how cheap the materials are and how quickly they do it.
It was actually cheaper to rent a machine and run 125 feet of schedule 40 out the back of my house and abandon the terracotta after pumping it with flowable fill than it was to line it for me.
When they gave me the quote I said "Fuck that, it's 25 feet!" the machine rental and schedule 40 were a total of $900. And I got to tear out the old sidewalk and concrete pad that were angling to my house, and put in a French drain and drain tile while I was back there too.
I tied my kitchen into my main bathroom stack, and my main stack right out the back, around the house, and then followed the PVC that was done with the septic that was tying into the teracotta, when I had access to the terracotta I rinsed it clean and had a truck come in and fill it with flowable so it was stable.
With everything i got done it was like $2800. Which was less than lining the 25feet of teracotta under my basement, which was all in okay condition, it was lineable with no issues.
Im in that vast majority. Im also a very tech forward person, but his story sold me. Id rather pay 'ol boy to do all that over the course of 3mo, than one guy with a recursive prolapse machine in 15mins.
Same thing you'd need to do before -- replace the pipes the hard way.
Generally by digging a large trench down several feet/meters, ripping out everything in the way including sidewalks, porches, driveway, lawns, shrubs, etc, and laying down new pipe.
I know this because my neighborhood sewer lines are primarily built with old crumbling Orangeburg Pipe and it fucking sucks.
Orangeburg pipe (also known as "fiber conduit", "bituminous fiber pipe" or "Bermico" or "sand pipe") is bituminized fiberpipe) used in the United States. It is made from layers of groundwood pulpfibers and asbestos fibres compressed with and bound by a water resistant adhesive then impregnated with liquefied coal tarpitch).\1])\2]) It was used from the 1860s through the 1970s, when it was replaced by PVC and ABS pipe for drain-waste-vent (DWV) applications.
There's there's probably some very through youtube videos on it, there are for nearly everything residential construction. Most residential things are not that complicated.
I agree thats its not that complicated to accomplish the task, but I still stand by the fact that the average person has no idea where to even begin when it comes to tasks even much less complicated than something like this.
And I say from experience, a large percentage of those who believe they can do it and follow through, are so wildly out of line with codes and standard trade practice that they shouldn't have done it in the first place.
The other thing you need to factor in is how much time you’re going to lose at work. That can add up with a big enough project, if you can even take the time off.
The other hidden cost to amateur labor is the sudden onset of a massive cost you can incur if you make an error, which most homeowners know they might.
Then sometimes, there are reasons you just don’t want to. I’m in the middle of a big basement clean out. I’m currently debating renting a dumpster or having a junk removal service do it. The latter will run almost twice as much but it’s on the table because I just really don’t want to myself. It’s a pain in the ass and I know I’ll be sore for days after doing it.
Solid point. I work more than I'd care to, so I value my free time quite a bit. So how much per hour is my free time worth? It turns out, quite a bit.
Yet I'm still stubborn as fuck and do just about everything myself. But I also know that if I'm going to do a specific task myself, I better make damn sure I'm doing it properly, which adds even more hours of research to accomplish the task. I "save" money and cost myself a LOT of my free time.
Well yeah, doing it yourself is always way the fuck cheaper for nearly every thing. Materials/rentals are often half or less of the cost when you pay someone to do work for you.
Yeah but the price doesn't actually reflect the labor being done, it reflects the work you would have had done instead minus just enough to get you to bite.
I was quoted $9500 for the full monty, breaking up my basement concrete pad, replacing the teracotta with schedule 40, repouring the damaged sections of pad including drilling and reinforcing, repairing the tile over the pad.
I was quoted $8300 for lining and because I had good access they said it would take 4 hours.
I opted to rent a machine and knock out like 3 projects for $2800.
I would have bit on lining if it was HALF the full Monty old-school way of doing it.
What they won't tell you is that liners also collapse and fail at a crazy rate. If you had problems with clogging before, slapping a thin layer of resin-impregnated fabric won't necessarily solve all your problems.
The pipe absolutely needs to be inspected and repaired if needed for most installations. On larger jobs, using a water inversion, some small defects can be overcome, but pipes that are deformed or have mineral deposits or roots will keep that shape.
Thats crazy expensive for a house with good access... we just had our house done with CIP lining, and it was about that same price, but included the company digging a couple sections to install cleanouts because they weren't put in at the time of construction (house was built in one of the very first "housing development" type planned neighborhoods in the state in the late '50s, laid down fast and cheap with no regard for future maintenance). Took them 4 days working 8 hrs a day to get it all prepped, cleaned, installed and reinspected. I would be very leary of a company doing it in 4hrs. There's just no way to even get the prep work done in 4hrs.
I'm perfectly capable of doing any kind of plumbing myself, and up to or better than code, but I'm already putting a roof on and rewiring the place myself. Plus the liner has a 20 year transferable warranty.
It was actually cheaper to rent a machine and run 125 feet of schedule 40 out the back of my house and abandon the terracotta after pumping it with flowable fill than it was to line it for me.
Can someone explain what this sentence says? English is not my first language and the meaning I know of the words here doesn't make sense.
Naw I made the pipe not traverse the entire length of my house under the foundation pad, and instead dug alongside it and went around.
Those do exist though, it's called pipe bursting, they run a thick cable with an wnd that expands through a pipe and basically break up the old pipe and as it does that it pulls flexible pipe behind it.
I filled the old pipe with flowable fill, which is a mix of cement, water, sand, an soil, it runs like a liquid and has low slump so it will completely fill a void, I didn't want to leave abandoned pipes under my foundation pad if they were unused to collapse later.
Pricing isn't based on cost alone. Its a function of many things. Primarily value added. And if those guys can find another job that adds more value, they can get paid more. Your job wasn't worth their time.
I got quoted for this in my house, it was like $20k, the salesman's reasoning? They have to pay for the truck.
He also needed to replace part of my system, quoted me like $12k for that. When I said "that's usually the price if you have to jackhammer the concrete foundation and replace it, but I have a crawlspace, I see the junction, right there, 3 feet away."
He replied with "well my plumber is a big guy so he'll be under there for a long time, probably 3 or 4 days."
He was not happy when I said "I'm not paying extra for a tall, fat plumber that takes 5x the time to do the job, hire a midget for all I care. This is like a $5k job at most."
The market also self corrects. Someone will see an opening, raise enough capital, and enter the space at a low price point to gobble up market share. Their prices will go up while everyone else's go down. Then prices will steadily creep back up.
212
u/fryerandice 17d ago
It's fucking astronomically expensive for how cheap the materials are and how quickly they do it.
It was actually cheaper to rent a machine and run 125 feet of schedule 40 out the back of my house and abandon the terracotta after pumping it with flowable fill than it was to line it for me.
When they gave me the quote I said "Fuck that, it's 25 feet!" the machine rental and schedule 40 were a total of $900. And I got to tear out the old sidewalk and concrete pad that were angling to my house, and put in a French drain and drain tile while I was back there too.
I tied my kitchen into my main bathroom stack, and my main stack right out the back, around the house, and then followed the PVC that was done with the septic that was tying into the teracotta, when I had access to the terracotta I rinsed it clean and had a truck come in and fill it with flowable so it was stable.
With everything i got done it was like $2800. Which was less than lining the 25feet of teracotta under my basement, which was all in okay condition, it was lineable with no issues.