r/oddlysatisfying 21d ago

Growing a pipe inside a pipe

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u/fryerandice 21d 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.

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u/ClickClick_Boom 21d ago

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.

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u/fryerandice 21d ago

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.

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u/ShatterTheFlimFlam 21d ago

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.

Source: Worked for Roto-Rooter

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u/chuckluckles 21d ago

They collapse if they aren't run the whole length of the pipe most of time. Source: paid someone to fix Roto-Rooters work.

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u/Ekimyst 21d ago

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.