Sewer Pipe Lining in the San Fernando Valley
Pipe lining puts a new pipe inside the pipe you already have. A resin-saturated tube goes in through your cleanout, gets pushed out tight against the old walls, and hardens into one continuous piece of plastic with no joints anywhere along it. The clay stays in the ground as a shell. What carries your sewage from that day forward is the liner.
The reason people go looking for it is the yard. A conventional lateral replacement on a Valley lot means a trench from the house to the curb, and that trench does not care what is on top of it. Driveways, mature landscaping, a patio somebody poured in 1998, the roots of a coast live oak that took forty years to get that big. Lining needs one access point and, on most jobs, one small pit at the far end.
BBC Rooter lines sewer laterals and building mains across Reseda, Encino, Tarzana, Woodland Hills, West Hills, Canoga Park, Northridge, Granada Hills and Pacoima, residential and commercial. Babak has been in Valley sewer pipe since the 1980s. If you want the line looked at before you decide anything, call 818-280-9135.
What actually happens on lining day
People picture something more exotic than it is. Here is the sequence on a normal single-family lateral.
- Camera first. We run a sewer camera the full length and measure with the locator. We are looking for grade, for the material, for where the branch connections come in, and for anything that rules lining out. This is also where you see the footage yourself.
- The line gets cleaned. A liner bonds to what it touches. Roots, scale and hardened grease have to come out first, so the line is cut and then jetted. On old cast iron this is the longest part of the day, because forty years of tuberculation does not leave quickly.
- Measure and wet out. The felt tube is cut to length and saturated with epoxy resin, mixed on site in measured ratio. Once the resin is in the tube there is a working window and the clock is running.
- Inversion or pull-in. The tube is either turned inside out into the pipe with air or water pressure, or winched in and then inflated with a bladder. Either way it ends up pressed flat against the host pipe all the way around.
- Cure. Ambient, hot water or steam depending on the resin. This is the dead time, a few hours on most residential runs.
- Reinstatement. The liner sealed over your branch connections when it inflated, so a small robotic cutter goes back in and reopens each one. Miss one and a bathroom stops draining, which is why we camera the line again at the end and record it.
Your sewer is out of service from the cleaning step until reinstatement is finished. On a standard house that is most of one working day, and we tell you the window before anyone starts so you can make arrangements.
When lining is the wrong answer
This is the part most lining pages leave out. A liner is flexible going in and rigid once cured, and it takes the shape of whatever it is pressed against. It does not correct anything.
If your lateral has a belly, a low section holding standing water, the liner will hold water in exactly the same low section. It will look beautiful on camera and still back up on you every spring. A badly offset joint where one pipe section has dropped below the next will either tear the tube on the way in or cure with a fin across the flow. Pipe that has already collapsed has no shape left to line against.
Those are dig jobs, or they are pipe bursting jobs, which replaces the line outright without a trench and can go up a size while it does it. Knowing which one you have is the whole point of running the camera first. If you are trying to work out what you are looking at, our write-up on bellied lines versus offset joints goes through how they differ on screen.
We will tell you when a liner is not the right call. Selling somebody a liner over a belly is how a company gets a phone call eight months later that it cannot answer.
The pipe under Valley houses, by material
| Material | Roughly when | How it fails | Lines well? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vitrified clay | Pre-1960s, common through 1970 | Root intrusion at the mortar joints every 4 to 5 feet; cracking from ground movement | Yes, when grade is intact. Clay is the best lining candidate in the Valley. |
| Cast iron | 1940s to late 1970s, usually the inside and near-house run | Scale builds inward until the bore closes; the bottom rots out first | Yes, after heavy cleaning. Budget extra time for descaling. |
| Orangeburg | Roughly 1945 to 1972 | Bituminized wood fiber softens and goes oval, then flattens | Rarely. Once it has deformed there is nothing sound to line against. Usually a burst or dig. |
| ABS | 1970s onward | Joint separation, crushing, occasional bad glue joints | Yes, if the run has held its shape. |
| PVC | 1980s onward | Rarely fails on its own; usually damage from settling or an outside force | Yes, though a spot repair is often cheaper. |
The reason clay matters so much here is timing. The Valley filled in after the Second World War, and vitrified clay in four and five foot sections was the standard lateral material for that entire building wave. A clay lateral has a joint every few feet by design. Each of those joints is a place a root can find moisture, and this is a region planted heavily with ficus, sycamore, magnolia and pepper. A liner is a single tube from the cleanout to the connection with nothing for a root to enter. Roots stop being an annual appointment.
Lining, bursting, or open trench
| Pipe lining (CIPP) | Pipe bursting | Open trench | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Digging | One access point, sometimes a small end pit | Two pits, one at each end | Trench the full run |
| Fixes grade problems | No | Partly | Yes |
| Can upsize the pipe | No | Yes | Yes |
| Typical duration | Most of a day | One day | Two to five days plus restoration |
| Best on | Cracked and root-invaded clay with good fall | Collapsed, flattened Orangeburg, undersized lines | Bellies, reroutes, anything needing a new path |
A fair number of jobs end up as a combination. Burst the forty feet under the front lawn that has gone to pieces, line the rest, leave the driveway alone. We quote it that way when that is what the footage supports.
What it costs, and what moves the number
Lining is priced per linear foot. In this part of Los Angeles that generally runs $80 to $250 a foot. Most Valley houses sit somewhere between 40 and 80 feet from the cleanout to the city connection, which puts a typical residential liner between roughly $6,000 and $16,000.
What moves it inside that range:
- Diameter. A 4 inch lateral and a 6 inch building main are different materials and different equipment.
- Access. A cleanout at the property line is straightforward. No cleanout at all means we install one first.
- Bends. Every sweep the tube has to negotiate adds risk and time. Two ninety degree bends in a short run can change the method.
- Cleaning. A clay line with fine roots is an hour. Cast iron carrying heavy scale can take most of a morning before anything else starts.
- Permit and surface. A liner that ends under the sidewalk or in the street involves the city and sometimes traffic control. That is a real line item, not padding.
Nobody can give you a real number over the phone, and a number given over the phone is a number that will change. We camera the line, then quote it in writing.
Around the Valley
Reseda. Flat ground and very little fall, block after block of small 1940s and 1950s tract houses on original clay between Sherman Way, Vanowen, Saticoy and Roscoe. Low grade means solids move slowly and anything that narrows the bore shows up fast. Lining suits the clay here well when the fall has held. Many of the rear-yard apartment buildings share one building lateral, and those are worth camera-ing before an owner budgets anything.
Encino. The larger lots south of Ventura Boulevard produce the long laterals, well over a hundred feet in places, running under hardscape and irrigation somebody paid a lot for. Encino owners ask us about lining more often than owners anywhere else in the service area, and that hardscape is the reason.
Woodland Hills and West Hills. Mixed housing stock from the 1950s through the 1970s and mixed materials with it, so the camera matters more here than usual. The sloped sections west of Topanga Canyon have good fall, which tends to favor lining. Warner Center's commercial buildings are a different job again, larger diameter and often after hours.
Tarzana. Postwar and 1960s construction, clay, and the mature street trees that come with a neighborhood that age. The blocks either side of Reseda Boulevard and Lindley give us the same call over and over. Roots at the joints is the recurring call.
Northridge. The January 1994 earthquake was centered here, and offset joints from that ground movement still turn up on camera three decades later, particularly north of Nordhoff and around Devonshire. An offset is exactly the defect that rules a liner out, so in Northridge we look harder at joint alignment before recommending one.
Pacoima and the northeast Valley. Older housing off Van Nuys Boulevard and Glenoaks, and the highest concentration of Orangeburg we find anywhere in the service area. When a Pacoima lateral has gone oval, lining is off the table and we say so on the first visit.
Permits, and why we bother
The City of Los Angeles treats a liner as a sewer repair. That means a plumbing permit and an inspection, and if the work reaches the public right of way, the involvement of LA Sanitation. BBC Rooter pulls the permit and meets the inspector.
Unpermitted sewer work does not stay invisible. It surfaces during escrow, when a buyer's inspector scopes the line and the paperwork does not exist, and at that point it is the seller's problem on the seller's timeline. Our guide to sewer permits in Los Angeles covers what gets pulled and how much time inspection adds.
Find out whether your line can be lined
We camera the lateral, show you the footage, and tell you which method fits. Free estimate with the inspection.
Call 818-280-9135Common questions
Can every sewer line be lined?
No, and anyone who says otherwise has not looked at yours. Bellies, badly offset joints, crushed pipe and collapsed Orangeburg cannot be lined, because a liner copies the shape it is pressed into. We run the camera first and will tell you when lining is the wrong tool.
How much does sewer pipe lining cost around here?
$80 to $250 per linear foot, so most Valley residential laterals land between $6,000 and $16,000. Diameter, depth, access, bends and permit requirements all move it. We quote after the camera run.
How long does a liner last?
Manufacturers publish a 50 year design life, and the resin systems have been in the ground since the 1970s. Because the liner has no joints, it removes the entry point roots have been using.
Can I use the toilets while it cures?
No. The line is down from cleaning through reinstatement, most of one working day on a standard house. You will know the window before we start.
Does the liner make the pipe smaller?
It takes about a quarter inch of wall on a 4 inch line. Flow usually gets better anyway, because cured epoxy is far smoother than old clay or scaled cast iron. If a line was already undersized, pipe bursting is the better route since it can go up a size.
Do I need a permit?
Yes, in the City of Los Angeles. We pull it and meet the inspector. Skipping it shows up later at resale.
Related
- Trenchless sewer repair, the overview of both no-dig methods and how we choose between them
- Sewer line repair and replacement, when digging is genuinely the right answer
- Sewer camera inspection, the step that decides everything else
- Root intrusion removal, for lines that are not ready for a liner yet
- What actually voids a CIPP liner
- Frequently asked questions