Repair, reline or replace: decide on the evidence.

01 /How do you decide between repair, relining and replacement?

The decision rests on recorded camera footage, read against three questions: how much of the line is damaged, whether the damage is structural, and whether the old pipe can still host a liner. A single offset joint in sound pipe is a spot repair. Cracked, root-invaded clay that is still round and on grade is a relining candidate. A collapse, deformed fibre pipe or a belly that holds water needs digging or bursting, because a liner copies whatever shape and slope it is cured against.

Two circumstances change how a verdict should be read. If you plan to sell within a couple of years, document the line's condition and get written quotes now, because a buyer's inspector is likely to scope it. If the line is 70 years old or more, its remaining life is limited even where the video looks acceptable, so ask for a full-length price alongside any repair. Neither changes what the pipe needs today; both change what you should have in hand before you decide.

The Repair or Replace? Decision Engine applies these rules in order to your own findings. The thresholds behind them are explained in when to replace a sewer line and spot repair vs full replacement.

02 /Which replacement method fits which problem?

Every method has a defect it cannot handle, and knowing that list protects you from a proposal that suits the contractor's equipment better than your pipe. Open cut can fix anything, including lost grade, but its cost rises steeply under driveways, slabs and roads. Relining avoids digging but needs a round, continuous host. Bursting can replace broken or undersized pipe and even upsize it, but it follows the old path and dislikes bends.

The Replacement Method Selector rates lining, bursting, open cut and spot repair for your depth, surface, condition, access, bends and connections. For the engineering behind each one, read CIPP lining explained, pipe bursting explained and how trenchless sewer replacement works. If the camera shows a sag, can trenchless fix a belly explains why excavation is the only real fix.

03 /What goes back in the ground, and how long does it last?

For an open-cut house lateral in Canada, the usual replacement is gasketed PVC sewer pipe, SDR 35 or the thicker SDR 28, laid on compacted granular bedding at a checked slope. Burst replacements use fused HDPE. Building drains under the basement floor are usually ABS or PVC drain-waste-vent pipe. Design lives for modern plastic pipe and structural liners are measured in decades, but installation, not the label, decides how long a particular line lasts.

The details matter as much as the pipe: long sweeps instead of tight bends so future cameras and liners can pass, a cleanout near the foundation, a tracer wire on plastic pipe, shielded transition couplings to old pipe, and backfill compacted in layers. Best pipe for sewer replacement covers the specification, and how long sewer pipes last covers the old materials coming out and the new ones going in. If yours is cast iron, clay or fibre pipe, replacing old sewer pipe by material shows how the material limits the method.

04 /How should a sewer replacement job run?

1. Footage and ownership

   A recorded camera run with distances and depths, and your municipality's answer on where your responsibility ends. In Calgary, call 311.

2. Decision and method

   Use the decision engine and method selector, then ask contractors to price the same scope from the same video.

3. Permits and locates

   A plumbing permit in most municipalities, permission for any boulevard or road work, and public utility locates through the provincial one-call service before any digging.

4. The work

   Usually one to three days on site for open cut, about a day for relining and one to two for bursting, with a no-water window while the line is open.

5. Inspection, video and warranty

   An inspection before backfill where required, a finished-line video, and written workmanship and material warranties tied to that video.

See sewer replacement day by day, how to choose a sewer replacement contractor and sewer replacement warranties and final checks. The pipe that comes out, or stays in, is covered in what happens to the old sewer pipe. Approvals are explained in permits and inspections, finished yards in driveways and trees, and claims in does insurance cover sewer line replacement. Condominiums, shared laterals and rentals have their own guide, as do lines running to a septic tank.

05 /Where does SewerReplacement.ca fit in the HAUSE Sewer network?

SewerReplacement.ca owns the decision and the engineering: repair versus relining versus replacement, method selection, pipe materials, the replacement process and contractor selection. For money questions, including detailed pricing by method, quote comparison and financing, go to SewerQuotes.com; our own repair vs reline vs replace cost page summarises the decision math. For understanding the camera inspection that every decision rests on, go to SewerInspector.ca. For root problems, SewerRoots.ca.

In Calgary, the Calgary page connects City service line data to replacement methods, and the Calgary portals go further: CalgarySewers.ca for the City's data and ownership, and CalgarySewerReplacement.ca for the local replacement process. HAUSE Sewer is an independent information and quote-request network and does not perform sewer work. When you have footage and a scope, request quotes.

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