Pipe Bursting in La Habra

Downtown, the tracts and the foothills

La Habra incorporated in 1925 as a citrus and avocado town, and the blocks around the old downtown along La Habra Boulevard and Euclid Street still carry houses from the 1920s through the 1940s on shallow vitrified clay laterals jointed every couple of feet, with cast iron under raised floors. The groves came out in the 1950s and 1960s and most of the city was built then, the tracts along Whittier Boulevard, Imperial Highway, Beach Boulevard and Harbor, slab-on-grade with cast iron under the house and clay or early ABS to the street. The neighborhoods climbing toward the Puente Hills on the north side, from the late 1960s through the 1980s, are on ABS under slab on graded pads, and the newest streets near the Westridge area are PVC.

The failures follow the pipe. Clay joints open and take roots. Cast iron under a slab channels out along the bottom over sixty years, so the camera sees a clean crown over a pipe that is nearly gone underneath. ABS cracks at fittings and bellies where hillside fill settled, and on the steeper lots a joint can shear where the slope creeps.

Clay flats, creeping foothills, old trees

The flats of La Habra are alluvial clay washed down from the hills, and it swells in the winter rains and shrinks all summer; six decades of that cycle has opened joints and offset pipe under most of the older streets. The foothill lots are a different problem: the laterals cross engineered fill on slopes that settle and creep, producing bellies and sheared joints where the pipe leaves the compacted pad, and the native hillside is weak sedimentary rock that moves in a wet year. The trees finish the job. The city's parkway ficus, carob and liquidambar are mature, the old downtown streets have pepper trees and sycamores older than the sewers, and avocado trees left from the groves are everywhere on the north side. Root intrusion at clay joints is the most common finding on a La Habra sewer camera inspection.

Sewers and permits

The City of La Habra operates the local sewer collection system, and the lateral from the house to the connection at the main is the property owner's responsibility, including the part under the parkway and sidewalk. Lateral repair or replacement needs a plumbing permit from the city, and anything in the sidewalk, parkway or street needs an encroachment permit and an inspection before the pit is closed. The contractor should pull both and say so in the quote.

Which trenchless method fits a La Habra lateral

• Sewer pipe lining fits the flats: clay with root-intruded joints and small offsets that still holds shape and slope, and channeled cast iron under a slab. A cured-in-place liner from the cleanout seals every joint and crack in one pass without breaking the floor.
• Pipe bursting fits the foothills: a sheared joint or deep belly in settled fill, a collapsed section, or a line that needs to be upsized. Two small pits and a new fused polyethylene pipe on the old alignment, and it is the only trenchless method that restores slope.
• Sectional point repair handles one crushed joint under a driveway or one root ball on an otherwise sound line.

Crews that handle TSR's Orange County service area, which covers La Habra work both halves of the city every week, and a good one will tell you from the footage which method fits before quoting one.

What the job looks like

A camera inspection maps the line and marks every defect on the ground with its depth. Hydro jetting clears roots, scale and grease so the pipe wall can be seen and, if the line is being lined, so the resin bonds to clean pipe. Lining runs from the cleanout at the house; bursting needs a small pit at each end of the run. Most residential jobs finish in a day, with water off for a few hours during a liner cure, and you should receive the before-and-after footage. how a trenchless repair is sequenced from inspection to cure is worth reading before the crew arrives.

To compare installers who have been checked for licensing and CIPP training, you can find a verified CIPP contractor through an independent directory.

Pipe Bursting in La Habra

How pipe bursting works

A steel cable is threaded through the old sewer line from a pit at one end to a pit at the other. A cone-shaped bursting head, with new high-density polyethylene pipe fused to it, is pulled through by a hydraulic unit. The head splits the old clay or cast iron outward into the soil and the new pipe follows in the same alignment at the same depth. The result is a single fused length of pipe with no joints for roots to find.

When bursting is the right call

• Collapsed sections — a liner needs a host pipe to hold its shape; a collapsed run has none.
• Bellies — a low spot that holds water stays a low spot after lining. Bursting lays new pipe on a fresh bed.
• Undersized lines — bursting can upsize a 3-inch lateral to 4 inches; lining slightly reduces diameter.
• Badly deformed pipe — Orangeburg that has flattened, or cast iron with most of its bottom gone.

What the job looks like

One pit at the house or cleanout, one at the property line or the street connection, each a few feet square. Utilities that cross within a foot or two of the sewer path are located and potholed first. The pull takes an hour or two; the whole job, including fusing, connections, inspection and backfill, is usually one day.

Permits and the street

If the downstream pit is in the sidewalk, parkway or street, a right-of-way permit and restoration to city standards are required in addition to the plumbing permit. If the connection at the main is replaced, the city inspects it before the pit closes. Confirm who is handling this before work starts.

ZIP codes served in La Habra

Pipe Bursting is available throughout La Habra, including ZIP codes 90631, 90632, 90633.

More trenchless services in La Habra

Questions we hear in La Habra