Pipe Bursting in Aliso Viejo

A city built in one generation

Aliso Viejo was open ranch land until the early 1980s, was built out as a single planned community over the next twenty years, and incorporated in 2001 after nearly all of it was finished. Every neighborhood, from the first tracts along Aliso Creek Road to the ridges above Pacific Park Drive and the newest streets near the town center, was built slab-on-grade with ABS and then PVC laterals, on graded pads, under homeowners associations. There is no clay, almost no cast iron, and nothing older than about forty years.

That means the usual sewer story about roots and rust mostly does not apply here. What the camera finds instead is plastic failing the way plastic fails: a crack at a glued fitting or at the connection under the slab, a belly where the fill beneath the pipe settled after the house was built, a section crushed under a driveway that was widened or a patio that was poured, and the occasional builder's flat spot that has collected grease and scale for thirty years.

Cut, fill and expansive clay

Aliso Viejo is hills, and every tract was mass-graded, so each street sits partly on cut and partly on fill. The fill was compacted when it went in, but it keeps settling for decades and creeps on the steeper slopes. A lateral that leaves the compacted house pad and crosses onto fill is the classic place for a dip and a cracked joint, and the camera finds exactly that on lot after lot. The native soil is expansive clay and siltstone that swells in the winter rains and shrinks all summer, which works every fitting in a plastic line. The landscape trees planted with the tracts, eucalyptus, pine, pepper and liquidambar, are now mature and will find a cracked fitting if one is open.

Sewers and permits

Aliso Viejo does not run its own sewers. The Moulton Niguel Water District operates the collection system across the city, and the lateral from the house to the connection at the district 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 of Aliso Viejo, anything in the sidewalk, parkway or street needs an encroachment permit and an inspection before the pit is closed, and in nearly every neighborhood the HOA must approve any work that touches the surface it controls. The contractor should handle all of it and say so in the quote.

Which trenchless method fits an Aliso Viejo lateral

• Sewer pipe lining fits a plastic line with cracked fittings or a shallow belly that still holds its shape and slope. A cured-in-place liner from the cleanout seals every crack and joint in one pass without opening the floor, the driveway or the slope.
• Pipe bursting fits a sheared joint or a deep belly in settled fill, a crushed 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 also corrects slope.
• Sectional point repair handles one crushed section under a driveway or one failed fitting on an otherwise sound line.

Crews that handle trenchless sewer repair in Aliso Viejo read hillside plastic every week, and a good one will tell you from the footage whether the problem is the pipe or the ground under it before quoting a method.

What the job looks like

A camera inspection maps the line and marks every defect on the ground with its depth, which on a graded lot also tells the crew where the fill line is. Hydro jetting clears 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. For what the technician is looking for on the monitor, see a sewer camera inspection explained.

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 Aliso Viejo

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 Aliso Viejo

Pipe Bursting is available throughout Aliso Viejo, including ZIP codes 92656, 92698.

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Questions we hear in Aliso Viejo