Pipe Bursting in Laguna Hills

Early tracts, the Ranch and the hills

Laguna Hills was ranch land until the mid-1960s, when the first tracts went in along Paseo de Valencia, Moulton Parkway and the streets around the Laguna Hills Mall. Those neighborhoods, built through the early 1970s, are slab-on-grade with cast iron under the house and clay or early ABS to the street, and they are the oldest housing in the city. Nellie Gail Ranch, built from the mid-1970s through the 1980s, is large equestrian lots with long laterals, mostly ABS, under a strict homeowners association. The hillside neighborhoods toward Aliso Viejo and Laguna Niguel, from the 1980s through the 1990s, are ABS and then PVC under slab on graded pads, also under HOAs. The city incorporated in 1991 after nearly all of it was built.

The failures follow the pipe. Cast iron under the early slabs channels out along the bottom over fifty years, so the camera sees a clean crown over a pipe that is nearly gone underneath. The little clay that exists opens at the joints and takes roots. ABS cracks at glued fittings, gets crushed under a widened driveway or a barn pad, and bellies where fill settled; PVC on a steep lot can pull apart at a joint where the slope creeps.

Fill, expansive clay and long runs

Laguna Hills is rolling ground that was mass-graded tract by tract, so most streets sit partly on cut and partly on fill, and the fill 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. The native soil is expansive clay and siltstone that swells in the winter rains and shrinks all summer, working every joint and fitting. Nellie Gail adds the problems of a horse property: laterals that run a hundred feet or more through yards full of mature eucalyptus, pine and pepper trees, with roots at every joint and sometimes a section crushed under a later driveway or arena.

Sewers and permits

Laguna Hills does not run its own sewers. El Toro Water District operates the collection system in the central and northern parts of the city, and Moulton Niguel Water District serves the southern neighborhoods and Nellie Gail Ranch. In both cases 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 Laguna Hills, anything in the sidewalk, parkway or street needs an encroachment permit and an inspection before the pit is closed, and in most neighborhoods 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 a Laguna Hills lateral

• Sewer pipe lining fits channeled cast iron under an early slab, clay with root-intruded joints that still holds shape, and plastic with cracked fittings or a shallow belly that still drains. A cured-in-place liner from the cleanout seals every joint and crack in one pass, on even a long Nellie Gail run, without opening the floor, the driveway or the slope.
• Pipe bursting fits a sheared joint or 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 restores slope.
• Sectional point repair handles one crushed section under a driveway or arena, or one failed fitting on an otherwise sound line.

Crews that handle TSR Trenchless, serving Laguna Hills and all of Orange County read early cast iron and hillside plastic in the same 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 or equestrian lot also tells the crew where the fill line is and how far from the house the problem sits. 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. A plain-language walkthrough of the liner itself is available at what CIPP lining involves.

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 Laguna Hills

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 Laguna Hills

Pipe Bursting is available throughout Laguna Hills, including ZIP codes 92653, 92654.

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Questions we hear in Laguna Hills