Sewer pipe lining guide
Pipe Lining vs. Pipe Bursting: Which Trenchless Repair Your Sewer Needs
Both repair a sewer without a trench. Lining keeps the old pipe and builds a new one inside it; bursting breaks the old pipe apart and pulls a new one through the space. They overlap on many lines and divide sharply on a few, and the camera footage is what sorts them.
What each one does
Sewer pipe lining, cured-in-place pipe, leaves the old sewer in the ground and builds a new one inside it. A resin-saturated felt or fiberglass tube is inverted or pulled into the pipe from a cleanout or manhole, inflated against the wall and cured into a rigid, jointless pipe that carries the load on its own. Nothing is dug.
Pipe bursting replaces the old sewer with a new one along the same route. A pit is opened at each end of the run. A winch or a pneumatic hammer pulls a hardened steel bursting head through the old pipe, splitting it and pushing the fragments outward into the surrounding soil, while a string of high-density polyethylene pipe, fused into one continuous length, is drawn in behind the head. The old pipe is destroyed; the new pipe is a pipe in its own right, in the hole the old one occupied, and it can be larger than the pipe it replaced.
Both are trenchless. Both leave driveways, slabs, streets and landscaping alone for most of the run. Both finish in a day or two on a house lateral. The differences are in what each can fix and what each requires.
Side by side
| Pipe lining (CIPP) | Pipe bursting | |
|---|---|---|
| What happens to the old pipe | Stays in place as a form; new pipe cures inside it | Fractured and displaced into the soil; new pipe pulled through |
| Digging | None if a cleanout or manhole exists; one small pit otherwise | A pit at each end, plus a pit at any connection or sharp bend |
| Host pipe must | Hold its shape; let a tube pass | Be breakable: clay, cast iron, concrete, Orangeburg, plastic; not ductile iron, steel or pipe encased in concrete |
| Collapsed or crushed pipe | Cannot pass it | Breaks through it |
| Bellies and lost slope | Copies them | Follows the old route; can regrade a short section at a pit |
| Offsets | Bridges small ones; narrows at large ones | Passes through them; the new pipe is straight |
| Upsizing | No; slightly smaller than the host | Yes, one or two sizes |
| Bends and diameter changes | Felt liners take sweeps and transitions | Needs a pit at a sharp bend; fused HDPE bends gently |
| Branch connections | Reinstated from inside with a robotic cutter | Excavated and reconnected at each branch |
| Nearby utilities | Unaffected | Ground displacement can disturb a gas or water line within a few feet; a utility locate is required |
| Finished pipe | Jointless cured resin, 50-year design basis per ASTM F1216 | Jointless fused HDPE, rated for a century |
| Time on a lateral | Usually one day | One to two days |
| Cost on a lateral | Usually the lower of the two | More than lining; far less than a trench on a deep or paved line |
When lining is the answer
Most failing laterals. Root-filled clay joints, scaled or pitted cast iron, cracked concrete and Orangeburg that is still round, any pipe that holds its shape and simply leaks, are lining jobs, and lining does them with no pits, no fused pipe string and the least disturbance of anything on this site. A line under a slab with several branch drains is a lining job almost by definition, because every branch would otherwise need its own pit. A line in a street where the city will not allow a pit, or one that runs beside a gas main, is a lining job. The sewer pipe lining pros and cons page has the full case.
When bursting is the answer
Anything a liner cannot pass or cannot fix. A collapsed or crushed section anywhere in the run. Orangeburg that has gone oval, which is most Orangeburg by now; the bursting head breaks the soft fiber apart and the camera-and-snake cycle that has been chewing it ends. A pipe with offsets too large for a liner to bridge. A lateral or a main that needs to be a size larger. A line whose owner wants a new polyethylene pipe rather than a cured liner for its own reasons, a utility standard, for instance. The pipe bursting page covers the method and its limits, which include pipe that cannot be fractured, ductile iron, steel and anything encased in concrete, and runs where a pit cannot be opened at each end.
When a line gets both
Real sewers are rarely one thing. A clay lateral that is cracked and rooted along its length and crushed in one spot under the driveway is burst through the crushed section, or given a sectional point repair there, and lined through everything else. A condominium with four collector lines gets a burst on the one that collapsed and liners on the three that leak. A municipal program bursts the mains that need upsizing and lines the rest of the basin. The Burbank condominium job on the sewer pipe lining cost page, 140 feet burst and 86 feet lined under landscaping the board would not let anyone dig, is the ordinary shape of a mixed-method job. An installer who can do both looks at the footage and proposes the combination; an installer who does only one proposes that one.
What neither one fixes
A long belly in the middle of a run, where the pipe has settled below grade for twenty or thirty feet, holds water after either repair, because both follow the old route. That section gets an open-cut relay at the correct slope, with a liner or a burst on the rest. A pipe that has to move, because an addition now sits over it, gets a trench. The sewer line replacement page covers when a dig is the honest recommendation.
Getting the right recommendation
Ask for the camera footage and have the contractor point to the defect that drove the recommendation. A liner proposed over a belly, or a burst proposed for a pipe with nothing worse than roots at the joints, is a sign the contractor is selling the method he owns rather than the one the pipe needs. The verified installers reached from the pipe relining near me page are vetted for lining equipment and completed work, and most also burst. The host pipe material, which is often what decides between the two, is covered on the clay sewer pipe lining guide.
Estimates are free. Call now. (855) 804-1434
Lining vs. bursting questions
What is the difference between pipe lining and pipe bursting?
Pipe lining installs a resin-saturated tube inside the existing sewer and cures it into a new pipe, with the old pipe left in place as a form. Pipe bursting pulls a cone-shaped bursting head through the old pipe, fracturing it outward into the soil, while a new fused polyethylene pipe is drawn in behind the head along the same route. Lining needs only an existing opening; bursting needs a small pit at each end.
Which is cheaper, pipe lining or pipe bursting?
On a typical house lateral, lining is usually somewhat cheaper, because it needs no pits, no fused pipe string and less restoration. Bursting costs more than lining and far less than an open trench on a deep or paved line. On a pipe that lining cannot fix, a collapse, a long deformed stretch of Orangeburg or a line that needs upsizing, bursting is the cheaper option by default, because the alternative is excavation.
Can pipe bursting fix a belly?
Sometimes. The new pipe follows the path of the old one, so bursting alone does not change grade. But a bursting job with the receiving pit set at a corrected depth can pull the new pipe on a slightly different slope over a short section, and where the belly is near an end, the pit can be used to regrade it. A long belly in the middle of a run still needs an open-cut relay of that section.
Can a collapsed sewer pipe be lined?
Not through the collapse. A liner has to pass the full run, and a collapsed or crushed section stops it. The usual fix is to burst through the collapse, since the bursting head breaks and displaces the broken pipe, or to make a point repair or short dig at the collapse and then line the rest.
Can you increase the pipe size with lining?
No; a liner is slightly smaller than the host. Bursting can upsize by one or sometimes two pipe sizes, pulling a six-inch polyethylene pipe through a four-inch clay line, for example, because the bursting head pushes the fractured pipe and surrounding soil outward as it goes. Upsizing a main or a shared lateral that has become too small for the load above it is a bursting job.
Can one sewer line get both lining and bursting?
Yes, and it is common. A line with one crushed section and sound pipe on both sides is burst through the crushed part and lined through the rest, or the collapse gets a sectional point repair and the full run gets a liner. A multi-line property, such as a condominium with several collectors, often gets a burst on the worst line and liners on the others, in the same mobilization.