Northern California sewage line replacement costs

[visitor]

Hi,

As my name implies, I am a first time visitor. My question concerns what to expect regarding costs for sewage line replacement in my area.

I live in a six unit townhouse building near San Francisco. Recently, we noticed water dripping from the pipes in our undergound garage. Our building is about 30 years old. One of the neighbors also experienced flooding of his bathroom. My neighbor called a plumber and after examining our system, they noted tree roots blocking the pipe leading from our complex to the main sewage line in the street. The pipe was looked at with a camera, cleaned out, and our lines are working fine now.

However, they also recommended replacing a 25 ft. (4 inch diameter) section of the pipe with PVC pipe to block out roots in the future and also because they noticed some "standing" water in the pipe. The quote given for a trench bursting (no dig) method of replacement was $6000.

A site I came across quoted a price of $40-80/ft. for this method of replacement. Even at $80/ ft., at 25 ft., this would come out to $2000. I understand that there might be variations but $6K is 3 times $2k.

So my question is, for our area and in this time, what is the reasonable range of costs for replacement?

Thanks for any responses.

 

[majakdragon]

Local wages prevail, and what you looked at may have been from a different area, or not included labor. California has some high labor rates. Sounds like the original line may have broken since they detected water standing in the pipe.

 

[Chris]

Is this sewer line outside the building or under the building that needs replacing? Alot of times the No dig stuff can be very much higher then digging a trench depending on location of the pipe.

 

[visitor]

The sewer line, as I understand, is outside the building but we have some landscaping/ sidewalk on the complex that might require replacement if digging was done. I don't have an estimate on how much replacement landscaping would cost but I've heard that if the digging method was used, it might results in having the landscaping re-done depending on the property.

Thanks for responding, majakdragon and Chris.

 

[Psycho99]

Get more than one estimate

 

[Chris]

I would get a few quotes because in my area I could do that job for much less. Also get at least one quote for trenching with replacement of plants and concrete, that stuff does not cost that much.