Water Line Replacement 101

In the past few months, have you noticed unusually high water bills or soggy, wet spots in your yard? If so, that's a sign your main underground water supply pipe might be leaking. Believe us, you'll want to get on top of that before you're dealing with flooded basements, ruined yards or an astronomical water bill.

It’s possible the pipe can be repaired; however, due to circumstances such as cost, age, and various pipe materials, full replacement is often the safest long term solution. There are a number of ways to replace the water line, but our way is the best as it's efficient and barely impacts your existing landscaping. 

Here’s our two-step process.

Step 1: Exposing the Water Main

We use vacuum excavation for this, where high-pressure water pulverizes soil into a muddy slurry that is vacuumed up into a holding tank. You can see a photo of us doing this above. This soil is then hauled off site and disposed of in an environmentally conscious manner.

After the soil's been removed, we use the same method to expose any utility conflict, which is when the trajectory of the water line runs perpendicular to, or comes within 24 inches of, buried utilities. Check out the photo below for an example of what this can look like:

Step 2: Horizontal Directional Drilling

With these areas exposed, we move on to horizontal directional drilling, also called HDD, or “The Drill”. This machine pushes steel rods with hydraulic power horizontally into the earth. Check out Virginia, a directional drilling expert, working on this machine below:

The tip of the drill emits a signal that is tracked topside for precisely targeting the entry point in the arm. The benefits of horizontal directional drilling are speed, efficiency, and very little impact to existing landscaping in comparison to traditional trench excavations. Once the drill enters the home, we attach a brand new piece of cross-linked, class A polyethylene pipe, and pull it back to the meter.

Then we make connections to the existing pipe inside the home, at the meter, and at the irrigation system. You can see Jack working on this below:

After flushing and testing the system, we backfill the holes we excavated with gravel. 

We use gravel instead of original soils so that the new pipe fittings and/or exposed utilities are encapsulated, preventing future problems associated with the undue strain of settling. This is an important step, often overlooked by others.

You can see Ti working on this in the photo below:

Finally, we replace the sod and the job site is restored to practically its original condition. In fact, customers often tell us things look better than before we started! Now the customer has a brand new water supply pipe that should last 100 years or more.

If you suspect your main water line is compromised, let us help you make an informed decision. Please feel free to reach out through our contact form, call us at 503-719-4015, or text us at 971-247-1561.