Bite M.
08/01/2020 12:00:00 SA
TL;DR
Extremely responsive company with competitive pricing. They did a major sewer replacement for me and I'd call them again for anything I can't handle myself. They also wore masks when appropriate during this age of Covid-19.
Crawled under the house during Memorial Day weekend and noticed the dirt was damp along the main sewer line. It's 70 year old cast iron and I knew it was just a matter of time before we had a real problem, so we decided to bite the bullet and take care of it. We landscaped our yard a few years ago with paver walkways, and back then I said we should take care of the sewer first, but we didn't, and of course the sewer pipe to be replaced is under the paver walkway from the sidewalk up to the front door. Why wouldn't it be?
I found Above and Beyond kind of by accident, turns out the referral I received from a neighbor was for a different Above and Beyond plumbing in the area but the number was disconnected, so I found the similar name on Yelp and went with them. Joe came out and did a camera inspection and pretty much confirmed that the pipe was in horrible shape and had standing water in places. He recommended a trenchless sewer line replacement technique called 'pipe bursting', gave me a quote, and said to let them know when we were ready. After researching it a bit (it's a really cool technique), we decided to go with it. Anyway, long story short, it was a 2-day job: 1 day to dig the required holes and expose what needs to be exposed, then 1 day for the pipe burst and hooking everything back up. He said to expect to be without sewer and water for about 6 hours. I'm a firm believer in that every major job will have at least 1 issue to work through, so I wasn't surprised when the pipe bursting machine stopped and I started to hear yelling under the house. Then I watched them pace around for a while and sigh a lot, but I knew better than to go out and ask what the deal was, and after jackhammering the hidden concrete blocking the cutting head the burst job completed with no further issues. After completing the burst, hooking the sewer back up, and reconnecting the hidden water main right above the sewer pipe that they had to cut, we were back in business. They stayed really late to make sure my family and I had water and sewer overnight, and we really appreciated that!
Trenchless pipe bursting more or less leaves your yard intact. They removed pavers to dig a 4x4 ft hole in our yard for the pulling end, and the burst started under the house, so theoretically all we would need to do afterwards is fill in the hole and restore the pavers, which is pretty much what we did. If you look really closely you can see the pavers shifted ever so slightly along the path of the pipe burst, but you only notice it if you know it's there. Kind of like tiling looking horrible until you add grout, a little more joint sand hides it well enough. You would be able to burst under concrete with no issue, but you'd have a much more noticeable restore job after filling in the hole.
Expect for the job to take longer than they think, too. It always does. Also try to not be home during all of this if you can, which is difficult in this age of Covid. The sound of the pipe burst while it was under the house was interesting, kind of like little earthquakes with the sound of clay pots/vases breaking into pieces and falling on the floor.