Sewer Line Repair Services

EZ Plumbing has been repairing sewer lines across Los Angeles since 1989 under California license C-36 #583868. We camera-inspect, then choose the right repair method for the specific failure — trenchless cured-in-place pipe lining when the existing line is structurally sound but compromised at joints; pipe bursting when the line needs full replacement but excavation isn’t practical; and traditional excavation when access is good or the failure is too extensive for trenchless. For an active backup or sewage entering your home, call (818) 908-2710 for immediate dispatch. For everything else, the rest of this page covers how we figure out what’s actually wrong, the four kinds of failures we see most often in LA’s older housing stock, who’s responsible for which section of the line (homeowner vs city), the trenchless-vs-excavation decision, and what it actually costs.

Warning Signs of a Sewer Line Problem

Sewer line failures show up in characteristic ways. Any one of these is worth a camera inspection; two or more is essentially diagnostic.

Multiple drains backing up at once — the toilet gurgles when the washing machine drains, the shower fills when an upstairs toilet flushes, the lowest fixture in the house (often a basement floor drain, a downstairs toilet, or a tub) is the first to overflow. When several fixtures share a symptom simultaneously, the problem isn’t local — it’s the main line that all of them drain into.

Recurring “drain cleaning” with no durable improvement — you had someone snake the line three months ago and you’re back to slow drains. Repeated clearings without a camera inspection are throwing money at a symptom while the underlying cause continues. A single thorough camera inspection costs less than two unnecessary repeat clears.

Sewage smells outside, especially after rain — a buried sewer line with a crack or offset releases sewage into the surrounding soil. After rain, the saturated soil pushes the smell to the surface. If you’re walking the property and you can smell sewage near the suspected sewer path (typically running from the house to the street, often along the side or back of the property to the main), that’s a line break, not a vent issue.

Unusually green or soggy patches of lawn — sewage is essentially fertilizer; a slow underground leak makes the grass directly above it grow noticeably greener and faster than the surrounding area. Soggy patches that don’t dry out between irrigation cycles, especially in a line aligned with where you know or suspect the sewer runs, are a clear signal.

Foundation cracks or shifts aligned with the sewer line — a long-running sewer leak undermines the soil under the foundation. If you have a foundation crack that runs in line with where the sewer exits the house, the two are likely related and the sewer needs to be fixed before the foundation is patched.

Sewer flies or unusually persistent indoor odors — small black flies (drain flies, sometimes called sewer gnats) breeding inside the home usually trace to a small sewer leak somewhere under or near the house. Persistent low-grade sewer smell indoors, with all the traps confirmed wet, points the same direction.

How We Diagnose: Camera Inspection First, Always

The single most important thing we do on a sewer call is the camera inspection. A high-resolution sewer camera on a flexible push-cable runs the entire line from the house out to the city main. We record video of the whole inspection and walk you through it on a screen — you see exactly what’s happening at every foot of the line.

The camera tells us five things that shape the repair: (1) what material the existing line is — cast iron, clay tile, Orangeburg (a tar-and-paper pipe used briefly in mid-century construction), ABS, or PVC. The material determines what repair methods are even feasible. (2) Where the failure is — distance from the cleanout, which lets us mark the location on the surface for any excavation. (3) What kind of failure — root intrusion at a joint, longitudinal crack along the pipe, offset where two sections have shifted, belly (sag) holding water, or full collapse. (4) The condition of the rest of the line — even where the line isn’t actively failing, the camera shows scale, partial root intrusion, hairline cracks. That tells us whether fixing a single section is wise or whether the rest of the line is close behind. (5) Whether trenchless methods are feasible — they require the existing line to be largely intact dimensionally, with enough wall integrity to host or burst through. A fully collapsed line can’t be lined; it has to be excavated and replaced.

We always quote the camera inspection separately from any repair, because the inspection determines what repair is appropriate. Committing to a repair before the inspection is committing to either the most expensive option (in case the worst case is true) or the wrong option (in case the assumption was off). Neither serves you.

Trenchless vs Traditional Excavation — When Each Is Right

Cured-in-place pipe (CIPP) lining

An epoxy-saturated felt liner is pulled through the existing pipe, inflated against the inside wall, and cured in place — usually with steam or UV light. The result is essentially a new pipe inside the old one. Manufacturer warranties on CIPP typically run 25-50 years; the higher figures rely on accelerated-aging tests rather than real-world service history, since residential CIPP has only been in wide use since roughly the 1980s. The advantage: no excavation of landscaping, hardscape, or driveways. The constraints: the existing pipe needs to be largely intact (CIPP can bridge cracks and seal offset joints, but it can’t span a full collapse), the diameter loss is modest (about 1/4 inch off the inside diameter, usually negligible on a 4-inch residential line), and access is required at both ends of the section being lined. For long, intact lines with multiple joint failures and root intrusion across a sequence of joints, CIPP is often the right answer.

Pipe bursting

A bursting head is pulled through the old line, fracturing it outward and simultaneously pulling new HDPE pipe behind it into the void. The result is a fully new pipe in the same path as the old. The advantage: works even when the old pipe is significantly degraded (broken, partially collapsed in places), avoids most surface excavation. The constraints: requires pits at each end of the burst section (typically 4×4 feet each), can’t be used everywhere — proximity to other utilities, foundations, or trees can make it impractical. Slightly more expensive than CIPP per foot but cheaper than traditional excavation for most long runs.

Traditional excavation and replacement

Dig a trench, remove the failed pipe, install new pipe in code-compliant bedding, backfill, restore the surface. The advantage: works for any failure (full collapse, severely shifted alignment, mismatched materials), allows full re-engineering of slope and routing if needed. The constraints: cost. Surface restoration — driveway pavement, decorative hardscape, mature landscaping — often costs more than the actual pipe work. For LA properties with extensive hardscape between the house and the street, the restoration alone can double the project cost. We always lay out the restoration line items separately so you can see exactly what’s pipe work and what’s surface repair.

How we choose: the camera inspection findings drive the recommendation. For a line with multiple joint failures and root intrusion in mostly intact pipe, CIPP. For a line with broken sections or partial collapse but otherwise an acceptable path, pipe bursting. For a fully collapsed line, a line that needs slope re-engineering, or where extensive surface work is needed anyway, excavation. Often the right answer is a hybrid — for example, excavating one short section and lining the rest. We quote each option side-by-side when more than one is feasible so the decision is yours, not ours.

The Specific LA Failures We See Most Often

Cast iron in pre-1960 homes

Same population of homes as the cast iron drain failures inside the house — Hancock Park, Larchmont, Hollywood Hills, Echo Park, Silver Lake, Mid-Wilshire, older West Hollywood, older Pasadena. The buried sewer lateral in these homes is typically cast iron from the house to a hub at the property line, then often clay tile from there to the city main. Both are well past design life. The cast iron tends to corrode from the inside at joints and at the upper end where there’s more oxygen exposure; the clay tile tends to fail at joints where roots find the slight moisture leak and pry the joints further apart over decades.

Root intrusion in established neighborhoods

Anywhere with mature trees within 30 feet of the sewer line. LA’s older neighborhoods are also its leafiest — Hancock Park’s ficus, Beverly Hills’s coral and magnolia, the jacarandas across Pasadena and West LA. The roots find any moisture leak in the line and grow into the pipe interior. We see this failure mode constantly. Cutting the roots back gives 6-12 months of relief; addressing the joint where the roots entered (line, replace, or repair that section) is the only durable fix.

Offset joints from soil movement

LA’s soil moves. Seismic events, expansive clay soil cycles between wet and dry seasons, hillside settlement, and the occasional plumbing or irrigation leak that softens nearby soil — all of these can shift one section of buried pipe relative to its neighbor. The result: an offset joint where the two pipe ends no longer align, water leaks out, soil washes into the line, and over time the offset gets worse. The camera shows offsets immediately — you can see the misalignment as the camera pushes through.

Bellies (sags) in the line

A belly is a section of pipe that has settled below the design slope, creating a low spot where waste collects rather than flowing through. The result is recurring backups even when the line is otherwise clear — solids accumulate in the belly between flushings. Bellies usually develop in lines installed over inadequately compacted backfill (the original installation was done correctly but the soil under it settled differently than expected) or above areas with prior irrigation leaks. The fix is to re-bed the affected section, which means excavating it; you can’t line your way out of a slope problem.

Homeowner vs City Responsibility

This trips up a lot of LA homeowners. In the City of Los Angeles, the homeowner is responsible for the sewer lateral from the house all the way to the connection at the city’s main sewer line. That includes the section under your front yard, the section under the sidewalk, and the section under the parkway (the strip between sidewalk and street). If the failure is in any of those sections, it’s your repair. Only failures in the city’s main line itself — the line running down the middle of the street — are the city’s responsibility.

Some smaller incorporated cities in LA County (Beverly Hills, Pasadena, etc.) have similar arrangements; the homeowner is responsible to the connection. Always camera-inspect to confirm where the failure is before assuming the city will fix it. The camera locates the failure to the foot, which removes any ambiguity about responsibility.

For repairs in the parkway or under the sidewalk, the City of LA requires a separate permit from Bureau of Engineering or the Bureau of Street Services in addition to the LADBS plumbing permit. We handle the permit pulls; it adds some time to the project but it’s not optional.

Cost Ranges for Sewer Line Repair in LA

Wider ranges than most other plumbing work because the variables are larger.

Camera inspection alone (no repair): typically in the low-to-mid hundreds depending on length and access. This is the single most useful diagnostic dollar you can spend before any major sewer work.

Trenchless CIPP lining or pipe bursting: typically $4,000-$12,000 depending on length, diameter, access pit requirements, and any spot work needed alongside the trenchless run. The trenchless premium is usually justified by the savings in surface restoration; for a property with a $6,000 driveway in the path, paying $2,000 more for trenchless is the right call.

Traditional excavation and replacement: typically $7,000-$25,000+ when hardscape removal and restoration are included. The variance is driven almost entirely by what’s on the surface — a grass-only run is straightforward; a driveway, decorative hardscape, and mature plantings push the high end substantially. We quote pipe work and surface restoration separately so you can see what you’re paying for.

We provide a written quote after the camera inspection. Phone quotes are ranges, not commitments — the actual price depends on what the camera finds and what the property allows.

Permits and Restoration — What Happens After the Pipe Work

Every sewer line repair beyond a minor spot repair requires an LADBS plumbing permit. Excavation in the public right-of-way (parkway, sidewalk) requires an additional Bureau of Engineering or Bureau of Street Services permit. We pull both. The inspection happens after the work is complete and before the trench is backfilled (so the inspector can verify the pipe installation), and again after final restoration. The permit-and-inspection record stays with the property and shows up at home sale — it’s the documentation that proves the work was done correctly.

For surface restoration, we coordinate with whatever vendor handles your hardscape — driveway concrete, decorative tile, brick, landscape contractor. We can arrange the restoration as part of the project or you can use your own preferred vendor; we’ll leave the trench backfilled to appropriate compaction in either case.

When You Probably Don’t Need Full Sewer Repair

A single slow drain at one fixture is almost never a sewer problem. A backup confined to one bathroom is usually a branch line clog, not the main. A sewage smell that goes away when you run water for a few minutes is a dry P-trap, not a sewer leak. Before we quote sewer work, we want to be sure the problem is actually the sewer line — the camera inspection is what makes us sure. If you’ve been told you need sewer line repair without a camera inspection first, get a second opinion before signing anything.

Where We Service for Sewer Line Repair

Dedicated sewer line repair pages: Los Angeles proper, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Studio City, Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena. Also Santa Monica, Culver City, Hollywood, Silver Lake, Echo Park, Highland Park, Eagle Rock, North Hollywood, Sherman Oaks, Encino, Tarzana, Woodland Hills, Canoga Park, Northridge, Chatsworth, Granada Hills, Reseda, West Hills, Van Nuys, Venice, Marina del Rey, Los Feliz.

Frequently Asked Questions

Call EZ Plumbing for Sewer Line Repair

Call (818) 908-2710 to schedule a camera inspection or schedule online. Licensed C-36 #583868, serving LA since 1989. We diagnose first, then quote — no major sewer work without showing you the camera footage of what’s actually wrong.

Sewer Line Repair Services in Los Angeles

EZ Plumbing provides Sewer Line Repair across the greater Los Angeles area for homes, apartment properties, HOAs, retail centers, and managed commercial buildings. View our Google Business Profile for reviews, business details, and directions.

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