Should You Go With Pipelining in Ottawa, Ontario?
Before choosing to line the pipes of your home, you’ll have to weigh the pros, the cons and take a look at what suits your home best. There are a number of important things you’ll need to know before you make your decision. Here you’ll find all the most critical information to guide you in your options.
What is Pipelining?
Unfortunate events happen to the pipes in Ottawa homes on a regular basis - at Mr. Rooter Plumbing Ottawa we see this all the time. Various causes can result in damage to your pipes, be it external (like our constantly changing Canadian weather) or internal (the play dough that your kids are flushing down the toilet without your knowledge). Regardless of the culprit, once your pipes aren’t working the way they should be they can result in serious damage to your home. You could experience very dangerous clogs resulting in flooding, sewage backing up into your home, and incur some serious expenses.
What’s great about pipelining is that it provides a bit of a workaround for such issues. Excavation costs usually deplete or far exceed the “rainy day budget” of many homeowners in Ottawa and that’s why they turn to pipelining. In this process, the damaged or clog filled pipes remain where they are, no digging necessary. What happens is simple. A felt material is placed along the lines of the old, damaged pipe. Before it’s placed down into your pipes it’s first drenched in hardeners and resins that will toughen once the felt is attached to your pipes. It’s then reeled out into your troublesome pipe using compressed air to ensure it’s pushed against the walls of the original pipe. The new lining is left to harden and becomes an impenetrable brand new pipe within a pipe. This is the proven method that Mr. Rooter Plumbing Ottawa licensed professionals use and it’s the one that we recommend for residential and commercial properties.
Signs You Might Need to Line your Pipes
No pipe is eternal and indestructible. From the moment a pipe is put into use, its lifespan consistently decreases. It’s possible that if you live in a relatively newer home (10 years old or less) and take excellent care of your plumbing, your pipes have got a long way to go before experiencing enough damage to consider pipelining. However, if your home or property has been around a little longer, or you’re unsure of how concerned the previous owner was with the plumbing, then pipe deterioration is something that you’ll have to be wary of. So what are the things that you need to look out for in order to determine whether serious damage has taken place in the pipes of your home? Here are some of the top ones:
Bad odours. Are there unusual, lingering, bad odours in the rooms of your home that contain plumbing? This could be a sign of damage and the fumes that you’re smelling could actually be coming from public sewage! This can be a danger to the health of you and your family and means you’ll want to bring in some professional help.
Water is backing up into your home. This is unpleasant if it’s our own wastewater that’s coming back up but even more horrifying when the backup contains public sewage. This is a sure sign that something is wrong with your plumbing.
You spot watermarks or mold. Take a look at your ceilings, are there any yellow patches? A dripping leak could even cause those wet patches to mold - a point you never want it to get to. These wet patches indicate that there is a leak somewhere in your plumbing along that area.
Uneven lawn in one spot only. Believe it or not, your lawn actually likes what you’re flushing down the toilet. It’s kind of like a fertilizer that helps it grow. So if wastewater is seeping into your lawn on its way out of your home, it may be leaving a trail of particularly green and healthy looking grass behind it. Keep in mind that if water is leaking in large amounts or you tend to send plenty of chemicals down your drains, it could also sog the grass leaving it yellow or discoloured. Either way, keep an eye out for these noticeable patches.
Cracks in the foundation of your home. This is particularly important if this is a crack that wasn’t there before. A crack in the foundation could be due to poor workmanship while building your home or it could have arisen at a later point due to water leakage. The latter is usually a more serious situation because you’ll have to not only repair your foundation (to keep floods at bay) but it also indicates that a leak must have been occurring for quite some time already to have been able to crack it. Who knows what other damage it could have created along its way.
If you are able to identify any of these serious signs of damage in your home, it’s quite likely that you’re experiencing a plumbing problem. The most prudent thing to do in this situation is to reach out to a licensed, professional plumber. He or she will be able to tell you if the damage you’re experiencing in your plumbing can be salvaged with pipeliners.
What Causes Damage to Pipes
Although there are plenty of ways that we can mistreat the plumbing in our homes, like flushing food down the toilet or letting hair flow down the drain, there are some external events that can cause damage to your pipes resulting in a need for replacement or for pipelining.
Tree roots. Did you know that this is one of the top enemies of your pipes? Roots are incredibly strong. Have you ever seen part of a sidewalk raised or bent out of shape that happens to be next to a tree? Roots can also penetrate your pipes or bend them out of shape. If roots have created holes in your plumbing, pipe liners are a great solution to seal them.
Simple deterioration. Just like how your car depreciates over time, your plumbing ages and corrodes throughout the years of use. Sometimes there isn’t much we can do. Water, especially hard water (if you don’t have a softener) carries minerals that progressively corrode your pipes. This will first result in rusty patches but once those flake off, then flake off a little more, you’re left with a perforation in your plumbing.
Poor workmanship. It’s possible that when your home was being built, the pipes were never properly aligned at the connectors in the first place. Because of this, your home has been experiencing this crack for quite some time and may have even done some additional damage while leaking.
How long does pipelining last?
Pipelining, although cost saving compared to excavation is still an investment for the health & longevity for your home. The main reason for this is that it really is a long-term fix. Pipelining is not something that you install in your home to delay a leaky pipe for a year or two. Pipelining lasts for decades. If installed properly, pipelining can even last an easy 50 years! So choosing to use this technique is just as big a decision as excavating and entirely replacing your pipes, except one of them costs significantly less.
The quality of materials used will certainly play its role in the longevity of your new pipelines. Due to the importance of this type of investment and the impact that it will have on your home for decades to come, it is important that you hire a trained and certified professional to perform this work for you. Ask about the quality of materials that they use, it’s worth ensuring that what’s being used on your home is a higher end product.
Lastly, your day to day behaviour will also affect the longevity of your new pipe liners. Food, grease, hair and wet wipes are all items that should never be flushed down the toilet or poured into your drains. These sort of things will accumulate in your pipes leaving you with a disastrous clog, so ensure that you’re playing your part in maintaining the health of the installed pipeliners. A Mr. Rooter Plumbing Ottawa licensed plumbing professional will be more than happy to stay back after the project and explain to you exactly what you can expect and will also provide all the necessary maintenance tips for you to take the best possible care of your newly installed pipe liners
Weighing the Pros and Cons
Pipe lining’s huge advantage that cannot be ignored is its cost-effectiveness. This is largely due to the fact that a team of professionals does not have to bring in their excavation machines and spend days (or weeks!) taking apart your lawn to replace the pipes of your home. Pipelining can be done in a smaller team, with minimal machinery and takes much less time to execute. Although neither of these options comes cheap, your bank account will prefer the pipelining method over pipe replacement.
Next, you’ll experience minimal disruption. Can you imagine the mess that an excavation crew could leave in front of your home during a digging project? Aside from the costs, you might even be left with the cleanup and you’ll have to fix your grass or landscaping.
Keep in mind that decreasing the size of a pipe is generally seen as something that would render it less effective. Smaller pipes can experience clogs more quickly because less is able to pass through them, and by applying a lining to your pipes, you will be decreasing their circumference. It’s important to remember that the lining is strong, brand new, and can put off excavation for decades. Yes, decades (depending on the quality of materials used). In order to remedy the disadvantage of slightly shrunken pipes, your role will increase in importance. Proper maintenance will be imperative to extend the longevity of pipelining. You’ll have to be careful of what you’re putting down your pipes but ideally, you should already be mindful of what you’re flushing down the toilet or pouring down your sink anyway. A licensed Mr. Rooter Ottawa professional will be able to walk you through the details of maintenance after a project in your home.
Things to Remember
Although the above information should clear up some of your burning questions about pipelining, it is not by any means a professional course on plumbing. If you’re really experiencing any of the issues mentioned above, it’s time to call a certified plumber. Unfortunately, when issues like this are put off, the damage can extend into other parts of our homes so it’s critical to catch these problems as soon as possible.
At Mr. Rooter Ottawa, we’ve been around for decades and truly have seen it all. Pipelining is part of our repertoire, as are all things plumbing. We are more than happy to visit you in your time of need to resolve the situation. Our trained and licensed professionals have all the necessary skills to handle your plumbing problems and will solve the issue at the root cause. They’ll even stick around to provide you with the knowledge that you need in order to feel comfortable moving forward. And because our parts and workmanship are 100% guaranteed, it’s our promise to you that from here on out, you have nothing to worry about.