What You Need to Know About Plumbing Excavation in Toronto

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Plumbing repairs are hard enough, and the last thing anyone wants is to have their front yard dug up to access a bit of pipe. But that’s the reality when it comes to resolving some severe plumbing problems for your home in Toronto. While plumbing excavation is not the first choice for our experienced team of professional plumbers in Toronto, it can be necessary to access collapsed pipes that are buried deep underground.

Plumbing excavation in Toronto, although considered a last resort, is sometimes inevitable for accessing and repairing severely damaged or collapsed pipes located deep beneath the ground. However, sometimes other, less disruptive, methods of sewer line repair or pipe replacement can’t be utilized due to the specific circumstances of the damage or the composition of your plumbing lines. In these cases, plumbing excavation is a Toronto homeowner’s only option to effectively resolve the issue and restore proper functionality to their plumbing system.

While the idea of digging up your property is scary, plumbing excavation provides an effective solution to ensure your plumbing problem is properly taken care of.

What is Plumbing Excavation?

Plumbing excavation is when plumbers dig a trench in the ground to access underground pipes and sewer lines. This traditional plumbing repair method is necessary when a problem cannot be fixed without accessing the underground plumbing system. Typically, plumbing excavation will see licensed plumbers have to dig up your basement, yard, or driveway in order to access your water pipes, sewer line, or other underground plumbing components to fix drainage issues or do pipe repairs or replacements.

Plumbing excavation allows for a thorough inspection of your entire plumbing system, ensuring that any underlying issues or potential future problems can be identified and addressed with a reliable solution to prevent further property damage.

As you can imagine, the entire plumbing excavation process is time-consuming, messy and can disrupt your home, landscape, and daily routine. As such, it is often used as a last resort when it comes to plumbing repairs.

What about trenchless plumbing repairs?

The beauty of trenchless sewer or water pipe methods is that they can efficiently repair or replace your existing pipes without the need for digging a trench. With techniques like pipe bursting or pipe lining, or even innovative technology such as HydroScrub^® Jetting, experienced plumbers can easily restore the functionality of your plumbing system while minimizing disruption to your property. By utilizing these advanced methods, homeowners can save time and money, and avoid the extensive excavation typically associated with the more traditional method that is plumbing excavation.

However, trenchless repairs can only be done under the right circumstances. If any of these scenarios occur, your repair will need to be done using plumbing excavation methods:

The sewer, water, or drain line has severe damage, such as collapsed pipes or extensive root intrusion, which will require a plumbing excavation service to fix.
The configuration of the area where your damaged pipe is located contains multiple bends and junctions, making trenchless repairs impossible.
Soil conditions mean options like pipe bursting are a no-go, requiring you to physically dig up the pipes.
The pipes in question are made from materials such as clay, concrete, or cast iron, which can’t be effectively repaired using trenchless techniques, and will require plumbing excavation.
Toronto building codes and regulations for your area may require plumbing excavation for certain types of plumbing jobs.

Other cases that require plumbing excavation in Toronto include installing plumbing for new builds, or for when you need to relocate pipes. In these cases, new lines need to be installed, and plumbing excavation is necessary to ensure the proper placement and connections.

The Plumbing Excavation Process

Because it is so time-consuming and disruptive, we tend to use traditional pipe replacement and plumbing excavation as a last resort when it comes to fixing plumbing issues. But when it is necessary to dig up your property to fix issues with your plumbing, excavation by Toronto plumbers will be done with care, aiming to minimize any disruptions to your home and daily routine.

The plumbing excavation process will look something like this:

After determining the need for a conventional repair method, our plumbers will use a mix of methods and advanced technology such as consulting blueprints, video inspections, and ground-penetrating radar to determine the exact location of the damaged pipe.
The area requiring plumbing excavation will be marked out, along with the location of other underground utility lines, and our excavation plumbers will ascertain it’s safe to dig there.
Using heavy machinery such as a backhoe or excavator, we’ll dig up the location.
Once the damaged pipe is exposed, we’ll start work on any repairs and/or replacements that require the need for plumbing excavation.
With the repairs completed, we’ll fill in the hole, compacting it to prevent any future ground sinking or movement. Then we’ll replace surface materials, such as sod or pavement, as needed.

Typically, a service for plumbing excavation in Toronto can take anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks, depending on the complexity of the job and the condition of the pipes. Factors such as the depth of the excavation, accessibility to the site, and the need for permits can all contribute to the timeline for the project.

Want to Prevent the Need for Plumbing Excavation? Mr. Rooter Plumbing is the Plumbing Company You Can Trust

Ultimately, the best thing you can do to prevent the need for any plumbing repair is to not flush anything that should not go down your drains. Plus, invest in regular maintenance, such as drain cleaning. Items such as kitchen grease, food waste, paper towels, feminine hygiene products, Q-tips, and other non-flushable items should not be washed down your kitchen sink or flushed down your toilet. When you seek the best preventative maintenance, diagnostic service, and the most efficient repairs, look no further than the professionals at Mr. Rooter Plumbing of Toronto.

However, because plumbing excavation projects focus on pipes underground, it can be hard to prevent issues caused by aggressive tree roots or ground shifting. Keep in mind that even with regular maintenance and care, unexpected plumbing problems can still occur. In such cases, it's important to promptly address any issues and contact your local team of expert Toronto plumbers to prevent further damage.