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Damage caused by utility company excavation

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James77

Junior Member
State of RI

Briefly:
There was a gas leak detected on my property. The gas company that day and overnight dug at the street, the excavation was shaking my entire house to the point where dishes were loudly rattling. About 2 days later, the water backed up in cellar doing a large load of laundry. Plumbers came out and snaked it for 3 hours, they were hitting a solid blockage of clay and sand. Different plumber excavated today and pulled out a house trap he said was broken prior to excavation, it was packed with sand and clay.

These are old pipes and infrastructure under city streets, dating to early 1900's. There are sewer tunnels 20 feet down made of brick and these sewer pipes are made of cast iron on my end and clay in some parts. The excavation was about 25 feet from house, and the area is sandy. The water/gas/sewer lines are are intersecting at various levels. We have owned this property for 25 years, and we have never had a sewer issue of any sort. Both plumbers are saying they believe it a result of the vibration of the excavation.

I have already filed a claim directly with the utility company and my homeowners insurance. I had initially believed it may just have been a crappy(Ha!) coincidence, but I now 100% believe it the result of the excavation they did. At this point the utility company is investigating and waiting on my home insurance to dictate whether they deal with me directly or not.

How do I go about "proving" this was their fault? I have two plumbers saying they think so, I think so, the trap they pulled is packed solid with dirt and was broken....all when we had no issue until 48-72 hours after they dug. We had showered and flushed toilets in that time, but it is a 35 foot run to the blockage and it drains slowly, so it was not detected until we did a large load of laundry.

Thanks :)
 


justalayman

Senior Member
It appears to likely be the cause but that isn’t likely relevant unless they actually hit the sewer line.

They are not responsible for an already compromised sewer from collapsing but an intact sewer will not pack full of sand, but especially not clay in a few days time. That is a long term process. The vibration likely exacerbated
an already damaged and mostly plugged sewer line. All they did is speed up the clock, but it doesn’t sound like it was by much.


What about this?

Different plumber excavated today and pulled out a house trap he said was broken prior to excavation, it was packed with sand and clay.
. Broken prior to excavation.
 

James77

Junior Member
It appears to likely be the cause but that isn’t likely relevant unless they actually hit the sewer line.

They are not responsible for an already compromised sewer from collapsing but an intact sewer will not pack full of sand, but especially not clay in a few days time. That is a long term process. The vibration likely exacerbated
an already damaged and mostly plugged sewer line. All they did is speed up the clock, but it doesn’t sound like it was by much.


What about this?

. Broken prior to excavation.

That is where I am at, determining if this was directly there fault or just the "icing on the cake" if you will that finished off the line.

When I say "packed with sand", I mean it is not loose sand stuck in the pipe from pulling it out of the pit. My issue is that there were no signs whatsoever of this being an already compromised line. It is a 2 family home. Full loads of laundry, full baths used frequently....never a hint of an issue at all until 2 days after they dug.

Edit:
They did not directly hit the sewer line. They were several feet from it.
 
Last edited:

James77

Junior Member
I was wondering the same thing until I realized the OP meant it was broken prior to the plumber's excavation...
Yes.

I had asked the plumber to take a picture of this pipe "as is" down in the pit. He said it can be difficult to save them with excavating. The dirt in the pipe was not from the loose dirt today.
 

justalayman

Senior Member
That is where I am at, determining if this was directly there fault or just the "icing on the cake" if you will that finished off the line.

When I say "packed with sand", I mean it is not loose sand stuck in the pipe from pulling it out of the pit. My issue is that there were no signs whatsoever of this being an already compromised line. It is a 2 family home. Full loads of laundry, full baths used frequently....never a hint of an issue at all until 2 days after they dug.
The clay didn’t happen in 2 days. It takes a long time for clay to migrate. Think lots of water and years. Packed sand doesn’t become packed sand in 2 days. I suspect you were living on borowed time for a long time. The gas company excavation could have jostled things around a bit and caused enough inflow of dirt to plug the line even more than it was but from your description, this just wasn’t the gas company’s fault.


as to the broken trap: you say it was broken prior to the plumber excavating.

Think about this; if the gas company broke it a couple days prior, would the break look fresh or old when the plumber excavated it? If the gas company or the plumber broke it you probably wouldn’t be able to tell who did it.
 

FarmerJ

Senior Member
James with ancient cast iron sewer pipes the joints can and do fail and its such a slow process it is possible that your homes sewer line had silt leaking into it for a long time thru a joint I used to have a house that had been made into a duplex back in the 20s or early 30s and anyway its sewer tap originally had been shared and connected to the main line about 12 -15 feet into the lot to the north of it where the duplex that it had shared the sewer line with had been torn down by its owner the previous year , he had been bleeding that property for years and chose to tear it down instead of making repairs that the city ordered, so anyway that line was the original from when city water and sewer were first put in and in that area there was maybe 4 to 5 feet between most homes since lot sizes ran from 30 to 40 feet wide and there too was a lot of heavy equipment used to demolish the one home So my point is that it sounds like just one of them deals where something that was in poor shape and likely would have failed in the not too far future on its own.
 

James77

Junior Member
Alright a quick update. The plumbers finished(this was many days ago) digging up about 25 feet of the pipe to the main. About 8-12 feet remains.

The sections of pipe were literally packed with crap and what not. I hope I make all of you puke with this description coming up, cause I nearly did...the packed matter was literally oozing out of the broken pipes that they excavated up to surface.

The section of old piping that remains was camera'ed, because it finally could be. There is a broken piece of pipe right at the junction to the sewer. The amount of crap that was packed in the pipe up to this break was far too much I think to have been caused by a few days of breakage, assuming it was the gas company's fault.

My belief at this point is that this sewer line was miraculously functioning for many months about to fail. There was sidewalk work done about 9 months ago where they found a minor "sinkhole". Not blaming that work, but that sinkhole is EXACTLY where the break is. Not sure what the F is going on, but I have exonerated the gas company and their work. I do believe their work may have been that final little straw, but it would not take much to have finished the mess off. My sewer lines are 111 years old, and the sewer they connect to that. For fun little info, that sewer is 16 feet down. There is another sewer line that is down about 40 FEET that runs intersecting under that. God knows how they got that one there.

Thank you for all of your replies, I appreciate the thoughts. The repair work failed, we need to replace the remaining several feet. It is an expensive mess.
 

James77

Junior Member
James with ancient cast iron sewer pipes the joints can and do fail and its such a slow process it is possible that your homes sewer line had silt leaking into it for a long time thru a joint I used to have a house that had been made into a duplex back in the 20s or early 30s and anyway its sewer tap originally had been shared and connected to the main line about 12 -15 feet into the lot to the north of it where the duplex that it had shared the sewer line with had been torn down by its owner the previous year , he had been bleeding that property for years and chose to tear it down instead of making repairs that the city ordered, so anyway that line was the original from when city water and sewer were first put in and in that area there was maybe 4 to 5 feet between most homes since lot sizes ran from 30 to 40 feet wide and there too was a lot of heavy equipment used to demolish the one home So my point is that it sounds like just one of them deals where something that was in poor shape and likely would have failed in the not too far future on its own.
These are apparently clay pipes that run through our cellar floor and into the street. They are in very sandy soil, and they date back 110 years or more. I am coming to the realization that they are just old and failing. It really sucks because it is massively expensive, but what can you do.
 

justalayman

Senior Member
Ive done plumbing before. What you found, sorry to say, is not what I would consider a foreign substance to me.

Now you know why plumbers get to charge what they do. And trust me, there are much worse things than what you saw.

If your sewer line is actually over 100 years old, it has performed well beyond its expected life. You are just the (un)lucky one that got the privilege to replace it.


Thanks for the update.
 

FarmerJ

Senior Member
James thank you for the follow up. A side note would be if you decide to move in the future and are looking at properties especially if older to find out the age of the sewer line from the house to the point it taps into the main and that includes the age of the water main to the house from the street, my last urban property was a 4 unit that had its original water line which did fail in January and had to be replaced .
 

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