The broken sewer line had been affecting the tenants living in the basement for several months and the homeowner was working on funds for the sewer line repair. In a situation like this it is hard to determine how long the sewer problem has been going on until a roadway sinkhole starts to form. A roadway sinkhole of this size does not occur over night, it is safe to assume that the sewer line separation had formed some time ago and is getting worse.
 |
The homeowner received a DEP Cease & Desist violation from DEP and now had to figure out their finances to have the work completed on an emergency basis. In some cases the DEP may give a short period of time before the work has to be done however, this case was too dangerous and the homeowner had to have the work completed within days.
Once all emergency permits had been obtained, we began excavating in the roadway to a depth of 12’ where the existing sewer line had been installed.
 |
The excavation process was not as easy as some others, we encountered several other utilities in the roadway which required the crew to perform hand digging.
 |
After many hours of digging, we reached the old pipe and were able to complete the cast iron sewer line repair.
After the repair had been completed and inspected by DEP, the excavation was back-filled in preparation for roadway basing and paving. The back-fill process was completed the same day as the installation and paving/basing was completed later that week.
When working below ground level you never know what to expect, in this case it took experience to understand working around the utilities, when the backhoe could be used to keep the job on schedule and when it was too risky requiring hand digging.
