Sewer & Drain · Nashville, TN
Sewer Line Repair in Nashville
Bellies, offset joints, root intrusion and collapsed sections repaired after the camera has shown where and how deep they are.
Estimate request
Tell us which drain is backing up
Sent straight to us, day or night. We respond immediately.
Sewer Line Repair in Nashville, Tennessee
Bellies, offset joints, root intrusion and collapsed sections repaired after the camera has shown where and how deep they are.
For sewer line repair, Nashville's Sewer and Drain works across Middle Tennessee — licensed, insured, with the price in writing before the work starts. Drain and sewer crews who clear the stoppage first, then put a camera down the line and show you what caused it.
Why homeowners call
Signs that bring people to us for this
- Sewage coming up a floor drain
- Every drain in the house slow at once
- Gurgling toilet when the washer drains
- Sewer smell in the yard or basement
- A soggy, sunken strip over the sewer line
- Roots back in the line every year
- Sump pump running and running
What is included
What our sewer line repair work includes
- Camera inspection with every defect measured and recorded
- Depth at each defect read from the surface
- Pipe material identified: clay, cast iron, Orangeburg or PVC
- Repair, replace or dig decided from the video
- Roots cut and the line cleared before the repair
- Public and private utility locates before any dig
- Repaired line run with water and filmed
- Yard and hard surfaces restored over any excavation
How Sewer Line Repair goes, from cleanout to final pass
What the pipe is made of decides more than what is wrong with it. Clay tile fails at its joints and can often be sealed. Cast iron rots from the inside along the bottom and tends to go in long runs. Orangeburg flattens and can only be replaced. PVC laid in recent decades mostly fails where it was bedded badly or joined to older pipe.
We repair when the trouble is in one place and replace when it is everywhere. The camera report lists each defect by distance, and if that list runs to a crack here and a root entry there with sound pipe between, a repair will hold. When the list is long, one replacement costs less over the years than returning for each failure.
Bellies, offsets and collapses are the defects most likely to need a shovel. A belly is a stretch that has settled lower than the pipe on either side, so it holds water and catches solids, and an offset is one length of pipe shifted up or sideways from the next. Clay that takes on water every spring and cracks open in an August drought moves sewer pipe this way all over Middle Tennessee.
Some sewer repairs start inside the house. Cast iron under a slab or hanging in a crawl space can fail while the yard line is fine, and the reverse happens too. We film from the cleanout in both directions when we can, so the plan covers the house drain and the lateral together.
Sewer Line Repair
The sewer line repair we do, one page each
Sewer Line Replacement
A new lateral from the foundation to the city connection, dug or trenchless, permitted and inspected before it is covered.
Learn moreCast Iron Pipe Replacement
Scaled, cracked and channel-rotted cast iron under the slab or in the crawl space replaced with PVC before it lets go.
Learn moreOrangeburg Pipe Replacement
Tar-paper sewer pipe laid from the late 1940s into the early 1970s that has flattened into an oval, replaced with a line that keeps its shape.
Learn moreSewer Excavation
Open-trench repair where trenchless will not work, with Tennessee 811 locates first and the yard put back after.
Learn moreAlso available
Other sewer, drain and septic work
Trenchless Sewer Repair
Lining or bursting a failed sewer lateral through a cleanout or a pair of small access pits, so the lawn, driveway and trees above it stay where they are.
Learn moreDrain Cleaning
Kitchen, bath, laundry and main line stoppages cleared at the cause, with the camera brought in when the same drain keeps coming back.
Learn moreSewer Camera Inspection
A camera run the length of the lateral, recorded, with the distance to every defect read off the cable counter.
Learn moreEmergency Sewer and Drain
Sewage coming up a floor drain or a tub, or no drain in the house that will take water, answered day or night.
Learn moreSeptic Services
Tanks, fields and grinder pumps for homes off the city sewer or sitting below it, from the first inspection to a new system.
Learn moreSump Pump Services
Sump pits, pumps, check valves and discharge lines for basements and crawl spaces that take water in a hard rain.
Learn moreService area
Sewer and drain calls we take across Middle Tennessee
Our trucks reach Nashville and 100 more towns in 12 counties, and we take sewer and septic calls anywhere within about an hour of the city.
FAQ
Sewer Line Repair: what people ask first
What does a belly in a sewer line mean?
A section of the pipe has dropped below the grade of the lengths around it, so water sits there instead of flowing through. Paper and solids settle in that standing water and build up into repeat clogs. A small belly can be lived with and cleaned when needed. A deep one has to be dug up and the pipe relaid on compacted bedding at the right fall.
Is a cracked sewer pipe an emergency?
Usually not on the day it is found, though it shouldn’t be left long. A crack lets sewage seep into the soil and gives roots a way in, and in clay ground the leaking water can soften the soil under the pipe and let it settle further. If the drains still run and nothing is backing up, there is time to get the camera report and compare the options.
Why is there a soggy spot in my yard over the sewer line?
Most likely the line is broken or open at a joint and sewage is leaking into the soil above it. The patch is often greener than the rest of the lawn, soft underfoot, and smelly in warm weather. A camera run measured to that spot usually finds a crack, a separated joint or a collapse, and the depth reading shows how hard it will be to reach.
Can tree roots break a sewer pipe?
Roots rarely break sound pipe on their own, though they take full advantage of any weakness. They grow into a joint or crack that is leaking moisture, then thicken inside the pipe, widening the gap until clay cracks or joints pull apart. Silver maples, willows and sweetgums are the usual culprits in Nashville yards, and taking the tree down doesn’t fix a line the roots are already in.
Free estimate
Book sewer line repair with our crew
Call or write to Nashville's Sewer and Drain with what the drains are doing; we clear the line first and price any repair from the camera footage.