If everything in your home is backing up, it means that your sewer line is clogged. The sewer line can be clogged because a foreign object got flushed and then lodged itself it the sewer line, backing up the entire home. However, this is not usually the case. If a sewer line is backing up, it is most often due to damage to that sewer line. Either there is a belly in the line that holds water and traps debris that would be going down the pipe, or there is a breakage in the line that is snagging solids and letting roots infest the line. Whole-home backups can also be caused because the sewer line has deteriorated from the inside, causing the surface of the pipe to become rough, and slow down the flow of the sewer line. In each of these situations, the sewer line must be cleared, cleaned, and repaired to prevent more backups in the future.

Damage to a sewer line is most often most by one of the following four things:

- Earth forces causing the pipe to crack.

- Roots pushing their way into a sewer line.

- Deterioration from the inside of an old metal sewer line.

- Bellies formed from settling in the earth around a PVC or Poly sewer line.

In most city sewer systems, the city is responsible for everything along the sewer main, up to the sewer tap at your home. When the line transitions from the sewer tap into the sewer lateral, it is the responsibility of the homeowner to maintain this line and even replace it, if necessary. If a clog is happening at the sewer tap, it may be the responsibility of the city, but you will often need to hire a licensed professional to get video evidence of the problem with a sewer camera inspection.

If the sewer line has broken from earth forces causing a crack or if roots have broken the line, the sewer line can be dug up and repaired. If your sewer line has deteriorated from within, it may be worth hydro jetting the line to descale it. Often, if the line is too far gone, a deteriorated cast-iron line must be replaced fully before it can operate properly. If a belly has formed in your sewer line, the belly must be dug up and a large section of the line replaced. Backfilling the line properly is vital to preventing another belly from happening in the future. Each of these options requires excavation equipment. If the repair gets too expensive, it is worth considering replacing the sewer line entirely to avoid sinking too much money into an old line that will need to be replaced soon.

There are three options for replacing your sewer line:

- Pipe bursting a new sewer line.

- Directional boring a new sewer line.

- Trenching a new sewer line.

Pipe bursting involves excavating down at the sewer tap and pulling a metalhead through the existing line; breaking the existing line apart and laying a heavy poly line in its stead. It only works if the existing sewer line is run in an extremely straight line.

Sewer lines can also be bored in, but it requires a lot of room to get the bore machine running at the correct depth to run the sewer line with proper grade. Similar to pipe bursting, sewer line boring requires a very specific set of circumstances to be successful.

Trenching a new sewer line involves digging a trench with an excavator and laying a new sewer line in that trench. This is by far the most popular method for replacing a sewer line in the south because the frost line does not require sewer lines to be deeper than 18 inches beneath the surface. In colder climates, the minimum depth for a sewer line can be over 4' to prevent freezing! This makes it extremely advantageous to pursue pipe bursting up north because it eliminates so much digging. However, in Tennessee Standard's territory, the benefits of bursting and boring a sewer line rarely outweigh the cost.

Septic system run all the waste from a home into a large tank called a septic tank. This tank can be manufactured from either plastic or concrete. When the waste enters the septic tank, the solids drop to the bottom where a bed of bacteria continually eat at the contents of this layer. The liquids that remain make their way out the upper portion of the tank on the other side, flowing into the “drain field” and safely absorbing back into the earth.

With city sewer, the waste from each home flow into large sewer pipes (usually beneath the street), making their way to pump stations located at centralized low points in the area, which pump the sewage to waste treatment plants to be dealt with. City sewer is generally cheaper than the cost associated with maintaining a septic system. However, when city sewer is not available, septic systems are a great way to deal with waste water wherever else you want to build a home.

Call your local municipality to find out whether you have access to city sewer. If you have access, but no sewer tap, you will have to pay a minimal “tap fee” for the municipality to come out and tap into the sewer main. If you already have a tap, you can skip this step.

Once you have a tap installed, you can call a licensed plumbing contractor like Tennessee Standard to come and give you all your options for connecting your sewer line to the new sewer tap. The sewer line must be cut before it enters the septic tank and re-routed to the city sewer tap. The septic tank must them be pumped out, collapsed in, filled with gravel, and backfilled.

Once the sewer line is inspected by a local official, the line can be backfilled professionally to prevent bellies and damage from happening in the future. City sewer is considered an upgrade over a septic system because it does not need to be periodically pumped out and you have the city to professionally maintain the sewer system.

Yes, any licensed plumbing contractor can replace the sewer line from the home to the septic tank. A specialized licensed is required to work on or replace the drain field on the other side of the tank, but plumbers are trained on how to replace the line feeding the septic tank, just like any other sewer line is installed.