Sewer Line Repair & Replacement services in Chicago
Our crew runs about half of its weekly volume on sewer line repair & replacement calls in and around Chicago. The other half is everything else local-service. So yes, we know your area. We carry our own insurance, pull our own permits, and service everything we install. Same shop, all the way through.
Scope of work
Sewer lateral problems hit older homes hardest. Anything pre-1970 in most U.S. cities still has either clay-tile or Orangeburg laterals from the original build. Both fail. Tile cracks at the joints; Orangeburg collapses under load.
Diagnosis order: cable first, then camera. Cable clears most active blockages. The camera shows you what's actually happening down there — joint offsets, root invasion, bellies, broken sections.
Repair options depend on the lateral. Spot repair on a single broken section: $3,200–$6,500. Trenchless pipe burst on the full lateral (replaces clay or cast iron with new HDPE): $6,500–$14,000. Open-trench replacement: rare anymore, only when trenchless isn't feasible.
Permit is almost always required. Municipal sewer authorities want to inspect lateral work before backfill. We pull the permit and coordinate the inspection.
Sewer Line Repair & Replacement in Chicago — what's typical here
From downtown Chicago to the outer subdivisions, we cover the metro on standard pricing. No travel surcharge inside the service radius.
If you're calling from a property management company, we have separate scheduling and billing for that.
What it costs
Sewer main unclog (cable) runs $300 – $675. Hydro-jet + camera runs $600 – $1,190. Spot dig repair (5–8 ft section) runs $4,000 – $8,125. Trenchless pipe burst (full lateral) runs $8,125 – $17,500. Main water service line replacement runs $3,500 – $9,375.
Related work
- Toilet Repair & Installation in Chicago
- Water Heater Repair & Replacement in Chicago
- Drain Cleaning in Chicago
- Emergency Plumbing in Chicago
- Gas Line Repair in Chicago
From the books — a recent Chicago job
Got a call last month from a the south side Chicago home — 1940s build. Symptom: basement floor drain backing up after laundry. Cause: a belly in the lateral was holding water. Spot-repaired the bellied section, all done in under 90 minutes, billed flat-rate at $525.