Sectional Point Repair in Fontana

Fontana's story has two chapters. The first began in 1942 when the Kaiser steel mill opened on the south side of town and the surrounding orchards and chicken ranches turned into worker housing: compact homes on the grid around Sierra Avenue, Arrow Boulevard, and Foothill Boulevard, built through the 1950s and early 1960s. The second chapter started after the mill closed in the 1980s, when the flat land north toward the foothills and south toward Jurupa was carved into some of the largest residential tracts in the Inland Empire, followed by the warehouses and distribution centers that now line the freeways. Each chapter left its own kind of sewer lateral in the ground.

Trenchless sewer repair has a method for each, but the two eras call for different thinking, and a contractor who treats a 1952 clay line and a 2004 ABS line the same way is not paying attention. The county-wide trenchless coverage map shows where the service area extends across the county; this page is about what is specific to Fontana.

Two eras of pipe in sandy ground

Fontana sits on the broad, gently sloping alluvial plain between the San Gabriel foothills and the Jurupa Hills. The soil is predominantly sandy, which drains well and digs easily but has little cohesion. When a sewer joint leaks, the sand around it migrates into the pipe, the bedding beneath is lost, and the pipe sags. Over a long run the result is a belly. Fontana is also hot and dry for most of the year, so any tree with roots near a leaking joint will find it.

The mill-era core has vitrified clay laterals with mortar joints, laid shallow, often on lots that were on septic for their first years and connected to sewer later. Orangeburg fiber pipe shows up in some 1950s tracts and is now at the end of its useful life everywhere it exists, typically found blistered and oval on camera. Houses on slabs from the late 1950s onward usually have cast-iron drains under the slab, with clay or Orangeburg beyond the foundation. Mature camphor, pepper, and mulberry trees planted in that era are the main source of root intrusion.

The tracts north of Foothill through the Sierra Lakes and Hunter's Ridge areas, and south through Southridge and the newer communities near the 15, are almost entirely ABS plastic from the 1990s onward. Their characteristic problems are long flat runs with settlement bellies, construction damage such as a crushed section under a driveway, and occasional separated fittings. Warehouse and logistics properties have large-diameter lines, often PVC or ductile iron, under heavy paving with no tolerance for downtime.

Which trenchless method fits which failure

Hydro jetting first, then a camera inspection and a surface locate. In Fontana the locate is worth insisting on because the long flat laterals in the newer tracts can run surprisingly far to the main.

• CIPP lining is the answer for the mill-era clay that is cracked and rooted but still round and continuous. The liner cures into a jointless pipe inside the old one and ends root intrusion for good. The cured-in-place pipe resource covers the material and the curing process.
• Pipe bursting fits Orangeburg, collapsed clay, and the long sandy bellies where a liner would just follow the sag. Bursting replaces the pipe on a new, straighter grade and is the way to upsize for an added unit.
• Sectional point repair fits a single crushed section of ABS or one broken clay joint on a line that is otherwise sound.
• Spin-cast lining fits cast-iron drains under slabs and the six-inch and larger lines serving warehouses and commercial centers.

For a plain description of how a crew sequences the work from the first camera run to the final video, see the order of a typical lining job.

Permits, locating, and responsibility

Inside the city limits, permits come from the City of Fontana, which owns the collection mains and sends flow to the Inland Empire Utilities Agency regional plants. Unincorporated pockets around the edges of the city are handled by San Bernardino County Land Use Services. In both cases the owner maintains the lateral from the building to the connection with the public main, including any portion under the sidewalk or street, and work in the right-of-way requires an encroachment permit and traffic control. Before any digging, the contractor must notify DigAlert at 811 and wait for utility marks. Fontana has no general point-of-sale sewer inspection today, but buyers of mill-era homes commonly order a sewer scope, and a documented repair helps a sale.

The estimate visit

A worthwhile estimate includes a camera run, a surface locate with depth readings, and a written scope naming the method, footage, and access points. Keep the video; it is useful whether or not you proceed right away.

Sectional Point Repair in Fontana

Fix the spot, not the line

A sectional point repair treats a short length of pipe, usually two to six feet, instead of the whole lateral. A short fiberglass or felt liner saturated with resin is positioned over the defect on an inflatable packer, pressed against the wall, and cured in place. The rest of the line is untouched. Where the defect cannot be lined, the alternative is a small excavation at that exact spot, made possible because the camera and locator have already marked it to within inches.

When it makes sense

One identifiable defect, or two or three close together, on a line whose remaining footage is sound: a joint crushed when a driveway was poured over it, a single root-intruded joint under a parkway tree, a break where the lateral crosses another utility trench, or the transition where under-slab cast iron meets the clay or ABS running to the street.

When it does not

If the camera shows the same defect at every joint, or channeling along the whole bottom of a cast iron line, fixing one spot moves the next backup a few feet down the pipe. A full liner costs more today and far less over the next few years.

A fair test

Ask to see footage of the pipe on both sides of the proposed repair. If it is clean for the full run, a point repair is honest and economical. If it is not, ask why a full liner was not proposed.

More trenchless services in Fontana

Questions we hear in Fontana