Estate Home, Hidden Sewer Issue and How a No-Dig Relining Saved Thousands

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A quiet estate home meets a busy family and the sewer taps out—under a foundation wall, no less. We walk through the call, the chaos, and the choices that turn a near $10k excavation into a fast, clean, no‑dig relining that brought the house back to life the same day. If you’ve ever wondered whether a standard home inspection is enough, or why older cast iron piping fails right when you move in, this story lays out the why, where, and how in plain language.

We start with the pattern no one talks about: low‑use homes masking weak systems. One resident and sporadic laundry can hide corrosion, bellies, and bad connections for years. Add a family’s daily showers, dishwasher cycles, and kid laundry, and the system finally shows its age. In this case, the pipe lost its bottom exactly where access is hardest—beneath a foundation and beyond a cramped crawl space. We break down the safety issues, the engineering headaches, and the real costs that make excavation the nuclear option.

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Then we shift to solutions. The plumber opened access inside, and our relining team installed a five‑foot liner that bridged the failure, sealed leaks, and restored flow without moving a shovel outside. You’ll hear real numbers—about $2,500 for the reline, versus a week of disruption and thousands more for structural dig‑outs. We also dig into the other blind spot: chimneys. Creosote fires crack flue tiles, and gaps can expose framing to heat and sparks. A chimney scope, like a sewer scope, replaces guesswork with proof.

If you’re buying an estate, HUD, or “as‑is” home—or any older property—tie your home inspection to sewer and chimney scopes. Ask about pipe materials, prior occupancy, and usage load, and plan for modern trenchless options when trouble appears. If this story helps you avoid one emergency bill or one dangerous fire, it’s worth it. Subscribe to the show, share this episode with a friend who’s house‑hunting, and leave a quick review with your biggest inspection question—we’ll tackle it next.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Hey everybody.
Alright.
Laura.

SPEAKER_02 (00:04):
Jim.

SPEAKER_01 (00:04):
We had something emergency the other day.
Yes.
This is a house that we did notinspect this house.

SPEAKER_02 (00:11):
I don't know that it was inspected.
It sounded like it was an estatething.

SPEAKER_01 (00:15):
Yeah, it was actually I don't think it was
inspected at all.
So here's what happened.
Our daughter owns a sewerrelining company.
A sewer relining company wherethe sewer line has an issue.
This is like the four or sixinch lines.
That they can get relined.
And so you avoid digging up theyard, destroying the deck to get

(00:40):
to the pipe.
No no excavations is needed forthis.
So what happened is these peoplenow own this house because it
was an estate thing.
So I'm assuming a parent died.
That was kind of what I thought.
Okay, so then they they movedinto the house.
Well, three weeks after movinginto the house, they had sewer

(01:02):
line issues.
Which sucks.
That sucks.
That's very unfortunate, but itthey did not have an inspector,
it sounds like.
So you should all if and youcould have still had an
inspected.

SPEAKER_02 (01:14):
Even if it's an estate sale.
We have inspected estate sales,like we've had attorneys refer
us.

SPEAKER_01 (01:19):
Yes.
Well, if you do a homeinspection, the sewer line is
beyond the scope of the homeinspection.
Right.
So if you do the homeinspection, you you may think
you're covering all your bases.
You have not.
You need to find a homeinspection company that will
also have the ability to do thesewer scope and the chimney
scope, especially.

(01:39):
There's a fireplace you're goingto use, so you want safety for
your house.
You don't want to burn yourhouse down, but the sewer the
sewer line, you don't want youyour sewer line needs to be
usable for to use to use ahouse.

SPEAKER_02 (01:49):
Well, there are some red flags for us.
Like if somebody calls me andthey're like, What do you
recommend?
Okay, was the house lived inprior to this or has it been
vacant?
Because if it's been a littleold lady living there or it's
been vacant versus a family offour or six, and there's no
issues, then that's going to bea little bit different.

(02:11):
If I've got somebody that's alittle old lady or it's vacant,
I have no clue how that sewerline is working because it
hasn't been pushed.

SPEAKER_01 (02:19):
Yeah, because a sewer line that only has one
person living at the house isnot being maxed to what to its
potential what it can be usedfor.
Because you like a family offour, let's say almost everybody
showers every single day.
There's laundry to do, there'scooking, there's cleaning, um
dishwasher, dishwasher, yes.

(02:41):
You get you run a lot morewater, which is maybe which I
bet was what happened becausethe state state sale, I'm
assuming older parent, which itwould have been an older parent,
and uh and now they have afamily uh of four or so.
I don't know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (02:56):
So anyway, so always get inspected, but if it
happens, it's not it's not an ohmy gosh, this this word
completely screwed because youcould be though.
But you guys were able to go inand help this person in spite of
the fact they couldn't dig.
So explain a little bit aboutthat because you were out there.

SPEAKER_01 (03:15):
So they had some kind of issue back up with the
house wasn't flowing right.
So a plumbing company went outthere, checked it out, they
found where there's an issuethat they could get to some
blocking or something, so theyhad to bust through the concrete
in the basement to get access tothis.

SPEAKER_02 (03:33):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (03:34):
Once they gained access, because it was blocked
from one direction, so they getthey gained the access.
Well, the sewer pipe wentthrough the foundation wall in
the basement underneath a crawlspace that then went outside to
the you know to the exterior tothe to the CD sewer.

SPEAKER_00 (03:56):
Habitation investigation is the way to go
for a home inspection in Ohio.
Trusted licensed home inspectorsfor your needs from radon to
mold to warranty.
For a great home inspection, youreally can't go wrong.

(04:17):
Visit home inspections inOhio.com.

SPEAKER_01 (04:23):
The pipe that was immediately underneath that
foundation wall between thebasement and the crawl space,
cast iron, there's no bottom toit anymore.

SPEAKER_02 (04:33):
That's not good.

SPEAKER_01 (04:34):
Yeah, completely rusted through.
It's old cast iron.
It's about that time.
The house you said was like1930.
It's 90 years old.
It's it that's about as usefullife expectancy, especially if
it was had a little bit of a lowspot and water's constantly
sitting there, it's gonna havesome issues.
But because there is and it wasweird connections, other other

(04:58):
areas of the pipe.
Anyway, this pipe that thebottom was rotted out was right
underneath that foundation walland a little bit into the crawl
space.
I've never That doesn't soundlike good planning.
No, I've Well, 90 years ago,like oh the pipe will last
forever.
Yeah, it's metal, it doesn't.
But the bad thing is this pipewas right underneath that

(05:20):
foundation wall and into thecrawl space area.
Man, in order to excavate that,you either gotta remove the
foundation wall to getunderneath there, because and
then say six feet, five, sixfeet in there, in this case,
digging horizontally to get tothat pipe and remove it.

(05:43):
First of all, that's not safe.
You imagine that that thing cancollapse on you underneath their
working.

SPEAKER_02 (05:48):
Right, that would be horrible.

SPEAKER_01 (05:49):
Excavating from within the crawl space where you
got like maybe two foot of roomfrom the soil and the floor
joists?
No, that's not bad.
That is I mean, it could bedone, but you're talking about
breaking labor, and it's gonnatake like two days just to dig
down into it.
It's it's insane.

SPEAKER_02 (06:09):
So this was really the only viable option to
re-line it.

SPEAKER_01 (06:13):
The farming company contacted us because they knew
that we do that.
Megan had we have we we know thepeople, and I and I I do it
myself.
I I have the training, so I cando it on Reline.
So we helped Megan.
We went out the yes, I'm Megan'sassistant.
Megan is my boss in this, sheloves that.
Yes, she does.
So we go out there, take a lookat this, and yep, we can we can

(06:36):
do that.
And it was uh it was fortunatewe could do that because I know
we saved the person.
We probably saved them about I'mgonna just guess$7,000 to dig
out that to remove thatfoundation.

SPEAKER_02 (06:49):
Oh, dude, it would have been more than that.

SPEAKER_01 (06:51):
Probably, but to remove that foundation wall
appropriately to say to make itsafe and stable to remove that
pipe, it would have been insane.
But we were able to take afive-foot section of liner and
reline that pipe completelycovering the bottom part that
was missing, right?

(07:12):
Completely like fill that in.
So it's all nice solid thing forthem.
So yay.
It's not always I mean, it wasbad news, and and I can I can
tell they was probably straight.
They're very nice.
I all know the the lady and uh alittle boy.
I think it was a year and ahalf, two years.

(07:33):
Yeah, he was running around alittle trying a little bit.
She was holding a lot.
But uh yeah, we basically saidwe're able to save their being
able to use their house and savethem like eight thousand dollars
easily right off the top.
Yeah.
Now I don't know how much thecost for the plumbing and
everything else is.
I don't know.
But our for our thing for man,same day rushing out there

(07:57):
fixing this, I think we chargelike$2,500.

SPEAKER_02 (08:01):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (08:02):
And that saved them like eight.

SPEAKER_02 (08:04):
Easily.
I'm guessing, yeah, easilybecause it you you're when
you're talking foundation,you're you're talking that's
that's gonna jack that price up,literally, and figuratively.

SPEAKER_01 (08:16):
So we save them eight thousand and hey, I don't
I don't know.
Do you need to get permits todig through a foundation?
I I I really don't know.
You'd have to do something withit.
We probably save them a week andeight thousand dollars.
Easily.
So I guess the thing on this,even though if you're getting a
house and it is uh estate sale,HUD home, foreclosed, anything,

(08:39):
you would get it inspected.
Yeah, always get it inspected,always get that sewer line
looked at.
If you if you're ever gonna usea fireplace or wood wood burning
fireplace, get it scoped.
You don't want to move into ahouse, set you know, put a nice
fire and then you lose yourhouse.
Right.

SPEAKER_02 (08:57):
What is it, 30,000 fires each year caused by
chimneys?
Something like 25,000.
We got this.
I got the stats somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 (09:05):
Yeah, yeah, I was thinking it was closer to 30, so
probably not far.
Yes, yes.
And that's large because theydon't clean them every year.
But when there's a chimney fire,and some people have had chimney
fires, they don't even know it.
Right.
Because they're not outside lookseeing the flame shoot out
through the top of theirchimney.
But the the heat from thecreosote burning damages the
flue tiles, create gaps andbreakages, which then becomes a

(09:28):
fire hazard for the whole house.
More likely to catch a wholehouse on fire.
So that was the venture for onenew homeowner.
Moving the house three weekslater, there's issues, and then
frustration, they don't knowwhat to do, but we were able to
come in and help them uh get theproblem solved.

SPEAKER_02 (09:46):
And save them a lot of money in the interim.

SPEAKER_01 (09:48):
We cut we permit partnering up with the uh
plumbing company.
The plum the plumber, theplumber really helped the client
out a ton by contacting umenvironmental consultants of
Ohio, which is the company thatthat could do the sewery lining
here in Central Ohio.
But yeah, um EnvironmentalConsultants of Ohio was uh it
was fortunate the plumber um gunthrough plumbing, contacted them

(10:14):
in order to help help them helpthem out, help help them, help
them complete the task ofgetting these people's house
functional.
Right.
Plus, it saved them a lot ofmoney and time for the the
homeowner.

SPEAKER_02 (10:25):
Well, now you've got Christmas and Thanksgiving
coming up, and it's a good timeto see people make it.

SPEAKER_01 (10:30):
You got Christmas coming up, and all of a sudden
you got a ten thousand dollarbill, that would be right,
especially with thetwo-year-old.
Yeah, but two-year-old won'tremember if nothing happens.
Well, but the personal.

SPEAKER_02 (10:43):
If he's the only one there, that's not bad.
But if he's not, if he's theyoungest, that's not possible.

SPEAKER_01 (10:48):
So, all right, everybody.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Always get it inspected.

SPEAKER_02 (10:52):
Bye.