Cable first. It's the city's rule.
Before you can apply to the city's lateral program, Webster Groves requires you to have the line cabled by a plumbing company or a drain and sewer cleaning company. Its reasoning is that sometimes the problem isn't the pipe at all, only what is stuck in it.
The city calls cabling a common home maintenance expense, and the program doesn't pay for it. If the cabling doesn't solve the problem, you send the application and your most recent cabling bill to Public Works.
There is a second reason to cable first. The city's contractor inspects the line by camera after you apply. If that inspection doesn't show a defect, you pay for it.
What the program pays
The city pays 80 percent of the lowest bid, up to $3,500. The limit is $8,000 when the repair is in the street. Houses, duplexes and apartment buildings of up to six units are eligible.
Your contractor digs, repairs or replaces the bad section, backfills, and seeds and straws the yard. Any other landscaping is yours.
The steps after you apply
- Public Works confirms the real estate taxes are paid.
- The city's diagnostic contractor calls to schedule a camera inspection.
- The city tells you in writing whether the lateral is defective and covered.
- You get three bids. Each has to list material, equipment and labor separately.
- The city approves a bid in writing, and the work can start.
- When the work is done, you send in a completion statement and the contractor's itemized bill. The city pays the contractor.
Public Works is at 314-963-5315.
What the city calls minor
The program leaves these out:
- A low spot, or belly, in the line.
- Minor cracks that aren't leaking.
- A cracked trap shaft, or a broken yard trap or cleanout on its own.
- Any pipe under the house, additions included.
- A blockage that can be cabled.
A belly holds water and collects debris, so a line with one clogs again and again. Since the program won't pay to fix it, the practical answer is cleaning on a schedule. Hydro jetting is suited to that.
Old pipe under big trees
About a third of Webster Groves' homes were built before 1940, and about two thirds before 1960, by the Census Bureau's housing estimates. Laterals of that age are usually clay tile, and clay takes in roots at the joints. A camera inspection shows whether the roots are all that is wrong.
If it backs up in heavy rain
MSD runs the public sewers in Webster Groves. It has a project to replace about 5,600 feet of undersized sewer in Webster Groves and Brentwood, and its project page says backups and overflows there happen when the sewers are overloaded in intense rain.
If your basement backs up with the weather and not with your own water use, report it to MSD at 314-768-6260.
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