Main Sewer Line Cleaning in West Covina, CA

West Covina was one of the fastest-growing cities in the country during the 1950s, going from a small agricultural community to a substantial suburb in barely a decade. That compressed build-out is the key to the sewer profile. The great majority of laterals here were laid in the same few years, in the same ground, by the same methods, which means streets tend to reach the end of their service life together rather than house by house.

The build window places those laterals squarely in the mid-century vitrified clay era, with Orangeburg fibre conduit in a meaningful share of the tracts. The two materials look superficially similar from the street and behave completely differently below it. Clay fails at the bell joints as soil movement works them apart, and it can be jetted and lined. Orangeburg absorbs moisture, delaminates and deforms out of round under soil load, and it can be neither jetted nor lined. Establishing which one you have is the first thing we do and it changes everything that follows.

The ground is San Gabriel Valley alluvium, washed down from the mountains to the north, so it is more granular and more stable than the dense expansive clays of the Inland Empire. Joint separation from soil movement is therefore somewhat less aggressive here than in Riverside or Fontana, though the long dry summers and sudden winter saturation still work on it. Toward the hills in the south of the city the ground rises and slope movement becomes a factor.

Mature street trees from the original tract landscaping are now seventy years old, with root systems to match, and they are the usual cause of an outright blockage once a joint has opened.