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Trenchless at $120/ft beats open trench at $70/ft the moment the line runs under a driveway — $7,700 vs $8,200 all-in. What sits above the pipe decides the job.
Sewer quotes compare per-foot rates; the decision lives in restoration. Trenchless replacement on a 60-ft line runs $120/ft plus two access pits — $7,700 all-in. Open trench costs less per foot ($70) but adds full restoration of whatever the trench crosses: $500 in lawn, $4,000+ under a driveway or stamped patio — $8,200 all-in and the cheaper rate loses. The recurring savings close the loop: a new line or liner ends the $350/yr root-cleaning treadmill, worth $7,000 over a 20-year warranty. Eligibility comes first: a camera inspection ($250–500) determines whether the pipe can be lined at all — collapsed or bellied sections cannot. This calculator prices both methods with restoration honestly included.
Homeowners with recurring backups use it before accepting a quote: trenchless at $120/ft beats open trench at $70/ft the moment the line crosses a driveway — $7,700 vs $8,200 once restoration is priced in.
Both are trenchless, but they solve different problems. Pipe bursting pulls a new HDPE pipe through the old one, fracturing it outward — you get a brand-new full-diameter pipe with 50+ year life, and it works even when the old pipe is damaged, as long as a path exists. CIPP lining cures an epoxy sleeve inside the existing pipe — faster and often slightly cheaper, but it needs a structurally present host pipe (no collapsed or missing sections), reduces diameter by ~6mm, and cannot fix a belly (a sag holding water) because the liner follows the existing grade. The camera inspection decides: lining fails exactly where the pipe is worst, so a quote for lining without camera footage is a guess. Watch the price structure: liners are sometimes quoted per foot with high minimums, bursting with mobilization fees. Get both quoted against the same footage and plug the real numbers in here.
The camera settles it — $250–500 for a scoped inspection with footage you keep, and it should be step one before ANY quote conversation. Symptoms that justify the camera: recurring backups (especially after rain, which means infiltration), slow drains across multiple fixtures at once, sewage odor in the yard, or a lush green stripe over the line path. What the footage shows decides the scope: root intrusion at joints on an otherwise sound pipe can be managed with cutting and foaming ($300–500/yr) for years; offset joints, cracks, Orangeburg (fiber pipe, 1945–72, a replacement no-brainer), or a collapsed section means replacement. The maintenance-forever alternative pencils in one case only: an elderly but intact pipe where roots return slowly — $350/yr of cleaning beats $8,000 if the line has decades left. Run that comparison here: maintenance × years versus replacement cost minus maintenance saved.
Usually you own it to the property line — and often to the city main itself, which surprises people when the break is under the street: many municipalities make the homeowner responsible for the entire lateral including the tap, plus street-cut permits and repaving. Call the city FIRST; some cover from the property line, a few cover the whole lateral, and the answer changes the quote by thousands. Insurance: standard homeowners policies exclude sewer lines as wear-and-tear. The products that exist: service-line endorsements on your HO policy ($30–50/yr, $10k coverage — genuinely worth it on 50+ year-old lines), and third-party warranty programs of widely varying value — read exclusions hard, many exclude pre-existing conditions and roots. Also check: some cities offer cost-sharing or low-interest loan programs for lateral replacement, and a few mandate replacement at sale (point-of-sale ordinances) — which turns this calculator from a planning tool into a budget deadline.