Trenchless Sewer Liners: A Permanent Fix Without the Trench
If you’re reading this, you might have already heard the words no homeowner wants to hear: “You need sewer work.”
Maybe your basement backed up. Maybe a camera inspection turned up roots, cracks, or a section of pipe that’s failing. Now you’re researching what comes next. (Or you’re hoping to avoid a worst-case scenario.)
For decades, sewer work involved a backhoe in the front yard, a torn-up driveway, an expensive restoration project on top of the pipe work, and a nagging worry that you’d be doing it again before long.
That isn’t the only option anymore. Trenchless sewer liners, formally known as cured-in-place pipe or CIPP, give you a permanent structural fix without excavation. At Bonfe Underground, we back ours with our Lifetime Parts & Labor Warranty for as long as you live in your home.
What Is a Trenchless Sewer Liner?
Cured-in-place-piping is a method of pipe rehabilitation that municipal water and sewer authorities have used for decades. It involves inserting a flexible liner into the existing damaged pipe. The liner is inflated and then cured. Once it hardens, the cured liner is a structural pipe in its own right: jointless, smooth, and bonded to the inside of the original line.
This is not a patch and not a temporary fix—it’s a permanent solution that creates a true pipe within a pipe. No excavation required!
What Problems Does a Sewer Liner Fix?
There are several reasons a sewer might need work in the Twin Cities. Sewer liners are great candidates for a lot of them, including:
- Cracks and fractures in the pipe wall.
- Tree root intrusion at joints.
- Deterioration of older clay and cast-iron pipe (a large percentage of private sewer service laterals in the Twin Cities are clay tile, originally installed more than 70 years ago).
- Minor bellies or sags.
One important caveat: not every sewer line is a candidate for lining. If your sewer pipe has fully collapsed or is too damaged to support the liner, lining will not work, and traditional replacement is the right call. If your line falls into that category, we’ll let you know during your consultation.
Trenchless vs. Traditional Replacement
Traditional sewer line replacement has its place. For most candidate pipes, though, trenchless lining offers real advantages:
- No excavation through your yard, landscaping, driveway, or sidewalk.
- This is a permanent solution. Bonfe offers a Lifetime Parts and Labor Warranty on sewer liner installations, for as long as you live in your home.
- Most residential installations are completed in one or two days.
- Cost is often competitive with traditional replacement once you factor in the yard, driveway, and landscaping restoration that excavation requires on top of the pipe work itself.
- The cured liner has no joints, eliminating the most common failure point in clay and cast-iron sewer pipes.
When traditional replacement is the right answer, we’ll walk you through why and what your options are. The method depends on what the camera inspection shows.
Hammerhead Sewer Liners: The Product We Install
Bonfe installs Hammerhead Trenchless liners, manufactured in Lake Mills, Wisconsin. Hammerhead’s liner systems are engineered and tested to ASTM F1216 standards, which include accelerated long-term performance testing. They’re well-known for their durability and material quality, which is why they meet our high standards.
Bonfe is the leading installer of Hammerhead Sewer Liners in the country.
The product matters as much as the installation, which is part of why we install Hammerhead alongside our Lifetime Parts & Labor Warranty.
Backed for Life: Bonfe's Lifetime Parts & Labor Warranty
For an investment this size, peace of mind is part of the value.
Our Lifetime Parts & Labor Warranty covers the liner and the labor that goes into installing it for as long as you live in your home.
How long do sewer liners last? CIPP liners installed in accordance with ASTM F1216 are engineered for a 50-year design life. We’re willing to back ours for the entire time you own the home.
When to Consider a Sewer Liner
A few situations where it makes sense to consider a sewer liner:
- Recurring drain backups or slow drains throughout the house.
- A camera inspection that shows cracks, root intrusion, or deteriorating pipe.
- An older clay or cast-iron lateral that you’d rather rehabilitate proactively than replace under emergency conditions.
What to Expect From Bonfe Underground
We don’t recommend work before we know what’s going on, so every job starts with a camera inspection that allows us to see the actual condition of your line. From there, you can expect:
- Upfront, transparent pricing, so you know the cost before we begin.
- Fast installation.
- Regular rates from 7am-10pm, 7 days a week.
- Lifetime Parts & Labor Warranty on the work.