South Coast Sewer Slab Tunneling

I got called out to a commercial property on South Coast Drive in the South Coast Metro area. The building manager had a restroom with a slow drain, and none of the commercial drain cleaners or snakes they tried were making a difference.

I ran my camera inspection gear down the line to see what we were dealing with. About 3 feet under the slab, I found a crack in the ABS sewer pipe. Based on how it looked, the soil under the building had probably settled over the years and put too much pressure on the pipe until it cracked.

I gave the building manager a Written Estimate. Since this was an active commercial space, tearing up the restroom floor during business hours was a last resort. My plan was to tunnel under the slab from the dirt outside the building.

We excavated from the exterior, tunneling just far enough under the concrete to reach the broken pipe section. I removed the cracked ABS, installed a new section, and made sure it was properly supported so it wouldn't settle and break again. We pressure-tested the repair to make sure everything was watertight before backfilling the dirt.

Because we worked from the outside, the building manager was able to keep the restroom open for his tenants during almost the entire repair.