What sewer work costs

Why there is no number on this page

Every published sewer price is an average of jobs that were not yours. The same hundred feet of pipe is a routine morning under a lawn and a very expensive week under a driveway, a mature tree and a gas service, and no figure written before somebody looked at your property can tell those two apart. A range wide enough to be honest is too wide to be useful, and a range narrow enough to be useful was not honest.

So SewerOwner publishes none, and that is a policy rather than a gap. What is worth your next twenty minutes is not what sewer work costs in general. It is whether the proposal in your hand describes the job your property actually needs — which is a question you can answer, from the document, tonight.

What actually moves the number

Length is the part everyone quotes and the smallest part of the variance. Depth is larger: the cost of reaching a line at four feet and at eleven feet is not proportional, because at some depth the trench needs shoring and the work stops being a machine and a shovel. What sits on top matters as much — lawn, mature root systems, a patio, a driveway, a public sidewalk, a street — because it must be removed, and then it must be put back.

Then the things that are not digging at all: locating other utilities in the same corridor, groundwater that has to be pumped while the trench is open, the permit and the inspection it requires, and the traffic control if any of it happens in the road. A proposal that omits restoration and permits is not cheaper than one that includes them. It is smaller, and the difference arrives later.

The largest single fork is the method, because it decides how much of the surface has to come up at all — and whether your line allows the trenchless option is a question about the camera survey rather than about the budget.

Why two quotes for the same pipe differ enormously

Almost always because they are not for the same job. One replaces the full run to the connection and one repairs the eight feet that were seen on camera. One includes the sidewalk and one has excluded it in a sentence on page three. One assumes the line can be relined and one has priced excavation because the survey was inconclusive. The numbers are incomparable, and comparing them as numbers is how the wrong contractor wins.

The comparison that works is by scope: put the two documents side by side and mark every item one states and the other does not. What is left is the real difference, and it is usually a decision somebody made about your property without telling you they had made it.

What to ask about the number

These are asked of whoever gave you the quote. Every one of them turns a total into something a second contractor can be asked to match.

• What length is this priced for, from where to where, and how was that established?
• What depth has been assumed, and what happens to the price if the line is deeper?
• Which surfaces will be opened, and is putting each one back inside this number?
• Are permits, inspection and traffic control included, or billed separately?
• What has been excluded, and what would each exclusion cost if it happens?
• Is this a firm price or an estimate, and what specifically can change it?
• What is the process if something unexpected is found once the trench is open?
• What part of this is warranted, for how long, and what voids it?