Orangeburg and Cast Iron Sewer Lines in Older New Orleans Homes

Plenty of houses in Metairie, Kenner and New Orleans have been standing a long time, and so have the sewer lines under them. Those lines were laid with whatever the builder had on hand back then, and for a lot of homes that meant one of two materials: Orangeburg or cast iron. Neither one is made for forever. If you live in an older house and you've had a drain back up more than once, this is worth reading.

What Orangeburg pipe actually is

Orangeburg isn't plastic and it isn't metal. It's pipe made from layers of wood fiber pressed together and sealed with pitch. It was light, easy to haul and cheap to lay, which is why it ended up under so many houses. The trouble is that it's basically a rolled-up fiber tube sitting in wet ground.

Over time the walls soften. The pipe loses its round shape, starts to sag, flattens out in places and eventually folds or collapses. Roots find the joints and squeeze in. Once a section deforms, waste stops flowing and starts catching, and that's when the backups begin.

Why cast iron fails too

Cast iron is tougher, and it lasted many homes a very long time. But it rusts from the inside out. Scale builds up along the walls and narrows the pipe, which catches grease and paper and makes clogs more frequent. Eventually the metal gets thin and brittle, and it cracks or breaks apart at a joint.

Our soil doesn't help. Ground in greater New Orleans is soft and it moves, especially after heavy rain or a dry spell. A rigid iron pipe can only take so much shifting before it cracks, and a crack lets sewage leak into the soil and lets roots and dirt get in.

Signs your old sewer line is going bad

• Drains that clog again and again, even after they've been cleared
• Gurgling in a tub or toilet when another fixture drains
• A sewer smell inside the house or in one part of the yard
• Soggy or unusually green spots in the yard over the line
• Slow drains in more than one fixture at the same time
• Roots showing up in the line every time it's cleaned

One slow drain is usually a local clog. When the whole house is complaining, or the same clog keeps coming back, the problem is probably in the main line.

How we find out what's wrong

We don't dig first and ask questions later. A video line inspection puts a camera inside the pipe so we can see the break, the sag, the roots or the collapsed section for ourselves, and so can you. We also run vac trucks and high-pressure jetting to clear a line and remove tree roots and blockages when that's all it needs. Sometimes a line only needs cleaning. When the pipe itself is cracked or caved in, cleaning is just a delay.

Replacing old pipe with PVC

When a line is finished, the fix is replacement. We remove old, cracked cast iron and replace it with heavy duty PVC on stainless steel hangers. PVC doesn't rust, it doesn't soften in wet ground, and its smooth walls keep waste moving. Stainless hangers matter because they hold the pipe at the right slope for years without corroding the way cheap hardware does.

When the old line runs under the slab, we don't have to break up your house to reach it. We use hydro-tunneling to locate, remove and replace old, cracked Orangeburg sewer and water lines from underneath, which keeps your flooring intact. Our licensed technicians do the work, and Mark Peterson, our Louisiana Master Plumber, is on every job.

Replace now or wait for the backup

Nobody wants to hear that a sewer line needs replacing. But a failing line doesn't heal. It leaks into the soil, undermines the ground around it and eventually quits at the worst time, usually in the middle of a holiday weekend with company in the house. Planning the work beats scrambling for it. It also lets you decide when the yard gets dug up, instead of having a sewage backup decide for you.

You can read more about what we do on our sewer line repair and replacement page. We offer free same-day estimates, and for a backup that can't wait we answer emergency calls around the clock in New Orleans, Metairie, Kenner, Houma and Thibodaux. Call (504) 461-5193 and tell us what your drains are doing.