Is it me or are plumbing costs bonkers!??

Question

Hi all,

I have a rental property in Fort Worth home (I'm an accidental landlord) that is almost 100 years old. The PVC going out of the house was replaced new in 2011, but the plumbers who installed didn't do a great job. I just found out this last week that after the house's clean-outs were overflowing with water due to the backup that there was an issue.

I got a plumbing company to come snake it out and they did a camera view and saw that the connection from PVC to the City Drain has a short clay pipe still there...thus with the ground shifting the PVC no longer drains clear to the City Drain. The PVC is 3' from the ground and the City Drain in the alley. I'll need to get a plumber to dig up the area and connect the PVC to the City Drain that at 3' and get rid of that clay pipe.

My question is  how much should that cost? I've had a wild wide range of quotes and my estimates are on the conservative side since it is a short space to connect to. But the City Drain is near the water line, a tree and the gas line (albeit gas was cutoff to the house).

Additionally, if you know any plumbers who could do this type of work, I would greatly appreciate it.

Any help would be wonderful.

Thank you in advance.

Pat L. · Answer

We had a water meter leak & HAD to use a Lic Plumber to change the incoming coupling on the city side and the city had to turn the water off. City arrived at 8am so tenants then had no water. The plumber mutt shows up @ 12noon finished in 10minutes then gives me a bill for $384. The city forgot to reappear until the following morning. Good thing the tenants are patient & never complained. My wife did a tax return for a young plumber kid who also does HVAC on the side. His W2 just for plumbing was around $110k.

We just had to dig up a 3inch PVC sewer line at our multi. We did the 811 call before you dig scan & was told where it was. We get down there less than 24 inches & find a 2inch soft conduit with a LIVE 240v power line resting on top of the old sewer line??? I assume it originally ran to an old septic pump. Traced it back to a buried sub-panel & disconnected it.

Good thing my guy didn't slam the shovel down into out. So be careful if you're doing it yourself.

Russell Brazil · Answer

Dig up and replace part of pipe....$4-5k.

Adam Christopher Zaleski · Answer

If you want to save money, do the digging yourself. Leave the plumbing to the plumbers. To snake a drain, I have paid anywhere from $110 to $350. For $350, they show up on the same day.

Victor S. · Answer

yeah... and people tell young kids to go to college to maybe make this much in a month lol

get the utility companies to mark the area up for you and get to digging. make sure to have enough beer around for this job.

Rocky V. · Answer

Recommend calling the City 1st it may be in their easement.  I've had several replaced by other Cities in the DFW metroplex.

Jay C. · Answer

Yikes! those are step prices. I went with the plumber that @John Morgan recommended and he did it for $900 in 1 day. That was back in Feb, so we've been incident free since then.

Joe Splitrock · Answer

@Jackson Chang I had a house last year and it cost $6000 to do something similar. Of course our pipes are much deeper here due to freezing, so it involved a back hoe to dig. Estimate was $5K but they ran into "troubles".

John Morgan · Answer

@Jackson Chang

I’ve got someone who has done this for me. He’s also done a couple rehabs for me and is cheap and very good at plumbing. PM me if you want him to come out and give you a quote. He lives in Arlington close to East ft worth.

Josue Vargas · Answer

@Jackson Chang

Estimates will range widely because this looks like sort of specialized work for most or some of the contractors and I explain... While most small contractors are very familiar with PVC, few of these smaller contractors know how to deal with clay pipes especially if is on the connection at the easement, example your land and what the city pipeline is, therefore they have to deal with bigger pipes or what we call mains.  Clay pipes are obsolete, so connections to these pipes are possible but many contractor just don't know how to deal with it, they deal with it by providing higher quotes and therefore all over the place.  3' deep it may not look so terrible, but it may be a lot of work, maybe because of the amount of other utilities on the vicinity (therefore potholing or "digging by hand").   Good luck.

Is it me or are plumbing costs bonkers!??

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