A plumber sends a sewer camera down your cleanout. They confirm the clay is cracked and locate the exact start and end points.

The steel bursting head is attached to the rod at the receiving pit. The new HDPE pipe is attached behind the bursting head.

Note: Lining is cheaper per foot than bursting, but bursting is cheaper than a full excavation if you have a long driveway. Yes, with one warning. Trenchless pipe bursting is objectively superior to digging for most clay pipe failures. It is faster, cheaper, and leaves your patio and roses intact.

The old solution was horrific: rent a jackhammer, tear up your driveway, destroy your landscaping, and dig a 6-foot-deep trench through your yard. The new solution?

However, clay is also brittle. Over 50–100 years, roots invade the joints, the pipes crack from ground shifting, and the bottom half of the pipe often erodes away.

If your home was built before 1970, there is a good chance your main sewer line is made of vitrified clay (VCP). For decades, clay was the gold standard. It was inert, cheap, and resistant to chemical corrosion.

A hydraulic machine pulls the rod back toward the house. The bursting head shatters the clay pipe outward. As the head moves, the new pipe glides into the exact path of the old one.