The defect repaired from inside the pipe, so a driveway stays whole and nobody cuts into a slab in a house people are living in.
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On these properties a drain very often runs under something solid. A concrete driveway, a paved area at the side of the house, or the slab itself.
That changes the comparison completely, because the pipe repair is no longer the expensive part of an excavation quote. Cutting concrete, excavating beneath it, repairing, backfilling and re-pouring is where the money goes, and unlike a garden bed, concrete does not recover.
A patch in a driveway is permanent. New concrete does not colour-match old concrete, the joint stays visible for the life of the house, and it is one of the first things anybody notices at the front of a property. Under a slab it is worse again, because the work happens inside a house somebody is living in.
Relining sidesteps all of it. A resin sleeve is drawn through the existing pipe and cured hard, the defect is sealed continuously, and the concrete above never gets touched. It is not always the right method, and we film first to be sure, but where it fits it is not a close comparison.
Ask what the reinstatement costs and what standard it is to. Then get the line filmed before anybody starts a saw.
Cutting, excavating, backfilling, compacting and re-pouring is where an excavation quote actually goes. The pipe itself is a modest part of the number.
On this housing that surface is very often a concrete driveway, a paved surround or a pool deck, because that is what went in over the top of the drainage during thirty years of landscaping.
So the honest comparison is not liner against pipe. It is liner against pipe plus everything that has to happen above it.
New concrete does not colour-match old, and it never will. Different cement, different sand, different age and different weathering, and the joint between them stays visible permanently.
That is a real cost even though it does not appear on an invoice. A driveway with a strip of new concrete down it is a driveway that reads as repaired for the rest of the life of the house.
Some people do not mind and some mind a great deal. It is worth deciding which you are before choosing a method rather than afterwards.
That work happens inside an occupied house rather than out on the driveway. Cutting a floor slab means dust, noise, a floor covering that does not go back the way it came, and a room out of use.
It is sometimes genuinely necessary and we will say so plainly when it is. What it is not is a first option.
On slab housing, relining is frequently the difference between a day's work and a fortnight of living around a hole.
A resin-saturated liner is drawn into the existing pipe, inflated against the inside wall and cured in place. The result is a new pipe formed inside the old one, slightly smaller in bore, continuous and smooth.
It is not a coating or a patch pushed into one spot. The cured liner is structural in its own right, which is why it carries a design life measured in decades rather than a warranty on a repair.
Nothing above the pipe gets opened, which on a property with a concrete driveway over the line is the entire point.
Older lines were laid in short sections with a joint every metre or so, and each of those joints is somewhere the ground can move a fraction and open a gap.
That gap is what roots find. They do not break sound pipe, they enter at an opening that was already there.
A cured liner has no joints along the run it covers, so there is nothing left to enter through. That is the durable version of the repair rather than cutting this season's roots out.
A collapse cannot be lined and pretending otherwise wastes everybody's time. The camera is what separates a pipe that can be lined from one that has to be replaced.
It also fixes the length. A quote written from footage says how many metres are being lined and why, and that number is what you compare between quotes rather than the headline figure.
Establishing it first is the difference between a fixed price and a conversation halfway through the work.
A pipe can be entirely intact and still fail, because a section has settled and water no longer runs downhill through it. Material stops in the flat spot and builds from there.
No liner fixes a fall problem. A liner follows the pipe it is formed inside, including the part that has dropped.
So a line that films as sound but keeps blocking in the same place is worth looking at for grade rather than lining, and anybody who offers to line it has not read the footage.
Where one length has crushed or lost its fall, that section gets replaced and the rest of the run gets lined. It is a common and entirely sensible outcome.
It is not one method or the other, and a quote that presents it as a binary choice is selling a method rather than solving a problem.
On a driveway, this is frequently the version that keeps the cutting to a single small opening instead of a trench.
The liner passes straight over the opening as it goes in, sealing it along with everything else. Once the resin has set, that opening is cut back out from inside the pipe.
It is routine work rather than a complication, and the after footage exists partly to show each one has been reopened cleanly.
If one were left covered, the fixture it serves would stop draining that day. It is the most immediately obvious fault there is, which is reassuring rather than worrying.
Before and after, plus a written account of what was found, what was done and what we would keep an eye on. Yours whatever it shows.
Worth filing with the property papers. It is the only evidence that the line under the driveway has been dealt with properly.
It is also a genuinely useful thing to hand over at sale, particularly where the alternative would have been visible concrete repair.
Fixed price agreed before anything starts. These are indicative 2026 ranges.
Deducted from the job if you proceed, and the footage is yours either way.
Where one short length is genuinely the whole problem.
Priced on length and access rather than by the hour.
Reopened from inside once the liner has cured.
Where a collapse makes a liner the wrong answer, including under concrete.
And located, so we can tell you exactly what the line runs under rather than guessing from the shape of the yard.
Liner against excavation, with the reinstatement included in the excavation figure rather than left off it.
The pipe prepared, the liner installed and cured in place, and any junctions reopened.
So you can see the finished surface, and the driveway looks exactly as it did when we arrived.
Get it filmed and located before anybody quotes a saw cut. It changes the numbers more often than not.
Call 1300 381 569Realistically two. Cut the driveway, repair the pipe and reinstate the concrete, or repair the pipe from the inside and leave the driveway alone. The second is almost always cheaper once reinstatement is counted, and it is the only one that does not leave a visible patch.
It is permanent, and it never matches. New concrete does not colour-match old concrete, the joint stays visible, and it is one of the first things anybody notices about a frontage. It is worth weighing that against a repair method that leaves the surface untouched.
Same principle and higher stakes. Breaking into a slab means cutting, excavating beneath it, repairing, backfilling and re-pouring, and it happens inside a house that people are living in. Where a liner can do the job, it is not a close comparison.
A resin sleeve is drawn through the existing pipe and cured hard in place. The defect is sealed and the joint that had opened is bridged, leaving a continuous surface with no entry point.
No. A pipe that has collapsed, lost its shape or dropped out of grade needs that section replaced, and under a driveway or a slab that is a serious job. The footage tells us which of those you have before anybody commits to a method.
Most residential jobs finish inside a day with the line usable the same afternoon. A long or awkward run can go into a second.
A patch over a single defect is $1,500 to $2,500. A full section is $4,000 to $9,000 depending on length and access. The camera inspection first is $250 to $450 and comes off the job if you proceed.
Tell us what the line runs under if you know, and what the camera found if anybody has looked. Concrete above the pipe is the detail that decides the whole comparison.
Sealed from the inside, with everything solid above it left exactly as it is.
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