PVC with properly cemented (not Portland cement) joints will be sealed against leaks. If no leaks, tree roots will not attempt to enter. And properly sealed joints offer no place for roots to make initial entry. Bottom line: A proper installation equals no root problem.

You might consider providing the county report to the prospective bidders, so they know what it is that you need to have done. Have them re-quote the job to do what the county is requiring, and ask that they put in thier estimate some language that sez something like " work to be performed to meet requirements outlined in county report".

You might also consider asking a lawyer what authority the county has to require changes to existing installations that complied with the code when installed.

Bus, thanks; I'll do my best to make sure they use the right cement. I didn't know ANYONE ever used portland cement on PVC. How nuts is that?

Brew, good thought. The bidders all had the country report, which is what makes the omission on the lower bid all the more puzzling. I'll give them a ring.

I mentioned I have 3 bids in hand but I didn't tell you how many tradesmen I had to contact to get 3 who responded. I didn't count. I'm only one of probably hundreds of property owners affected, so maybe they have as much work as they want or need.

Brick, the county engineer says it's not a code issue but an EPA one. The feds and the county have been going back and forth on this for over 10 years already. The gist of the situation, and the reason for the EPA involvement, is that when rains are heavy the sanitary treatment facility is overloaded and raw sewage is discharged into waterways.

The house sewer line is required to be sched.40 PVC and it would be either a 3" or 4" line. Older homes had 4" because they had 3.5 or 5gpf toilets but with the advent of the 1.6gpf toilets 3" is sufficient for homes with up to 3.5bathrooms.

The 6" line they are referring to is the "storm drain" line. For storm drains you may use sched 40 PVC, PVC-SDR pipe or flex pipe.

Davidr is correct about the EPA involvement on this issue.

While the was some movement to build municipal waste treatment plants as early as the 1930Âs, as a rule, most municipal sewers continued to discharge directly into a local river or estuary up to the early 70Âs. When the EPA was enacted in 1971 one of the first projects they took on was cleaning up the local watershed. They began by mandating that all sanitary waste had to discharge into an approved on site treatment system (Septic tank) or into a municipal sewage treatment facility. Sewage treatment plants were then sized to accept a mean average of 300gal of discharge per each single-family dwelling unit within the community plus an estimate for commercial and small industrial users. Large industrial plants were mandated to install their own waste treatment facilities.

That was all well and good but they still had the sanitary sewers combined with the storm sewers and while the system was designed to accept 300 gal per dwelling unit 1/10 of an inch of rainfall produces 2,715gal per acre. It was soon realized the even a light rain would overwhelm the treatment facility and result in effluent spilling over into the watershed.

The EPA then mandated that all communities must install storm sewers and separate the sanitary discharge from the storm runoff. In turn, all Plumbing codes were amended to prohibit connecting footer drains, sump pumps or gutter and downspouts systems from discharging into the sanitary sewers. While enforcement has been rather lax in many areas, none the less, The EPA regulations then mandated that as the storm sewers became available every structure which formerly had a combined storm and sanitary sewer had a maximum of 5 years to comply with the new regulations.

Realizing that many structures have still not met the requirements in my region the EPA is now going through older neighborhoods and placing colored Dye packs in the rain gutters of the houses. They are then doing follow up checks after a rain and where it is discovered the dye is getting into the sanitary sewer they are tracing it back to the source. If it is discovered that a structure still has storm runoff entering the sanitary sewer the owner of the structure is being issued a citation stating that they have 180days to meet compliance or the certificate of occupancy for the structure is being rescinded and the structure must be vacated until they meet compliance. Continuing to occupy the structure after the 180days and while still in non-compliance results in a fine of $500 per day.

"Brick, the county engineer says it's not a code issue but an EPA one. The feds and the county have been going back and forth on this for over 10 years already. The gist of the situation, and the reason for the EPA involvement, is that when rains are heavy the sanitary treatment facility is overloaded and raw sewage is discharged into waterways."

That still does not necessarily allow the county to force you to pay for a code compliant connection.
The county is trying to avoid upgrades to the treatment plant at their expense by reducing the volume at your expanse.
I would still pay an attorney to review what authority the COUNTY has to force changes to solve their problem with the EPA.
They allowed the connections so the repercussions should be on them. While this may raise rates for everyone, it is a 'fault' that deserves to be spread around.

Brickeye, the county has likely already done the cost analysis.

It is cheaper for the county to have the OP separate out the storm water from the sewer, than it is to have the OP pay for increasing the capacity of the sewer system through rate increases.

It is far far less costly to remove unnecessary discharges from the system that it is to make the system bigger.

"...county is requiring that I disconnect the footer drains from the sanitary drain."

The county can do all the analysis they want, they may not have any authority to ORDER the OP to make the changes.
Th changes would be on the authorities $$, not the code compliant property owner.

Many authorities like top play these games and transfer THEIR problem.
If the install was code compliant, a specific legal authority needs to be established before the homeowner can be compelled to make modifications.
Some jurisdictions have been compelled to offer low cost financing for changes at their convenience.

Some jurisdictions have been compelled to offer low cost financing for changes at their convenience.

They offer low interest loans and grants for low income residents. Also, if one chooses, he can have the country's crews and/or contractors do the work and have the cost added to the property taxes as an assessment. I prefer to choose my own contractor, however.

You may be right brickeye. Perhaps they can't ORDER the change. But they have the authority to charge the user based on their usage.

If a user is dumping ten of thousands of gallons of groundwater and stormwater into the treatment works, the usage costs that the sewer jurisdiction could charge the user, would quickly far exceeds the cost of disconnecting the groundwater and stormwater source.

Thanks to all! The legal issues are interesting but frankly I'm not the sort to fight it out. I'd probably spend more on the attorney than I would on the job itself, and without low interest loans. ;-)

Bringing this back to the original concern - I just talked to the low bid contractor. Thanks to Bus's comments, I asked the plumber how he joins the PVC pipe sections.

He said he uses a gasketed pipe which doesn't need any cement.

Here's the good part: "We used to use pipe that you had to use primer and glue on. But they found out that the glue ate through the pipe after years underground, and so the roots came in anyway. This new pipe is better. The joints have the gaskets plus six inches of overlap. So roots can't get in." (Pretty close to an exact quote.)

What say ye? Thumbs up? Thumbs down? Throw him to the lions?

"But they found out that the glue ate through the pipe after years underground, and so the roots came in anyway." I cannot say that this is not true. But only further proof would make me believe it. That said, my son is a PE and has gotten into the piping industry. Gasketed joints are not at all unusual. The gaskets permit some movement from thermal changes. I have not discussed this case with him. If the cemented joints failed, it could have been from the stress of thermal expansion and contraction rather than from chemical action. Sometimes we observe conditions correctly but reach the wrong conclusion about our observations. This contractor may well be OK for the job.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lincoln anecdote PG-13

That plumbers statement about the glue is as full of beans as a good Mexican chili. What he is attempting to do is pass off PVC-SDR35 pipe in place of PVC sched40.

PVC-SDR35 is the absolute cheapest material permitted by code.

SDR means "Standard Dimension Ratio" and under the SDR standard the pipe wall thickness is determined by dividing the pipe diameter by the index number, which in this case is 35, thus a 4" PVC-SDR35 pipe would have a wall thickness of 4"/35= 0.11". On the other hand PVC sched40 has a wall thickness of 0.237 or more than twice as thick.

In addition, the PVC-SDR pipe has formed end bells with a light rubber gasket and the pipe is just slipped together. By comparison, PVC glue forms a chemically welded joint where the pipe and fitting are fused into one piece and produces a joint nearly impervious to root infestation.

In my opinion the plumber should have offered you a bid with the sched40 that you requested then offered you the opportunity to select the optional pipe, but to just arbitrarily specify a lessor quality material, then attempt to justify that by belittling the proper material is absolutely unacceptable.

Good call, LP. That's the information I couldn't have found elsewhere.

This gives me the ammunition to either bargain with the low bidder or take the job to the next guy up the dollar ladder - and make sure HE is going to use good quality material.

Thanks for your reading of the situation.

I do agree with many of the observations made by lazypup, especially about the PVC-SDR35 pipe. His observations probably are correct about the offering of the local plumber. Some of the piping used for municipal water and sewer service uses gaskets. Schedule 80 and higher rated pipe. A few installations have been made of non-metallic sewer piping up to 72" diameter with 100 year warranty using gasketed joints. It is unrealistic to expect such material for one residential installation.

Out of curiosity I just called my local Lowes store to see what the cost difference would be to use 4" PVC-Sched40 as opposed to 4"PVC-SDR35 and I was utterly amazed at the results.

A 10' length of 4" PVC-SDR35 is $15.03
A 10' length of 4" PVC-Sched.40 is $14.67
If we then factor in the cost of a 4" PVC coupling the price is almost identical.

Considering that the trenching cost remains the same regardless of which pipe you choose the savings is then only the time required to make a slip joint versus apply primer and glue however, while Lowes only carries 10' lengths PVC sched.40 is principally made in 20' lengths available at any Plumbing supply house. This means you only have half as many joints with sched40 so the actual labor time would be nearly the same.

Bussdriver is correct that they do use PVC SDR pipe with gaskets joints for municipal mains however it must be remembered that the SDR standard was originally used to specify concrete sewer pipe. When we apply the SDR formula to a 36" municipal main we get a wall thickness of 36/35= 1.02". Even an 18" municipal main would have a 1/2" wall thickness. The smallest diameter PVC-SDR35 pipe used for municipal mains is 8" which would have a wall thickness of 8"/35= 0.228' which is approximately the same thickness as 4" PVC-sched40 at 0.237".

However when we consider that a residential house sewer is limited to 3" or 4" we then get a wall thickness of 3"/35= 0.085" or 4"/35= 0.11".

While PVC-SDR35 is approved in both the IRC and UPC most local codes do not approve it because as the pipe ages it will become brittle and when it is put under the stress of tree roots of rocks in the soil quite often the pipe wall will shatter in the same manner as vitreous clay tile.

Don't believe the pipe wall is brittle, go to your local hardware or home supply store and examine there stock. Look for the lightweight light green or white pipe with preformed end bells. It will be labelled PVC-SDR35 on the pipe wall. Now look through the stack and see how many sections have broken end bells or chunks missing on the raw end.

Thanks to all. What a valuable resource GW is!

I just got back to this after a distraction. Today I spoke with the plumber who had the HIGH bid and he proposes using SDR35 in 14' sections. He said that he'd transition the cast iron 4" to the SDR35 6" just outside the foundation. That seems odd in light of LP's statement that residential sewer is limited to 3" or 4".

He seems pretty locked in to his methods, so I doubt that he'd take well to a suggestion that he use schedule 40. I wonder if I should chat with the low bidder and see if he's interested in an "upgrade" to schedule 40 for a little more money.

6" sounds correct for your storm sewer but definitely not for the house sewer unless you want to take on a sideline career of cleaning sewer lines.

A residential structure with up to 2.5 bathrooms is rated at about 30DFU's. A 4" line is rated for a maximum of 180DFU's, which means a 4" line could handle up to 6 residential structures. A 6" sewer could handle a 50 unit apartment complex and one fact is sure, if they oversize your sewer line you can expect it to constantly clog up.

Something sounds fishy here. I think I may need to get some more bids.