The right repair for a damaged line, and honestly the wrong one for a young line that simply was not laid with enough fall. We tell you which you have.
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Relining is a genuinely good repair. A resin sleeve is drawn through the pipe you already have and cured hard, the damage is sealed, and what you finish with is a continuous surface with no joint where the fault was. Nothing gets dug up.
It is also frequently the wrong recommendation on housing this young, and we would rather say so on the page than at the point of quoting.
A liner repairs damage. Cracks, open joints, root entry, a section crushed by a driveway pour or by landscaping machinery. Young PVC drainage does not usually have those. What it does have, when it has anything, is a fall problem or an obstruction from construction.
A liner does not fix either of those. Line a section that lacks grade and you have a smooth pipe that still does not drain, and you have paid several thousand dollars for the privilege. The camera is what separates the two, which is why we will not quote a liner without one.
Film it before you fix it. Repairing a defect removes the evidence along with the problem, and footage is the only thing anybody acts on.
Cracks, open joints and crushed sections are what it is for. A liner forms a new continuous pipe inside the old one, which fixes a pipe that has failed as a pipe.
It does not change where the pipe goes or how it falls, because it follows the host it is formed inside, including any part that has dropped.
That distinction is the whole of this page, and it is the reason we talk people out of relining here more often than into it.
It does not corrode and it does not open the way older materials did. There is no gradual deterioration mechanism running on a pipe that was laid in the last twenty or thirty years.
So the defects that relining exists to fix are mostly absent from this housing, and a recommendation to line a young PVC drain deserves a hard question.
That question is simple: what is on the footage, and can I see it.
A section that has lost its grade holds material instead of moving it. On estates built over engineered fill, settlement in the first years is the usual cause.
The repair for that is to expose that section and relay it at the correct fall. There is no lining answer, and a liner over a flat spot leaves you with a flat spot.
It is the more disruptive repair and it is the correct one, and saying so is more useful than selling the easy job.
Landscaping machinery, a driveway pour, a pool excavation or a shed slab genuinely do damage lines on newer properties. A tracked machine over a shallow drain is enough.
That is real damage to sound pipe and it is the one common case on a house here where a liner is frequently the right repair.
It also usually has a date and a responsible party, which is another reason to film it before anybody repairs anything.
The line is cleaned and filmed, a resin-saturated liner is drawn through it, and air pressure holds it against the inside wall while it cures.
When it has set you have a continuous jointless pipe inside the original, slightly smaller in bore and considerably smoother.
All of it is done through an existing access point. No trench, no reinstatement, and nothing above the pipe disturbed.
On an estate the runs are short, the ground is frequently open, and a machine can get down the side of the house without taking a fence out. Reinstating new turf on new fill is straightforward.
Where a section has to be relaid at the correct fall, that is genuinely the cheaper and more durable answer.
Pretending otherwise in order to sell a liner would be dishonest, and it is the reason this page reads the way it does.
Footage first, repair second, on a house still inside its builder's warranty. A defect that has already been repaired is very hard to raise afterwards.
Get the line filmed, keep the recording, and note the date. Then decide what to do about the pipe.
We are plumbers rather than lawyers and we will not advise you on your rights. We will give you a recording and a written account good enough for somebody else to act on.
It points at something on screen. A crack, a displaced joint, a crushed section, a length holding water where it should be running. Something you can see for yourself.
A recommendation that points at the age of the pipe on a house of this era is not pointing at anything, because age is not the mechanism here.
If several thousand dollars of work is being proposed on a pipe nobody can see, the footage is the minimum you should be shown.
Check both are pricing the same length in metres rather than in adjectives, and ask why that length. The answer should come from the footage.
Then ask what each includes for putting the surface back. On these blocks that is usually turf and sometimes a strip of driveway, and the two are very different numbers.
Then ask which fault each one thinks it is fixing. If the two quotes disagree about method, they usually disagree about the diagnosis.
Before and after, plus a written account of what was found and what was done. Yours to keep whatever it shows.
On a house inside its warranty period, file them with the handover documents rather than in a folder of receipts. They belong with the certificates.
And if the honest answer is that the line is sound and needs nothing, that recording is the most valuable one on this page.
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 damaged length is the whole problem.
Priced on length and access rather than by the hour.
Reopened from inside once the liner has cured.
Where the camera shows grade rather than damage, and a liner would not help.
Before anything is recommended, because damage and grade look identical from a bathroom and completely different on camera.
Damage, and a liner is the right repair. Grade, and it is not, and we will say so.
Where lining is the answer: the pipe prepared, the liner installed and cured in place, and any junctions reopened.
So you can see the finished surface, and you keep both recordings.
Ask to see the footage before you agree to anything. On drainage this young it is the whole question.
Call 1300 381 569Sometimes, and less often than you might be told. Relining repairs a pipe that has cracked, opened at a joint or been damaged by roots. Young PVC drainage rarely has any of those. If the problem is fall or an obstruction, a liner does not fix it, and lining a line that is not draining properly simply gives you a smooth pipe that still does not drain.
When the camera shows actual damage. A line crushed during landscaping or a driveway pour, a section cracked by ground movement, a joint pulled apart, or roots that have found a way in on the older parts of the area. Those are real and a liner handles them well.
A resin sleeve is pulled through the existing pipe and cured hard in place. The damage is sealed and the result is a continuous surface with no joint where the fault was.
The material is rated at around fifty years, and the repair is continuous, so there is no joint left at the point that failed.
By a couple of millimetres, and it rarely matters. The new inner surface is smoother than the original, so flow is generally the same or better. It will not, however, compensate for a section without enough fall.
Then get it filmed before you get it repaired. Footage showing a defect is the only thing anybody will act on, and repairing it first removes the evidence along with the problem.
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 how old the house is and what the line has been doing. On young drainage those two answers usually predict what the camera is about to show.
Filmed first, and told plainly whether lining is the right repair or the wrong one.
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