Three inputs — how long the run is, how deep it sits, and which method is proposed — produce a price band you can hold against any quote. No email, no postcode, no phone number, no lead form.
How to measure your run length
You are measuring from where the line leaves the house to where it meets the city main, which is usually under the street or in the alley — not to your property line.
Pace it out above ground. From the point the pipe exits the foundation (often below the lowest bathroom, or wherever the exterior cleanout sits) to the centre of the street, walking the shortest plausible path. A normal suburban lot gives 40 to 70 feet. A deep lot, a corner lot or a house set well back can give 80 to 120. If your cleanout is at the property line and you have no idea where the main is, assume the centre of the road.
Every extra foot is real money. On an open-trench replacement at $120 per foot, being wrong by 20 feet is $2,400 — which is exactly why the length is the first thing to establish before you start comparing quotes.
How to estimate depth
Depth is the variable homeowners forget and the one that quietly doubles a bill. Deeper trenches need shoring, bigger machines, more spoil handling and more restoration.
- Shallow, under 4 ft — common in the warm South and on sandy soils where there is no frost line to beat. Florida, coastal Texas, much of the Southwest.
- Typical, 4 to 6 ft — the default across most of the country. Use this if you genuinely do not know.
- Deep, over 6 ft — cold-climate states where the frost line forces depth, older cities with deep mains, and any house with a finished basement, since the line has to start below the basement slab.
If you have a basement, you are almost certainly in the deep band. If your house sits on a slab in a warm state, you are probably shallow.
Which method should you select?
Select the method a contractor has actually proposed. If nobody has proposed anything yet, run all three and look at the spread — that spread is the negotiation.
- Open trench — dig the whole run, remove the old pipe, lay new. The only option for a collapsed line or a belly, and usually the cheapest per foot in open ground. Destroys whatever is on top.
- CIPP lining — a resin-saturated liner is inserted and cured inside the existing pipe. Needs a continuous, passable host pipe. Excellent under driveways and mature landscaping.
- Pipe bursting — a bursting head fractures the old pipe outward while towing new pipe in behind it. Two access pits instead of a trench. Well suited to old clay.
The full comparison, including what each method does to a warranty, is in Repair Methods.
What the estimate excludes
The band covers excavation or insertion, pipe, labour and standard backfill. It does not include:
- permit and inspection fees — typically $100 to $600, occasionally far more in dense cities;
- municipal tap or connection fees where a new connection is made;
- restoration of driveways, walkways, patios and mature landscaping;
- interior work where the line runs under a slab and has to be reached from inside;
- surprises: rock, an unmarked utility crossing, asbestos-cement pipe, groundwater needing dewatering.
Ask every bidder to price restoration explicitly. It is the single most common source of a “final price” that bears no relation to the quote.
Get three quotes. Put them against the band. If they all sit inside it, you are in a normal market and can choose on warranty and scheduling. If one sits far outside, ask what it knows that the others do not — depth, rock, access, or a scope of work that quietly differs.
Read next
- All cost guides — replacement, jetting, cleanouts, spot repair
- Diagnose the symptom first — you may not need a replacement at all
- Camera inspection — never buy a replacement without one
Model baseline: August 2026. Per-foot bands are re-pulled quarterly. See the Methodology for how the bands are built and the Disclaimer for what this tool cannot tell you.