How Much Does Sewer Line Replacement Cost in Tennessee?

One national cost guide puts the average sewer line replacement at $2,000 to $10,000 for a 40 foot line. That is $50 to $250 per linear foot, with a national average of $6,000. A second national guide reports $3,319 on average, in a range of $225 to $10,000.

These are market numbers, not our price list. Every dollar figure below comes from published national cost guides. Estimates for sewer line repair and replacement are free, and each one is priced from the line in your yard.

What does sewer line replacement cost by length?

The national guides price the work by the foot, so length sets the base. The first guide lists replacement at $50 to $250 per linear foot. Its table adds that up by length.

Your length is the run from the house to the city main or to the septic tank. A house set far back from the street usually has a longer line.

The second guide prices trenchless replacement methods at $60 to $250 per linear foot. Pipe bursting breaks the old pipe apart underground while pulling new pipe in behind it. CIPP lining cures a new liner inside the old pipe. Our crew digs the trench and lays new pipe with its own excavation equipment.

What do sewer line repairs and add-ons cost?

Not every sewer problem needs a new line. The two national guides also price the smaller jobs, plus the extras that come with a replacement.

The two digging rows sit far apart, and they come from different guides. The first lists trench digging at $5 to $12 per linear foot. The second puts excavation alone at $50 to $200 per foot, depending on soil type, depth and access.

What makes one sewer line cost more than another?

Depth changes the dig. A deeper line means a bigger trench and more dirt to move. That is the excavation row in the table, and it climbs with depth.

What sits on top of the line changes the cleanup. Under lawn, the trench gets backfilled and raked down. A driveway or patio over the line has to come out and go back. The second guide puts yard or driveway restoration at $1 to $25 per square foot.

Some lines cross a road to reach the main or the tank. Our crew handles those crossings itself. It saws the asphalt, sets the line and patches the road.

Pipe material decides how much of the old line is worth keeping. The first guide says outdated Orangeburg and clay sewer pipes last 30 to 60 years. Orangeburg is a fiber pipe made from layers of wood pulp and coal tar pitch. It went into the ground through the 1970s.

Access counts twice. The machine has to reach the line, so a fence or a tight side yard slows the dig. The pipe needs a way in as well.

A cleanout is a pipe that rises from the service line to the ground surface. It gives access for cleaning and inspection without opening the yard. The first guide puts adding a sewer cleanout at $500 to $2,000.

Should you repair or replace the sewer line?

Start with a camera. A sewer camera inspection shows what is wrong inside the pipe and where it sits in the yard. The two guides put that visit at $125 to $500 and $100 to $500, and our sewer camera inspection cost guide breaks that price down.

If the pipe is sound and the trouble is a clog or roots, cleaning may be enough. Hydro jetting or drain cleaning clears the line without a trench. The second guide puts main line clog clearing at $200 to $600 and root removal at $100 to $600.

If one section is cracked or crushed, a spot repair replaces that length and leaves the rest. The second guide prices a cracked pipe spot repair at $600 to $1,050. Depending on the method, the first lists sewer line repairs at $150 to $3,800.

A line that plugs again a few weeks after cleaning often has damage that cleaning cannot fix. Roots at joint after joint, or a line that sags, point the same way. That is when full sewer line replacement makes sense.

Who pays for which part of the sewer line in Tennessee?

That depends on where your line ends and who runs the system past it. In Nashville, Metro ordinances make the homeowner responsible for the whole service line. The Clean Water Nashville program says the property owner owns and maintains it from the building to the public main. A break anywhere between the house and the main is yours to fix.

The same program says cleanouts there are typically PVC, set in a utility box near the property boundary. That box gives a camera or a cleaning head a way into the line. For local work there, see septic and sewer service in Nashville.

Millersville runs its own city sewer system. Its Sewer Division, under Public Works, installs and maintains the city’s sewer lines and marks the underground sewer utilities. On city sewer there, ask the division how it handles the line at your address before any dig. Our page on septic and sewer service in Millersville covers homes on city sewer and on septic.

On a septic property, the sewer line runs from the house to the tank. No city main is in the picture, so the whole run is part of your septic system. A broken or sagging line there sends solids where they do not belong. We repair the line and its connection at the tank in the same trench.

Who replaces sewer lines north of Nashville?

Wiley Rooter and Septic Pros is based in Greenbrier, in Robertson County. We repair and replace sewer lines across Robertson, Sumner, Cheatham, Davidson and Montgomery counties. The crew does its own excavation and its own road patching on sewer crossings.

The company is licensed, insured and bonded, and brings 20 years of septic and sewer experience. Estimates are free. Call or text (629) 285-6381, or see how our sewer line repair service works.