Purchasing a house built in 1965 -- slab foundation with cast iron waste pipes. I know we will have to replace them eventually. What is the typical cost for a job like this and what is the process involved. House is about 1900 sqft.

A cast iron drain pipe in our 1920 craftsman developed a leak when the place was 93 years old but it was minor enough to just repair. Yours probably still have a few years left, unless you think that trees or something else have gotten into or shifted them? Problems in the yard are a lot more common because of trees but that's not normally cast iron anyway.

our hall bathroom is in the middle of the bedroom wing of our house...an oak tree has grown into the waste line. We periodically augered it ourselves then had it professionally done at increasingly shorter intervals(every 90 days!)

LSS, it was said to be $2400 to bust the slab and replace the line, replace the slab THEN we would have had to hire someone to replace the tile floor and vanity. The line breach is about 12-18" below the floor...costs more the farther down the plumbers have to dig once they get the hole in the slab.

We paid $11,000 but we have a crawlspace. That also included line out to street and sanitary lines in walls. I would expect a few to several thousand more for slab. Edit to say that was our second quote from an independent plumber. One of the chain places, Mr. Rooter, quoted $17,000. Our house is 1965 also, and Realtor told us to start saving when we bought the house....unfortunately it happened the second month we lived here.

They will typically directional bore the new lines instead of tearing up slab.

[This message has been edited by jblhag03 (edited 3/2/2014 11:52a).]

Before they crack, I believe that they can be relined. That may be something to look at.

Otherwise, it'll be an expensive mess because they'll have to tear up the slab from inside the house.

I'd leave them alone until you have a problem!

1969 slab house in Far North Dallas. Damage was all underground, but it cost about $20,000 to replace it all. Which included little men tunneling under the house for days to get the pipe out.

What a drag, it was to be all profit from sale of first house. That and the foundation work accounted for about a $30K reduction from what we expected to make on the sale.

Eventually they will need to be replaced but unless you have 15K or so I say roll with what you got.

I just bought a 1972 slab house, some of the sewer had been replaced with rubber couplings from the cast iron to PVC. It was all tunnel work. But some of the tunnel work had failed, so, me, my father in law and his commercial plumber friend have basically redone all of it. The plumber watches us break and dig, and then does the "smart work". He said he would have charged us about 15K if he and his crew had to do it all.

Luckily the house is getting all new flooring as well we broke out about 44 sackcrete bags worth of slab to get to it all.

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