Sewer Line Invaders Cost $4,000 to Remove

“It’s never fun to hear four specific words from my wife,” said Jerry G. of Pappillion, Nebraska. “We’ve got a problem.”

Jerry heard those dreaded words after his wife went down to their basement to start a load of laundry. It was not a minor problem, either. It appeared that their sewer line backed up through the floor drain into their basement and half bathroom.

“It was sewage waste, dirty water, and who knows what else,” said Jerry. “It was a total mess.”

Jerry followed his wife down to take a look and immediately came back upstairs to call HomeServe. He had enrolled in several repair plans, including one that covered repairs to his exterior sewer line through HomeServe’s Service Line Warranties of America over a decade ago.

“All my neighbors have been asking what this repair cost, but I tell them I don’t know because I didn’t pay a dime.”

Upon calling, Jerry was connected to Agent Charlie, HomeServe’s Digital Assistant. An automated personality, Charlie answers over 11,000 customer calls per day and is extremely efficient in helping triage their situations to help them schedule repairs, whether they be critical or not.

“Charlie was the most effective and intelligent automated system I’ve ever experienced as a customer,” said Jerry. “She did a fantastic job of providing me feedback and reassurance and connected me with a human agent when necessary.”

Charlie connected Jerry with an agent, who confirmed that the problem would be covered by his repair plan. A. Raymond Plumbing, a local and reliable plumber from HomeServe’s contractor network, was dispatched to the scene.

The plumber from A Raymond snaked Jerry’s sewer line, and said he felt like he successfully broke through an obstruction. He left, with the advice to please call again if the backup reoccurs in the next few days. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. Another load of laundry led to another sewage back up. So, A. Raymond was dispatched to the scene again, this time to run a camera down the sewer line.

This time, they had eyes on the actual culprit: a 10-foot section of Jerry’s sewer line was filled with tree roots.

“Once they discovered the damaged section of my line, they told me that they would put together an action plan,” said Jerry. “At no point in this process did I have any doubts our problem would be fixed.”

A Raymond ultimately replaced 20 feet of Jerry’s sewer line. Ten of those feet accounted for the section filled with roots, with extra cracks found in additional areas of the pipe. When all was said and done, Jerry and his wife saved a total of $3,900 and a whole lot of stress.

“This was a big savings for us, and we’re so grateful to have had HomeServe,” said Jerry. “All my neighbors have been asking what this repair cost, but I tell them I don’t know because I didn’t pay a dime.”