 I was called out by a contractor, who was having a problem locating a residential sewer line. He had a brand new inspection camera and one of the best locators on the market but he couldn't find the pipe. What he needed to know was where the sewer exited the customer's property. He knew where the pipe exited the house, but he could not determine where his repair would terminate. The line was totally blocked with roots and he could not get his equipment far enough down line. The line exited the house at an angle, so he was nervous about bidding the job. He didn't know if the line was 30ft, 40ft, or 50 ft long. He wasn't sure if the pipe traveled under a new concrete driveway. When you're estimating , you need to know exactly how long the line is, how deep it is, where your repair begins, where it ends and if there any obstacles to your trenching. Without knowing these values, you're guessing. You can try to bid this project on "time and material", but in today's world where most of your competition bids on a flat-rate basis, T&M is a very tough sell. So he called me to assist him in finding the property-line connection, it is denoted in the drawing by a (?). That's where a sewer changes to lateral. I arrived at the site and assured him that this was not a problem.
 There is a very simple way to find a lost sewer. A lost sewer is a line that is either too deep for your locator's capabilities or there are too many obstructions in the pipe that will not allow you to send your camera or locating transmitters to where they need to go. He was amazed when I was able to get the information for him by simply making a phone call. Let me tell you how I did it.
Many municipalities will give you this information over the phone. For those who will not, you must go to the Dept. of Building and Safety and visit the help counter for their department of Engineering. Tell them you need a LATERAL LOCATION. All they need is the job address. They then go to the "map archive" room and a few minutes later, they re-appear with a sewer map of that neighborhood. The lateral (also called side sewer) is that section of sewer that is installed when the main sewer is put in. It travels from the center of the street up to the edge of the property. It is then capped-off until a developer builds a house on that lot and connects the house sewer to it. This "stub" is documented with the Department of Engineering. It is located directly below the property line which in my area is directly below the edge of the city sidewalk closest to the structure or house. Laterals are always under public property or within a city easement that travels through private property. If you are converting from a septic system to city sewer, this stub is where you connect to. The counter person will provide you with a few measurements
which are distances from manholes. The main sewer is the public sewer that travels down the center of the street. By the way, main sewers always run in a straight line from one manhole to the next, there is never a bend or a turn. Changes of direction are achieved inside the manholes. If the street curves, the pipe does not. If you draw a string from one manhole to the next, the sewer main is directly below that string. If a main had bends they could not be cleaned by the city's rodding machines. Rodding machines do not make turns, they must follow a straight line.
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