Online services charge for answers, so I thought I’d try here first.
On Apr. 10, I had a massive flood of contaminated water in one bathroom, mud backing up in the tub. Called plumbers. They were there late at night. Did a temporary fix. I agreed to let them come back the next day and do a big fix: relining the sewer pipe, which had been invaded by tree roots.
The tree issue: it was planted by the city years ago and they would not allow me to remove it. They planted the wrong kinds of trees all over the place and everyone I know has had sewer issues as a result. I thought that the city ought to pay for at least a portion of the costs, since it’s their tree, right next to the curb, and is their property.
I sent a letter, plus copies of receipts, to Public Works on April 21. No response for a while, so I sent a follow up about 8 days later. They replied today from risk management, saying that they’re rejecting the claim because the repairs are already done and they never got to investigate. They also insinuated that I might have needed a permit.
Hmmm…Interesting. Public works is not open at night and they don’t work on Fridays or weekends. No way was I going to wait on them when I had such a huge mess to deal with. And why would a permit be needed if you’re not building something?
They say I have 6 mos. to file a case and get an attorney if I want to pursue it.
I wonder if I should counter their rejection or escalate this to the mayor.
I think you should go to the mayor or a legislator if you have those. Take it up with your state representative if nothing is done. If you need an attorney to fight this you’ll have to start writing more checks. Things work differently in different places, but I doubt Public Works is the route to resolution. You’re asking someone there to make the decision to approve unbudgeted spending. That won’t be easy.
How much money did you spend on the plumber?
How much more money are you willing to spend fighting for truth,justice and the American Way?
As a matter of principle: yeah, you’re right, you deserve to be compensated.
As a matter of practical, realistic expectations: you’re screwed.
But we Dopers will all clap our hands in applause and give you a rousing cheer of support. Now, doesnt that just warm your heart and make you fee ever so happy?
If you really, really , really want to spend huge amounts of effort–you may have a legitimate legal case, maybe even a class action suit. But it’s gonna cost you a lot of sweat, and a lot of money. Collect evidence from all the neighbors (with dates and reciepts), prove that the city prevented you from removing the trees, etc.
You almost certainly needed a permit for the lining work. A permit isn’t normally needed for clearing a stoppage. If the pipe lining work was done as an emergency measure, your plumber should have obtained a permit the next business day. Contact the plumber and see if they pulled a permit. If they didn’t, get them to put the reason in writing.
I don’t know what you paid for the work, but in LA county (as a representative place in the lower half of CA), a basic permit for sewer repair costs about $60. The penalty for not having a permit is not less than $344, and when they come out to inspect, be prepared for them to be extremely fussy about everything related to pipes and plumbing in your home. If you’re lucky, you can play dumb and they may cut the penlty in half.
The boat has sailed on being able to convince them that the work was urgently necessary and it was not practical to obtain a permit before starting the work. If you got a permit on the next business day, you probably would have been able to avoid the penalties entirely.
As far as the tree roots go - abandon any hope of compensation. I’ve never heard of anyone successfully getting a municipality to pay for damage to a home’s sewer caused or aggravated by invading roots. The generally held consensus is that roots don’t break into pipes - the pipe is already cracked or broken and then the roots come.
They haven’t levied any penalties.
It happened late on a Thursday night, when PW is closed. They’re also closed Friday through Sunday, so I could not have reached anyone till Monday.
The carrot wood tree has moderately invasive roots; if it had had a shallower root system, there might not have been a problem.
The city made it clear years ago that they are tree-friendly, so you don’t dare remove any of them…
However… A few months ago, I wrote a letter and sent photos to public works and to L.A. County dept. of health regarding a tree up the street that was destroying the curb and preventing water from flowing through the gutter, causing a massive pool of standing water that reeked and provided a lovely breeding ground for mosquitoes. The tree was also deforming the street.
They took that one out.
Interesting.
In some areas, the city retains maintenance responsibility for the part of the lateral in the frontage or utility right-of-way easement, or from the cleanout riser in that easement to the main line connection. I don’t know your city, so I don’t know where you’d go to look for that. Ours is here: scroll down to drawing 64.
Odd are against being paid for the relining. But if you can identify part of the pipe as their responsibility, and your pipe guys are willing to identify where the roots were located, you might be able to claim their part of the root removal.
The city is not going to authorize relining the pipe unless they’ve seen the damage, though. Our guys have a little remote vehicle with a camera that runs down pipes, taking a video of the inside. If your repair guys took pictures, Public Works or the Municipal Utility District might be able to evaluate the pipe damage. If there are no pictures, the city is going to assume that you got upsold and really just needed it to be roto-rootered.
Since you’re already talking to everyone, and it’s possilbe that the roots will eventually get through the relining, you may want to ask for an emergency number to call if this happens again. So that next time they can send someone to evaluate the problem after hours. That’s assuming that some part of the lateral is their responsibility. If the whole lateral is yours to keep clear, the number won’t do you any good.
Any way it shakes out, you have my sympathy. Blocked pipes suck.
I mean, have you made a claim with your insurer for the sewage backup? If they reimburse you for the repair, the decision whether to fight with the city won’t be your problem anymore.
This sounds like the type of ongoing problem that local newspapers and television news crews love to sink their teeth into. Time to be the squeaky wheel.
That kind of problem isn’t covered under my policy. They did cover the repairs of the bathroom and hallway floors caused by the plumbers jack hammering in order to access some pipe problems under the floor (breakage, corrosion) that were unrelated to the sewer issue.
No. In fact the protected trees may be a few nice ones indigenous to your area.
eg There is a list here. (A few Oaks but not scrub oak, Californian Bay, Southern Cal Black walnut, and western Sycamore)
End. You did a good job of trying but think of it this way–the King makes the laws, the King decides how the laws applies, the King enforces the laws. The same is true with city hall.