Winter 2013 Sewer Flooding

This past January the lateral sewer line leaving the chapter house broke causing flooding in the basement of 2510.  The repairs and cleanup are finished and the insurance claim is complete.  Unfortunately since the problem was outside the foundation itself the break itself wasn't covered by insurance, only the cleanup after the deductible.  The total cost to the Kappa Sigma Housebuilding Association was $7,685.  Please see the photos above and description below and consider donating to help offset this unexpected cost. 

Remediation and Repair

After the immediate cleanup and clearing of the blockage we had the line video inspected and a large hole 6-10 feet outside the foundation was found (you can see a photo of part of the hole and blockage above).  The inspection camera could not get past this large 6 inch section of missing pipe due to it being in the bottom of the pipe. The cause of this hole was most likely a small rock buried near the pipe during construction and the constant freeze/thaw cycles simply worked the rock into the pipe until it broke. 

Traditional repair methods would have required excavating the area immediately behind the kitchen of the house, including removing the ramp/deck and probably the concrete pad for the garbage container, then replacing the lateral sewer line. Fortunately we were able to find a cure-in-place pipe lining contractor able to line the pipe with a new tube/epoxy combination that results in a full-strength seamless pipe with a 50 year life.

Once the initial hole was patched the line was reinspected and a 2nd infiltration was found further out, we used the same pipe lining technique to complete the repair and prevent future problems.  The pipe lining was done by Drain Services, Inc. of Fargo.  We can highly recommend them, they were very flexible and great to work with, doing the work overnight to minimize the disruption to the members, as the water had to be completely shutoff during the work and epoxy cure time. 

Fundraising

Although every effort was made to minimize the cost of this flooding, the unexpected expense has stressed the finances of the house corporation and we have now set a goal of raising money to recoup this cost by the end of the year.  If you are able to assist with this effort, please consider making a donation using the above link, you can now make a donation online using your credit card. 

The donation page above is very easy to use and we hope will allow more of our alumni brothers to make donations.  Although there is a small fee incurred with those donations, if you wish to make a larger donation or just simply don't want to use a credit card you can of course still send a check to:

Kappa Sigma Housebuilding Association
c/o Josh Christianson
  4538 Homestead Circle
  Grand Forks, ND 58201