Gulf Coast Cast Iron · SW Florida
Cast Iron Pipe Replacement in Cape Coral & Fort Myers
Some cast iron is too far gone to line. We replace it with PVC through the slab, and we only recommend it when the camera proves you need it.
Some cast iron is too far gone to line. We replace it with PVC through the slab, and we only recommend it when the camera proves you need it.
Roughly half the cast iron we camera can be lined. The other half cannot, and no amount of wanting it to be cheaper changes that.
Replacement is the bigger job. It costs more, it takes longer, and it touches your floor. Nobody wants to hear it. But there are pipes where a liner has nothing solid to bond to, and lining them just buys a year before you are back where you started.
A pipe earns a full replacement when the base material is gone, not just damaged. The camera makes this obvious.
Channeling erodes a trough along the bottom of the pipe. When that trough breaks all the way through the wall, there is no pipe left on the bottom to hold a liner. You can read how channeling works in why cast iron fails in Southwest Florida.
Fifty years of soil movement and corrosion can flatten a section of cast iron. A collapsed pipe blocks the path a liner needs to travel. There is nothing to line through.
Old cast iron connects at hubbed joints packed with oakum and lead. When those hubs corrode and separate, waste leaks into the soil under your slab. Lining a straight run does not fix a joint that has come apart.
Under-slab replacement means getting to the pipe, which lives in the dirt beneath your concrete floor. There is no way around that, and any company telling you a full replacement is non-invasive is not being straight with you.
We locate the pipe run with the camera and a locator first, so we open the smallest amount of floor that the job allows. We saw and remove the concrete over the failed run, dig out the old cast iron, and lay new PVC to proper slope. Then we pressure test, backfill, and pour the slab back.
You will see us protect the rest of the house before any concrete gets cut. Cast iron demolition is dusty work. Containment is part of doing it right.
A full cast iron replacement in a typical Cape Coral or Fort Myers home runs higher than lining, usually well into five figures, because you are paying for slab work and new pipe, not just a liner. The number depends on how much pipe is bad, how deep it sits, and how much of the run is under finished floor versus a slab you do not care about.
Here is the honest tradeoff. Replacement costs more up front and disrupts your home. In return you get brand new PVC that will outlast everyone reading this. Lining is cheaper and cleaner but only works when the host pipe is sound. We lay out the full comparison in lining vs. replacement and real numbers in the cost guide.
Most repipe companies in this market sell replacement and only replacement. Their camera always seems to find a reason to dig. We work the other way. We run the camera, and if the pipe can be lined honestly, we tell you, even though replacement is the bigger ticket for us.
That is the whole point of being the referee instead of the salesman. If your pipe genuinely needs to come out, you will know exactly why, and you will have seen it on the screen yourself.
A 1962 home in the older part of Fort Myers, cast iron main under a hallway slab. The owner hoped to line it to save money. The camera showed the bottom of the main was simply gone for a twelve foot stretch, worn through by channeling. There was no host pipe left to line. We replaced that run and, because the branch lines checked out, left them in place. Full honesty saved him from paying to line a pipe that would have failed anyway.
You do not have to decide today. Send us your 4-point report and we will tell you whether replacement is even on the table for your home. Upload your report here.
Upload the report or a photo of the pipe. We will read it and tell you what it actually means for your pipes - repair or replace, honestly, no site visit needed. We respond within one business day.