Sewer line repair, camera inspection, and septic-to-sewer in Jacksonville

Jacksonville has two sewer stories. Much of the city is on JEA sewer through a lateral that is often the oldest pipe on the property: cast iron from the 1920s to the 1970s that has rusted from the inside, clay in the historic neighborhoods, PVC since, with live oaks finding every joint. Many neighborhoods still use septic tanks in sandy soil with a water table that comes up in a wet summer, which is why JEA and the City have been phasing tanks out one project area at a time since the Council approved the program on August 23, 2016.

When you call, say what is happening (backups at the lowest fixtures, gurgling, a wet or sunken patch over the tank or the line, a smell) and whether it is worse in the rain.

Need a plumber? Call 904-750-4911

What the camera shows

A sewer camera inspection is a recording of the inside of the pipe with a locator that marks where the camera is above ground. It is the one test that turns a recurring backup into a decision.

• Roots at the joints: the pipe is intact and the roots are cut and the joints treated, or the line is lined so the roots have no joint to enter.
• Channeling in cast iron: the bottom of the pipe has rusted away and waste sits on the soil. The line is replaced or lined depending on how much pipe wall is left.
• A belly: a low spot where the pipe settled into the sand and water stands. Cleaning does not fix a belly; the section is dug and re-bedded.
• A break or an offset where a tree, a truck, or a storm moved the soil. A spot repair if it is one place.
• Water coming in at the joints in the rain: groundwater infiltration, which is why the backups follow the weather.

Septic-to-sewer: the JEA phase-out and everything else

Where the street is in the program, the connection is the program's job; where it is not, it is a plumbing job with a DEP permit on the septic side.

• The Septic Tank Phase Out program has finished Biltmore C (2022), Beverly Hills West (2023) and Beverly Hills East (2024); Christobel started construction in 2026 and Riverview passed its sign-up threshold and is in design. Within a designated project area, 70 percent of the property owners have to sign up before the project moves to design, bidding and construction, and JEA says physical connections come several years after that; the program installs the water and sewer service on private property, and the old tank is pumped, holed and filled with sand in place.
• Outside a program street, a septic failure is repaired or replaced under a DEP permit (septic permitting moved from the Health Department to DEP on July 1, 2021). On lots under one acre in the Lower St. Johns River basin, a new system has to be an enhanced nutrient-reducing one under the 2023 law.
• A house next to a JEA main that wants to connect on its own: the lateral, the abandonment of the tank, and JEA's connection fees are the three pieces; the contractor quotes the first two and JEA states the third.
• After Irma, and after the September storms that follow, a backwater valve on the lateral is a reasonable question for any house whose lowest fixtures backed up when the river or the main was full; it is a permitted plumbing installation.

Repair, replace, or line

Three fixes, and the video decides: a spot repair where one section is broken; a full replacement by open trench when the pipe is gone (a permitted job, with JEA involved at the connection to the main); or a cured-in-place liner that runs a new pipe inside the old one from the cleanout without digging the yard, when the old pipe is intact enough to hold it. A liner quote should say what it will not fix: a belly and a collapsed section stay what they are.

Ask for the video file and the locate marks, a written scope that names the method and the footage, and the permit number. Any direct contract over $5,000 needs a Notice of Commencement before the first inspection.