Sewer Line Excavation in North Metro Atlanta: What to Expect

When digging up the sewer line is the right repair

Excavation, whether for a spot repair or a full sewer pipe replacement, is for damage that no cleaning tool or liner can fix, so the decision should rest on recorded video. Before you accept a quote for a trench, get the full sewer camera inspection video and a written note of each defect's distance and depth.

Trenchless methods are the alternative to weigh first: lining and pipe bursting can replace much of a trench when the pipe's condition allows, and sewer line repair options compares them and the limits Georgia's plumbing code sets.

Also find out whose pipe the damaged spot is. Under the street or in a utility easement, your sewer provider may do the repair itself or limit who digs there, and who is responsible for the sewer line in Georgia explains the ownership rules.

How a sewer line excavation unfolds, step by step

A typical repair runs in this order; your city or sewer provider may add steps.

1. Mark the target. Have the camera technician mark the defect, the pipe's route and its depth on the ground.
2. Ask who may dig there. If the defect is in the right-of-way or an easement, call your sewer provider first; some keep that work for their own crews or approved contractors.
3. Get the permits. Expect a plumbing permit, a city right-of-way or street-cut permit if public property will be opened, and sometimes a provider permit to uncover or connect to its pipe.
4. Request locates. The contractor files a Georgia 811 ticket, and a private locator marks the lines utilities don't, including yours.
5. Dig and protect the trench. Expect hand digging near marked lines and cave-in protection once the trench reaches 5 feet (OSHA).
6. Repair or replace the pipe. Georgia's plumbing amendments call for a cleanout within 10 feet of the public right-of-way (Section 708.1.2), so ask whether the job adds one; see where to find your sewer cleanout.
7. Pass the inspection. The trench stays open until the inspector approves the new pipe.
8. Backfill and restore. Soil goes back in compacted layers, and public property is restored to the permit's standard.
9. Close it out. Keep the final inspection record, the video and the written warranty.

Finding buried lines: Georgia 811 and a private locator

Georgia 811 asks everyone to submit a dig ticket at least three business days ahead, and state law requires one before anyone, homeowners included, digs with mechanized equipment (Georgia 811; O.C.G.A. §§ 25-9-3, 25-9-6). Member utilities then have at least two full business days after the day of the request to mark their lines, and digging under a ticket must happen within 30 calendar days of its effective date. Ask for the ticket number and check the responses before digging starts.

Those marks cover public lines only. Georgia 811 lists the sewer line between your house and the public system as a private line and tells homeowners to hire a private locator for such lines (Georgia 811). Your sewer provider must help mark a lateral only up to the edge of the public right-of-way, without becoming its owner, and if it marks the ground but can't find the lateral, the law has it paint a green triangle at the main pointing toward your address (§ 25-9-7). A plastic or clay lateral with no tracer wire or location record can count as unlocatable (§ 25-9-3), so keep the camera crew's ground marks.

Within 18 inches of either side of a marked line, the law calls for careful methods such as hand digging or vacuum excavation. If a machine strikes a line, the excavator must stop, notify Georgia 811 and the line's owner, and call 911 if the line carries gas or a hazardous liquid (§§ 25-9-3, 25-9-8).

Permits and the inspection before backfill

Georgia's plumbing amendments delete the model code's administration chapter and leave permit procedures to local governments (Georgia DCA), so permit offices, fees and inspection scheduling vary. Who may do the work depends on where the trench runs: Georgia's rewritten licensing law lets a licensed master plumber or licensed utility contractor work from the property line up to 5 feet from the house, but only licensed plumbers may work within those 5 feet (SB 553, new § 43-14-13). How to hire a drain cleaning company in Georgia explains how to check a license.

The inspection decides how long the trench stays open. Georgia's amendments keep building sewer trenches open until the pipe has been inspected, tested and approved, then call for rock-free backfill in 6-inch layers, tamped until the pipe has at least 6 inches of cover (Sections 306.5 and 306.3). Georgia has adopted the 2024 International Plumbing Code with these amendments. DCA's latest announcement, from December 2025, sets January 1, 2027 as the effective date, though an earlier DCA memo gave January 1, 2026; your building department can tell you which edition it enforces (DCA).

City codes echo the rule: Milton and Dunwoody require an underground plumbing inspection after the pipe is laid and before any backfill (Milton § 10-93; Dunwoody § 8-27). Some providers inspect the connection too; in Fulton County, the plumber must call the county inspector at least three days before installing a lateral (Fulton County). This guide is general information, not legal advice; your building department, sewer provider or a licensed master plumber can say what applies to your property.

Trench safety: OSHA's cave-in rules

OSHA calls trench collapses the greatest risk to workers' lives in excavation work and warns that burial under thousands of pounds of soil takes only seconds (OSHA fact sheet; OSHA alert). Its rules for employers include these:

• A trench 5 feet deep or more needs a protective system unless it is dug entirely in stable rock; in a shallower trench, a competent person decides (29 CFR 1926.652).
• The options are sloping or benching the walls, shoring them, or a trench box, and a trench 20 feet or deeper needs a system designed by a registered professional engineer (OSHA fact sheet).
• A competent person inspects the trench daily before work, after every rainstorm and as conditions change; spoil and equipment stay at least 2 feet from the edge; and a trench 4 feet or deeper needs a ladder, stairway or ramp within 25 feet of lateral travel (29 CFR 1926.651).

Alpharetta has written these employer rules into city law: its code adopts OSHA's excavation standards and sends city inspectors to check trench sites for a permit and OSHA compliance (Alpharetta Code, ch. 8, art. IV). Your part is simpler: keep children and pets away, don't climb into the trench to look at the pipe, and ask how a trench 5 feet or deeper will be protected and how it will be barricaded or covered overnight.

Right-of-way work and street cuts

Between the property line and the main, a lateral often runs under public right-of-way: a grass strip, a sidewalk or the street. There the sewer provider decides who may touch the pipe, and the city or state decides who may open public property.

• Fulton County: only the county or a county-approved contractor may repair a lateral or install a cleanout in the right-of-way or a county easement; the owner pays, and the county's fee is due first (Fulton County flyer).
• Gwinnett County: Water Resources maintains the stub from the right-of-way to the main and bars owner-hired plumbers from digging into the right-of-way. To seek reimbursement, its staff must see the excavated lateral before the repair; allow two to three hours for them to arrive (Gwinnett DWR).
• DeKalb County: the county maintains building sewer connections in county street rights-of-way and sewer easements (§ 25-220), and uncovering its sewer takes a written permit from its watershed department (§ 25-252).

A provider's approval doesn't replace the permit to open public property, as Fulton County's lateral connection requirements point out (Fulton County). On a state route, the Georgia Department of Transportation issues that permit; Milton's code sends such permits to GDOT's District Seven (Milton § 48-558). Some cities would rather see a bore than a trench across pavement. Johns Creek allows an open pavement cut only by special permission of its community development director, never when boring is reasonably practical, and requires backfill and repaving under the city's direction at the applicant's expense (Johns Creek § 113-147). Marietta also bars removing or injuring a shade tree in the right-of-way without a city permit (Marietta § 5-4-090).

Permit offices and digging rules in north metro Atlanta cities

Each row names the plumbing permit office and a published rule for digging, right-of-way work or inspections; confirm details with the office before work starts.

The local directory covers every other city and community within 45 miles of Atlanta, with its sewer provider and plumbing permit office.

Restoration, timeline and cost drivers

Some cities check how public property is restored. Milton requires the street, sidewalk and landscaping to end up as good as or better than before and confirms it in a final punch-list inspection (§ 48-560). Woodstock makes a street excavation permittee keep the restoration in repair for 24 months and treats settling in that time as proof of defective backfill (ch. 38, art. II).

Your yard is a contract question. Providers restore little: when Gwinnett DWR digs to add a right-of-way cleanout, it puts back only seed and mulch or sod, not landscaping, trees or shrubs (Gwinnett DWR). Woodstock's rule for street excavators, cutting and rolling the sod and relaying it after backfill, is a fair standard for your contract, along with a promise to return if the trench settles.

Notices and inspections, not digging, set the pace. After Georgia 811's wait, street work can add notice periods: Sandy Springs wants 30 days' notice for a lane closure, plus five business days after approval for resident outreach (Sandy Springs). Then the trench waits for the inspector, and since OSHA requires a fresh inspection after every rainstorm, wet weather can stop work.

Cost follows depth, length and what sits on top. A trench 5 feet or deeper needs shoring, a trench box or sloped walls, meaning more equipment or a wider hole, and a driveway or street adds saw cutting, patching and traffic control. Public property adds fees and conditions: as of October 2026, Sandy Springs lists a $425 flat utility-permit fee for water or sewer installation in the right-of-way (Sandy Springs), and the table shows bond and patching rules elsewhere. What drives drain and sewer cleaning costs explains how to compare quotes.

Next step

Before you sign a quote that includes a trench, ask the contractor for a written dig plan: where the trench runs relative to your property line and the right-of-way, which permits they will pull and from which offices, how the 811 ticket and private locate will be handled, how a trench 5 feet or deeper will be protected, and what restoration is included. Then check that list against your city's row in the table, or with your county if you live outside city limits.