Trenchless Technologies - No One Wants To Fix It

GA...
If you can offer cost savings and a gaurantee, that's what will sell it.
Municipalities don't actually care about inconveniencing the public...in fact the ones in the UK seem to delight in it...
"Lets close a lane or two just for the hell of it, in case a workman may want to stand somewhere nearby for 30 seconds sometime in the next week".
The police are just as bad..."Heck the motorway is jammed solid a few miles down, but hey, let e'm join the motorway regardless"

Del

perfect its more of selling the technology to traditionalist.. get them in let them try...one of your on going project plus ask on how they take their coffee (Eh!!)

Jhun

As a Civil Engineer who works in municipal engineering who has designed and written specification for both methods of pipleine installations, I can say that trenchless technology will infrequently be a cost effective means to addressing pipelines issues for most Cities' projects. Keep in mind that most Cities will upgrade/upsize during such replacement of pipelines. Trenching is actually a very cheap process in most city projects that can be done in low traffic areas (also you can tack on some pavement repair components). It is a common practice to use jack and bore or horizontal borings in high traffic areas or under sensitive areas (california Aqueduct, Interstate 5, or any caltrans highway, etc..). Trenching has its applications and they are the most cost effective, based on the cost experience with both technologies, when it is allowable. Any attempts to sppok City Engineers into spending a much larger amount of money to avoid disrupting some residential traffic loads during mid day, yes the whole 5 cars, is just going to be laughed off,a nd then no one would take you serious after that. You need to prove a cost savings in these low traffic situations that also allows the City to upgrade the pipelines, without all the expensive problems and uncertainty that come along with trenchless installations. Hmm, a not to exceed contract without change orders that came ijn under budget where you under bid a standard installation contractor for a residential project would be a good example.

RCE,

that is exactly the mindset that i fight with, day in and day out. What you are failing to take into account would be the technology that we are employing, or it's application. I'm talking simple applications, such as manhole rehabilitation, storm culverts and sewer mains. Your basic utilities don't require the use of trenchless technology because you are right, trenching does work better in those instances. I'm not talking about rehabilitating a 6" water line. I'm talking about 40 feet of 90' galvanized steel culvert. Or, better yet, 120' of 40" oval concrete culvert broken down into 3 culverts side-by-side. that's about 50' of road that would be destroyed by replacing those culverts. it's in a high-traffic area as well and would be difficult to replace. yet our team of 3 guys could go in, clean all the junk out of the pipes and line the interior with a CFRP in about 4-5 days. you couldn't touch that with excavation, replacement, grading, paving etc. And, best yet, we wouldn't need to shut the road down at all. I'm just saying that not everything needs replaced. The whole point behind trenchless technology is not to gouge money for a system that doesn't work, it's a system designed solely to alleviate the need for new material production and the disposal of the old. We think long-term towards the environment and nature. Too many people have the mindset of "well, it's broke. time to get a new one." The old one goes in the trash, the new one gets bought from a retail store, the shelves get stocked from the warehouse, the warehouse orders more and the manufacturing company puts more time and energy into making something we could have just fixed. Now obviously, this does not go for everything; it's a generic statement designed to get you to think. But it can apply to most things...Think about it.

In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high. - Henry David Thoreau

Rehabilitation would be different then trenchless installations. However, again whehn a system starts to fail frequently it corresponds to a period when that system needs to be upgraded for water, sewer and storm sewer. A culvert crossing a road in a rural area would likely be a different story, or one is a long established and developed area (in other words flow conditions and design practice have not change substantially in the 25 years or so since it was installed). Cities use the opportunity of repairing the system to upgrade to meet current standards for new flow conditions developed since the City has grown, which means new facilities need to be isntalled. In high traffic arteries that can not readily be diverted, we would consider a trenchless installation, or in areas sensitive to trenching or where it was not allowed (such as crossing railroad ROW).

Hello JP,

Can I suggest that you do a stretch of piping, of say 100 meters and do not ask for payment. With the proviso that a section of the mended pipe is dug out after six months to prove how effective your way of working is?

As long as you can keep the cost down to less than it would be to close the road, dig it up, and replace the pipe, and then repaint any 'white lines or yellow lines' on the surface, before opening the new road.

After the free mended length has proved its worth, it would pay the Council or Borough to get your company in rather than do it the hard way?

Or perhaps you can build a length of trench above ground, in a long box section, leaving one side of the box section made of Polycarbonate sheet to see through it.

Bury any pipe to be mended in the earth in the box section, and then mend the pipe with invited 'important' Council and Government people watching.

Just a thought.

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At least if they dig up road to repair a pipe they will fill the void which invariably forms under the pipe. Does your "trenchless" method address this problem?

I have seen this used several times locally, and nationally. The biggest problem I see is that most engineers like to speak to someone who can answer their questions, not some salesman that just wants to take them to lunch and sell them something! Being an engineer, I get tired of the sales pitches with no back-up when I ask a question. It's not always the best product that gets bought/sold. However, if you can't answer a question, and never get back to me, I am not going to buy the product, no matter how good it is!

Hello JP,

I cannot recall where you are if you posted it? But it may be time to think bigger and check out not only Phone companies and water companies in you Country, but, perhaps try a demo as I described inside a clear box. Or perhaps try other Countries, Europe for instance and simply ask if they have a troublesome area and can you demonstrate your process to let them see how effective it is? You could also try Cable TV and Phone companies as well as they are always expanding and if they take your process on it will save them a whole amount of money!

Email me a link to your website and I will see what I can do.

http://www.midwestpipelinerehab.com

James,

The many techniques included in trenchless methods have been widely used and accepted by many large municipalities for a number of years. Houston, Texas, for example, has replaced/repaired perhaps several hundred miles, if not thousands of miles, of their aging sewer infrastructure using a number of different trenchless methods, and they are very proactive and responsive to any new techniques and materials that are introduced.

Presumably, your organization is a member of either the International Society of Trenchless Technology or the North American Society of Trenchless Technology, or maybe both, from either of which is available a wealth of experience and support from contractors, manufacturers, suppliers, consulting engineers, and public utilities departments who are members and who have had to learn the methods, sell the processes, and build the confidence in the methods that they promote.

Improvements in methods, equipment, and materials are being made on a constant basis and offer many new opportunities for those in the business to provide more valuable services to the owners of utility systems.

doogleass,

we actually are a member of the ISTT. there have been some probes into the texas area, especially lately, as president obama just approved the whatever billion dollar stimulus fund to improve roadways in texas. the state of texas alone recieved about 2.2 billion dollars for txDOT and local communites to fix roadways.unfortunately they only have about 120 days to decide what to use it on. that's a very limited window to get into, when they already have an idea on what to use it for.

All have brought up good points... let's see if I can address each in their own...

Old coal man- it seems you've had some wine and dine salesman come your way in the past. I understand the need to have questions answered directly without any hem-hawing. I actually don't do the wine and dine approach. I have never wasted a potential clients' time by shoving food in their mouth so they can't actually talk to me about the subject at hand (that's how i look at it...95% of the time) If an engineer asks me a question I can't answer, I tell them I don't know. Simple and straightforward. Fact is, I'm not an engineer. So logically I'm not going to know as much as someone who went to school for 8 years. But I can attest to the best product not always being bought or sold. Currently, CIPP accounts for almost 75% of the US pipeline rehab projects and it's just a band-aid. It won't stop infiltration, it doesn't address pipe integrity or structural support, yet it's bought and used by almost every municipality known to man.

Randall - in a short answer yes. the void is filled with a variety of solutions. anything from simple mortar or concrete to mixable compounds that do not require water or air to expand.

babybear - the free is something we've offered. however, no one wants to be the first to dive in off the high dive. first rule of thumb is there are no free lunches. someone has to pay. plus it would kind of defeat the purpose of mending or rehabilitating the pipe to last for 50 yrs if they are just going to dig it up 6 months down the road. As for the see-thru approach, once the inside of the pipe is lined, it's no longer see thru.

lynlynch - i'll try to keep the dead babies approach to a minimum. *chuckles* however, sometimes the horrible truth is what get ppl to see the fallacy of their actions.

James,

I guess I didn't read your OP carefully enough. Evidently your business is focused on repairing joints in storm drainage pipes and culverts. In my experience, infiltration in storm drainage is an advantage, provided that there is an appropriate filter zone or envelope, i.e., aggregate, around the pipe, in that this allows for dissipation or drainage of groundwater that could cause other problems. Exfiltration, absent a sufficient envelope of filtering aggregate around the pipe, on the other hand, is not good, in that it often results in 'hydraulic mining' of soil around the pipe and can ultimately lead to major failure of the pipe and structures above it. This phenomenon seems to be most prevalent when major rain events result in local flooding that overwhelms the storm drainage system and catastrophic damage can occur in literally minutes.

I am confused about your statements regarding CIPP, as I thought that it was a suitable rehabilitation technique for sanitary sewer systems that are structurally sound but have significant infiltration from poor joints and improper lateral connections. In the projects that I have observed using this method, the complete process, including rehabilitation of the lateral connections, has been verified by post-construction video inspection and accepted as proper. Also, it seems to me that pipe-bursting and subsequent installation of a continuous, fusion-welded HDPE liner is the more common means of correcting sanitary sewer system deficiencies, particularly when either pipe structural integrity or insufficient capacity is a part of the problem. certainly, with the use of CIPP, there is a reduction in the effective diameter, and therefore, the capacity of the pipe being rehabilitated, although suppliers likely claim that the interior of the CIPP has superior friction coefficients to the pipes being rehabilitated.

If you are dealing with storm drainage piping and culverts, presumably they are large enough to allow manual internal visual inspection and your proposed corrective processes and materials should be much easier to sell on that account. If not, as I suggested in the earlier post, there should be ample, demonstrated evidence from similar procedures in recognized cities, towns, counties, states, elsewhere to offer as support to your sales pitch.

Did I miss something else?

On the contrary, infiltration in storm drainage is not an advantage. It could be if the only thing entering the pipe was water, but it never is. With water comes silt and debris. The silt has to come from somewhere, and it usually comes from above the pipe. In the groundspace above the pipe, excess dirt infiltration causes the voids that cause sinkholes, potholes and road cave-ins. This is a commonly overlooked area with infiltration. When you combine that with exfiltration, it causes the erosion of the surrounding soil much faster than expected. Unfortunately, these problems usually only surface from hard rains or local flooding when a road collapses or a culvert ultimately fails structurally. My original point is that it doesn't help to be re-active in these situations, but rather pro-active, which municipalities aren't willing to do (for the most part).

As to CIPP, it does not stop the infiltration long term, only temporarily. Point in fact, a company our president did some work with a few years back was called in to a job to remove the CIPP liner because it had failed. The lining is only as good as the resin that holds it. The down side to this is that the resin is not designed to withstand high pressure loads and still remain adhesive to the pipe walls. The infiltration (water, sediment, etc.) fills in behind the grout/epoxy/resin (depending on what is used) and causes a "ballooning" effect where the CIPP literally pulls away from the pipe walls. The failed lining then causes the bottleneck effect and lowers the inside working pipe diameter even further. Leaking joints will still lead to eventual pipe failure. With a BIPP (built in place pipe) such as a CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced polymer) lining, the CFRP will adhere to the interior of the pipe, and our product is rated for 2k psi. With the exception of concrete, of course, at which the product will keep adhesion until concrete failure. It is far superior to a felt tube impregnated with resin and has a lifespan that exceeds anything CIPP can offer. With a CFRP, if the pipe deteriorates to dust, the product then becomes the pipe and takes over the host pipes' structural needs. Even with a polyurea lining, the infrastructure of the pipe would be far superior to anything CIPP could offer.

This is an interesting article that addresses the pros/cons of CIPP. I came across it a few months ago. It outlines everything much better than I could.

http://www.wef.org/NR/rdonlyres/224C9002-618B-4E73-B948-EB41E94415C2/0/OF_CIPP_Feature.pdf

Given the number of recent disastrous failures of the water system piping in downtown Cleveland, the cost to the public sector and the age of the piping systems (some >100 yrs old), I would expect that you need to advertise your firms capability to their Water Department or to the Cleveland city council and discuss them with the PD.