January 17, 2017

Trenchless Solutions for Upgrading Your Pipes

Trenchless solutions are highly sought after for commercial pipe repairs. Upgrading your pipes before a big disaster hits, is a great way to avoid costly repairs. Trenchless solutions are less damaging to your landscaping, easy to integrate with your existing pipe network, and have a longer lifespan than traditional pipe repair. You have two main options for upgrading your pipes: CIPP and pipe bursting.

Cured in place pipe repair

Cured in place pipe (CIPP) repair is an all-around upgrade for your pipes. Epoxy mixed with resin is carried by a flexible liner through your pipe system. Once the liner is in place, hot air, and sometimes UV light hardens these materials into a solid, plastic pipe inside of your old system. This new pipe offers significant advantages over traditional pipe.

CIPP is very strong. This is great for large diameter pipes where the interior pressure can get very high. CIPP can reline 100-inch diameter culverts and similar pipes without the need for corrugation. The smooth interior presents low friction for the liquids within. CIPP can handle heavy loads without the same issues as traditional pipes.

CIPP is also seamless, save where lateral lines are inserted. This is great for landscaping that was heavy on trees and shrubs. Your office block will look prettier with these additions, but they can be hard on the pipes that circle the building. Trees love to get their roots into lines at the seams. This provides them with easy moisture, but allows water to get out of the line. It also allows air to get in, prompting pipe clanging and gurgling. The seamless pipes of CIPP cut down on the risk that tree roots will invade the lining.

Cured in place pipes have a long life-expectancy. You can upgrade an old pipe to a brand new one with as much as twice the expected life usage. This represents great savings for the company in the long term. CIPP can last twenty to thirty years in relatively good shape. If you care for it and give it regular maintenance, your pipes could last even longer.

Pipe bursting

There is one upgrade that CIPP can’t do: make your pipes larger. If you want a trenchless solution that will increase the size of your pipes, you can’t use CIPP. After all, you can’t put in a liner larger than the size of the host pipe. Pipe bursting, on the other hand, can replace an old pipe with a larger size. The flexible new pipe is attached to a bursting head. This is drawn through the pipes. It peels away the old pipe and lays the new pipe into the originally bored track. Pipe bursting is the best way to get a larger pipe in place without digging your entire area up.

Pipe bursting is key to upgrading your piping when you need a larger pipe. CIPP is great for protecting your pipes from thirsty Texas trees. It can also last a long time, placing this upgrade in the long-term improvement category. Between the two, you have great options for upgrading your pipes without digging ditches.