Highway root cutting
Project challenge
Ringway, working for North Yorkshire County Council, commissioned Lanes Group plc to use its water jetting technology and expertise to help keep roads open and flood-free.
The county council agreed to fund the work because of the heightened risk of flash flooding caused by increasingly volatile weather in the UK.
After successfully clearing high priority culverts and gullies, Lanes was commissioned to carry out a programme of root cutting. Root infestation is a common cause of highway drain blockages, leading to water pooling on roads, increasing driving hazards, and even closing some routes.
Client comment
“Keeping road drainage channels clear, using the safest, fastest, and most cost-effective methods, is of vital importance. A combination of the technology, expertise, and experience Lanes can bring to bear, anywhere in the UK, makes us the go-to specialists for this kind of work.”
Doug Meynell, Area Development Manager | Lanes Stockton.
Project implementation
Roots grow between joints in the drainage lines, or through small cracks in the pipes. They then slow the flow of water, allowing silt and other debris washed off the road to build up, causing blockages.
The Lanes team used a manhole cap to increase the force of jetting equipment on its jet vac tankers from 2,500 pounds per square inch
(PSI) to 7,000 PSI.
At this pressure, the water jets more easily sliced through the roots, which could then be removed from the pipe with the recycler jet vac tanker’s vacuumation system. A CCTV drainage camera was placed downstream from the root blockage so the jet vac engineer could monitor progress.
The high-pressure jetting set boosts the water pressure, but reduces water flow. Once the roots had been broken up, the jet vac tanker’s jetting system, which has a lower pressure but a higher flow rate, was used to drag the debris back to the manhole, where it could be
vacuumed up.
Blast better than bite
The standard alternative root removal process is to use a mechanical cutting system. However, the cutter can get jammed in the pipe and can even damage it. If the cutter gets stuck the only way to get it out maybe to excavate the pipe, causing delays and increasing costs.
Results
• Root cutting was carried out to a high standard.
• High health and safety standards met, with no incidents reported.
• Lanes technology and expertise maximised the amount of highway drainage cleared within the allocated budget.
• Strategically-critical highway drains left clear and free-flowing.
