Lanes no-dig pipe repair technology keeps food factory open

Engineers at Lanes for Drains Plymouth worked round the clock in a race against time to carry out a major repair on a pipe at one of Cornwall’s largest food factories.

They successfully completed the job by working 24 hours a day over a weekend, allowing full food production to resume on Monday morning – and saving the company many thousands of pounds.

Dave Tafner, Regional Manager of Lanes for Drains Plymouth, based at Newham Industrial Estate, Plympton, said: “It was very satisfying for our teams to be able to make such a difference for a customer.

“We were called in on the Wednesday and put together a plan that allowed us to start work on Friday, to not just repair the pipe, but renew it by using no-dig relining technology.

“If we hadn’t completed the work by Monday morning, it would have cost our client thousands of pounds a day in lost production.”

The food company had been experiencing increasingly regular blockages in a six inch cast iron pipe linked to the production process, which disrupted production.

After a particularly bad blockage, it called in Lanes for Drains, the UK’s largest independent specialist drainage company, and asked for a plan to create a permanent solution.

Andy Aldred, Lanes for Drains Plymouth’s Sales Manager, said: “The pipe was four metres underground beneath solid concrete. We carried out a full CCTV survey of the pipe, using a ROVVER robotic crawler camera to record high definition colour video footage inside the pipe.

“The survey revealed that a joint had been displaced, allowing waste water to leak out and creating a snagging point for food waste which was causing the blockages.

“Without a comprehensive solution, the problem was only going to get worse. If we had used conventional repair methods, the factory would have had to close, food machinery would have to be lifted out of the building through the roof, and excavation machines lifted in.

“Then we would have had to dig down through the concrete to get to the pipe before we could repair it. The whole job would have taken a month, so the total cost, in repair work and lost production, would have been astronomical.

“However, Lanes for Drains is a national leader in cure-in-place pipe (CIPP) repair technology. We put together a plan to use a ‘no-dig’ technique to reline the pipe, sealing the joint, which removed the blockage risk.

“The factory shut down production for us on Friday and we had until 8am on Monday to complete the repair which we achieved. It worked very well. To say the client was pleased with the outcome would be an understatement.”

Lanes for Drains Plymouth has its own relining team so was able to respond quickly to the customer’s request for help.

They used a technique called cold cure relining. A polyester sleeve impregnated with resin is fed into the pipe and then inflated. Over time the resin hardens, in effect creating a new pipe inside the old one.

Dave Tafner said: “No dig relining technology used by our engineers at Lanes for Drains Plymouth was perfect for this project. It resulted in minimal disruption, an effective long term renewal of the pipe that has fixed the blockage problem for years to come.

“The other part of the equation is our engineers’ dedication to their job in hand. They worked on a shift system over a weekend at short notice, showing great skill and application to solve this problem. I’m proud of what we achieved.”