Pipe lining prepares site for new Tesla showroom

Remote access pipe lining delivered by Lanes Group plc has been selected as a sustainable way to refurbish drains beneath a showroom for the world’s most well-known electric cars.

Drainage engineers from the Lanes West London depot have carried out the ‘no dig’ lining work to rehabilitate drains at the site of the new Tesla showroom and service centre in Reading, Berkshire.

A total of 30 remote structural repairs, also known as patch liners, were installed in the drains to repair a range of defects, including cracking and displaced pipe joints. Drains with diameters of 150mm, 225mm and 300mm were rehabilitated in this way.

The pipe rehabilitation was an essential part of ground works that ensured drainage systems across the site were fit for purpose during the first phase of the construction programme.

Lanes, the UK’s largest independent drainage and wastewater specialist, carried out the patch lining work on behalf of architectural design agency Fresh Design.

Oliver Sandrove, Area Development Manager for the Lanes West London depot, said: “We were delighted to have been selected by Fresh Design to complete this important drain lining project.

“Lining defective underground pipes is far more sustainable, safer, cost-effective and faster to complete than excavating and replacing them with new ones and delivers an equally robust and long-lasting solution.

“The movement of heavy vehicles over the site had contributed to the defects. The patch lined sections how have a design life of 50 years and our solution had the lowest possible carbon footprint.”

Patch lining uses cured in place pipe (CIPP) lining to refurbish and strengthen sections of pipe, usually up to 1.5 metres long.

A piece of glass-reinforced plastic fibre is impregnated with resin and then wrapped around an inflatable rubber packer to create a tube. The packer is guided to the defective section in the pipe on the end of a flexible rod, or pulled into place with a rope.

Once the packer is inflated with compressed air, it is left to cure in ambient temperature. The packer can then be withdrawn, leaving a new pipe-within-a-pipe in place.

Tesla is the fastest-growing car manufacturer in the world. Its vehicles are at the forefront of a transport revolution to reduce carbon emissions as a vital contribution to the effort to control human-influenced climate change.