Housing chiefs draw on local expertise to rehabilitate drains

Patch lining

Drainage engineers from Lanes Group plc have carried out a comprehensive programme of drain rehabilitation to renew pipes serving homes in Plymouth.

Teams from the Lanes Plymouth depot uses the full array of their pipe renovation services to complete the project on behalf of the city’s largest social housing landlord.

A CCTV drainage survey, also carried out by Lanes Plymouth, had revealed multiple defects in drainage pipes serving the 12 homes in Pembroke Street, Plymouth, including cracking, displaced joints and one partial pipe collapse.

Plymouth Community Homes, which owned the properties, was keen to ensure the pipes were rehabilitated, and that the repairs were high quality and would provide a long-term, cost-effective solution.

The housing association, which manages 16,000 homes, commissioned Lanes, the UK’s largest independent drainage specialist, through a process of competitive tender, to carry out all necessary drainage renovation work.

Wayne Clemens, Lanes Plymouth Operations Manager, said: “We have the expertise and resources here in Plymouth to carry out significant drainage renovation projects.

“If necessary, we can also call on national service teams, such as our lining division in Manchester. In this case, though, we had all the resources we needed here in Plymouth to get the job done.”

Lanes always considers first how it can deploy no-dig drainage rehabilitation methods which cause least disruption to service users residents, can be completed in less time and often at less cost to the client.

In this case, all but one of the drainage defects could be repaired by installing pipe liners or local structural liners.

A 27-metre-long resin-impregnated liner was installed in a 150mm-diametre clay pipe which had defects along its length.

The glass-reinforced plastic (GRP) liner was inflated inside the pipe with water, which was then heated to ‘hot cure’ the resin, to create a tough and durable cured in place pipe liner (CIPP).

Liners were installed in two other pipes, one 12 metres long, the other three metres long. Four point liners – also known as patch liners – one a metre long, the others 0.5 metres long, were also installed, see picture above. All these short liners and point liners were cured in ambient temperatures.

A robotic cutter was also used to reopen three lateral connections that had been closed by the pipes being lined. Finally, a pipe that the CCTV survey showed had partially collapsed was excavated and a one-metre section was replaced.

All the work was carried out safely, with no reported incidents or complaints from the public in five days, without the need for traffic management.

Wayne Clemens said: “The success of this project demonstrates our ability to deliver high quality complex drain and sewer rehabilitation programmes in a timely and cost-effective way, with local teams and expertise, which benefits the local economy.”

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