Contractor Gary Miksis saw gaping rot voids in a 500-ft run of pipe with his R.S. Technical TrakSTAR mainline inspection camera system when he was called to perform a troubleshooting inspection in conjunction with a repair for a desperate local homeowner. The homeowner feared her home might collapse into the hillside that was rapidly eroding beneath it as water gushed from the 50-year-old corroding storm drain. One hundred feet of residential line were rotting out beneath her home.
A local contractor had tried to televise the line, but kept losing the camera in the large voids, so Miksis and his crew were called to rehabilitate the bottom rot. With a restored floor, they could create a host shell for pipe rehabilitation and televise the whole line using a TrakSTAR camera on a TranSTAR tractor to determine the best method for rehabilitation.
They pushed a 1-in. PVC pipe through the line beneath and ahead of the camera and tractor. At the first void encountered, they began feeding a slurry of grout through this PVC with a pump. Directly beneath the driveway and retaining wall, they ran into the largest void—about 25 ft—on a rather steep incline, and thickened the grout consistency there to avoid creep during setup. The host pipe rehabilitation was completed in two to three days.
After the grouting cured to allow the full video inspection, the team discovered a hazard, which they had to fix before moving forward with the pipe-within-a-pipe repair. Total project duration for approximately 500 ft of rehabilitation was about three weeks, including installation of a manhole that took about one week.
“A trenchless rehabilitation might not have even been attempted, let alone accomplished without the aid of our R.S. Technical inspection systems,” Miksis said. “This technology has opened up a whole new area of opportunities for us in the world of pipeline assessment and renewal.”
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