Both techniques are part of our initiative to take sewer line repair to a trenchless technology. The conventional method would be to dig up the yard and bust up concrete floors in the basement and do a lot of damage just to get to the existing sewer pipes. It’s a real ugly solution to a very real problem.
We’ve worked hard over the past 18 months to use new technology and take as much of that work as possible to a trenchless system.
Both pipe lining and pipe bursting are trench-less technologies with each name actually describing what is happening beneath the surface.
Pipe lining is a very specialized process where we pull a new liner into the existing pipe, and then we blow that liner up and it basically creates a new clean sewer pipe right inside the old one. We generally use that process right inside the home.
While pipe lining can be used outside the home under the ground, pipe bursting is probably a little bit more economical for that kind of solution.
Pipe bursting consists of taking a really heavy cable and a hydraulic ram, pulling a new pipe into the same space that is there with the existing pipe. So when we pull that new pipe through, we are bursting or breaking the existing pipe that is there and pulling a new polyethylene line into that space. There is no existing pipe left when we’re done pipe bursting. And again, pipe bursting is generally used for main sewer lines outside of the home. You end up with a hole in the ground on each end, but no trench to back-fill and repair.
This is great technology for replacing a sewer pipe that’s already there. You can replace it without digging that whole trench from the house to the curb.
