FEATURES
47
Chopping of walls
losing ground
Trenchless and no-dig solutions for pipe repairs
and re-linings are becoming an increasingly
fashionable and economical way to perform water
repairs, with new technology capable of restoring
the pipes even in the walls of suburban homes.
Brawoliner lines the pipes,
requiring no difficult chopping.
By Warren Robertson
Despite its obviously practical uses, trenchless
technology has not proven to be as groundbreaking
in South Africa as its potential would suggest. The
availability of labour and government’s adherence to
job-creating policies have meant that, while it has
been available in South Africa, trenchless technology
— the ability to repair pipes without chopping, or
trench digging — has remained on the back-burner
despite the potential for significant cost savings.
Very quietly, though, the technology is gaining traction
with the recent No-Dig conference stressing the
importance to government of adopting the technology for
the maintenance of municipal mains.
Yet, it is in the home that this technology has recently
taken another giant leap forward in South Africa. While
some companies have been practicing cured-in-place pipe
repair for some time, allowing pipes to be repaired in the
walls with resin-saturated felt tubes, these systems have
had a number of pronounced shortcomings.
In the old cured-in-place system, a felt tube is fed into a
damaged pipe inside the walls, then impregnated with
resin, allowing it to harden and effectively form a new pipe.
This has proven extremely effective for most applications,
but the system can struggle to turn corners without
bunching, or creasing, and can also crease when faced
with uneven pipes, or pipes where damage causes minor
blockages. This has resulted in jobs only being done in
short strips, or on single runs of straight, evenly worn pipe.
The latest systems, imported from Germany, use the
country’s first flexible textile seamless liners and can
bend corners at 90 degrees with absolutely no creases
www.plumbingafrica.co.za
or folds. This ability allows the liner to navigate slightly
misaligned pipes, as well as those with corrosion caused
by rust with no impact whatsoever on the final cured
repair. The system is also great at handling one of the
other major headaches in relining: watertight repairs to
lateral junctions and connections.
One such system is Brawoliner, which is imported and
sold by Forever Detection. The system works by first
mixing a two-particle epoxy resin, which is then blended
with the liner through an ‘impregnation table’ to ensure
an even wall thickness throughout. The liner is rolled into
an inversion drum and the drum is pressurised by using
air or water. The liner is then pushed through the pipe
ensuring 100% bondage rate. The epoxy both hardens
the liner and bonds it with the old pipe, leading to a
strong, durable, and highly effective repair that can be
done inside the walls of a home, office, or retail space
without unnecessary disruption and can work to repair
pipes made of clay, lead, cast iron, plastic, or a number
of other materials. The process is designed to rehabilitate
pipes with a diameter of between DN50 and DN300.
Forever Detection also offers the Picote coating system,
which is a brush coating. Picote’s focus has always been
to provide a full-service trenchless drain renovation to
property owners. Picote specialises in drain cleaning
and brush coating pipes from DN32 to DN300, and
commonly lines all drains inside buildings, from the
rooftop to the city sewer. Forever Detection and Picote’s
ambition is to advance the use of brush coating inside
buildings to become a common practice. The coating
bonds strongly with iron, PVC, concrete, or clay. This
system is effective on pipes as small as DN32 and up to
DN300. It can also be used for pressurised pipes. PA
The Brawoliner system is simple
to use.
January 2019 Volume 25 I Number 1