Remuera Branch Rehabilitation 1 & 2

PipeWorks rehabilitated a critical wastewater pipeline in Remuera.

Part of the original pipeline, built in the early 1900s, lies underground and had suffered damage from tree roots. The first stage, which took around two months, involved bypassing the existing pipe and laying a substantial temporary pipe through the mangroves. Generator-powered pumps, manned 24 / 7, kept wastewater flowing through this pipe.

The second stage involved relining the old pipeline using Cured In Place Pipe (CIPP) technology. Effectively, this involves inserting a resin-soaked ‘sock’ into the old pipe and, when cured, this provides a snug, permanent barrier within the old one without losing much of the capacity of the original.

This isn’t new technology as such, but its application for this project required some innovation. Normally speaking the ‘sock’ is soaked with the resin off-site before being trucked to site and inserted into the existing pipe. However due to the large size of this particular pipe and the time-critical nature of curing the resin, it meant a resin-impregnating plant was set-up on-site. Close verification of every stage – from getting exactly the right resin mix, to impregnating the sock, through to curing the resin once it was inside the pipe – was imperative because failure at any one point would have meant disaster: If something is wrong once the new liner is in the pipe and has been cured (i.e. fixed permanently in place), it’s a huge problem to overcome.

Articles

When the pipes are rooted
PipeWorks recently completed rehabilitating a critical Auckland wastewater pipeline in Remuera for Watercare.