The City of Dauphin has an opportunity to try out a new way of repairing water mains that don’t require tearing up a street.
The city is planning to utilize trenchless technologies for the rehabilitation of a water main on Marigold Street.
Sharla Griffiths, the Assistant City Manager says this new way of repairing pipe will save not only the streets but taxpayer money.
“Typically if we were to replace a water main we would have to dig up the street, dig up that water main, and disrupt the connection to the houses on that street for several days. We would provide basically garden hoses to get water for them or we would do it in chunks which would take a lot longer but it would be less disruptive to the residents.
This means the entire street minimally requires new asphalt to be installed or the entire street needs to be reconstructed. In most situations, water main renewal is planned with the total reconstruction of a street the following year.
Cured-in-place-pipe is the way for the city to create a new pipe inside of an old pipe by installing a liner that is inserted and hardened inside the existing pipe. The city has done this before, but the company Canadian Induracoat Corporation can use a trench method to save the street.
She explains how the services from the Albertan company will work.
“This way we are looking at doing a cast-in-place pipe and it is using a non-invasive technology. So there’s a pipe is re-lined and there’s structural integrity to it, so it is strong just like a new pipe.”
The company was already coming out to do work for another community in the province. Now Dauphin can work with the other community to cut down on travel costs.
Sharla Griffiths, the Assistant City Manager says this is a special case and will only be used infrequently.
“I don’t know if this will become the norm, but if it works, if this project goes smoothly, it may be another tool in our toolbox. For water mains under streets that need to be repaired and need to be dug up anyways, I think our traditional methods would suffice. At the same time, we would also put in new pavement if that was part of the bigger plan.”
Lead pipes need to be replaced in Dauphin and Griffiths says the normal way of repair will be used.
With the new method, the city ends up with an old pipe that is just as strong or stronger than the pipe was when it was first installed. This method saves the city money as they don’t have to do major road work.
