In March 2019, Columbia College, located in Columbia, Missouri, discovered it had a problem. The college had an 8-inch clay pipe with hairline fractures and root intrusions at the joints. The major concern was this issue ran under a very nice courtyard with a special glass drainage system and fancy landscaping that it did not want to tear up. The drainage system had been very expensive, so tearing out 310 feet of pipe would have been a very costly mess.  

Mid Mo Environmental, located in Jefferson City, Missouri, quickly decided cured-in-place pipe would offer the best solution for the college’s needs. The contracting company asked Pipe Lining Supply for help with the project. 

“It was in the middle of a courtyard with some glass drainage, and what they wanted to do was rehab that pipe and put in our CIPP product so it would withstand another 50 years,” says PhuPei Gardner, sales and technical trainer manager at Pipe Lining Supply. “If they had to dig that up, the cost was tremendous. So it was very much a cost-saving option.”

“CIPP is a felt material, people call it a bag or liner,” Gardner explains. “You mix in an adequate amount of resin. Once it’s mixed, you pour it into the bag, and you saturate it or impregnate the bag to the specifications required for that thickness. Then you use our equipment, which is Quik-Shot, to invert and blow that liner into the ground. Once that’s blown in, you get a calibration tube and blow that inside of the liner you just installed, and you either ambient cure, meaning you fill it with air or hot water. We used a boiler system, which is a Quik-Heater. Then you wait until it’s cured, then you pull out the calibration tube and you have a brand-new pipe in old pipe. We completed this project in one day.”

The products used to complete the job included the Quik-Roller Calibration Table to get the exact right amount of Quik-Pox resin, the Quik-Shot System and The Quik-Heater. Mid Mo Environmental used two heaters in tandem to get the correct temperature. 

After inspection with the camera, all of the fractures were repaired, there were no more roots, and no digging at all, Gardner notes. 

“We have customers all over the world doing big CIPP projects,” Gardner says. “We have a lot of guys who will tackle the job on their own, but we also have guys just getting into the industry or using CIPP, and they want one of us there to ensure the project goes the way it should. 

“This technology has been around almost 50 years — it was started in Europe and moved to the states about 28 or 29 years ago,” he continues. “But it’s becoming more popular. More and more consumers and end users are hearing about it. So the trenchless technology is definitely getting out there.”