People get very frustrated when a sewer main breaks in a neighborhood. There is the inconvenience of having the water shut off; the streets tore up and of course all the noise. In most areas, cities choose to do costly replacement of pipe but there is an alternative. Pipes can be repaired instead with less cost and less time on the job.
 
Cured in place pipe (CIPP) lining allows pipes to be repaired without digging them up. Pipes can be lined with different materials then cured in place to form a seal inside the pipe. With fiberglass pipe lining for example, the pipe will be good for another 50 years at a minimum and the cost is about two thirds the cost of replacing a pipe.
 
The U.S. market offers several cured in place pipe options including PVC, felt and fiberglass liners. Fiberglass pipe liners exceed the curing speed and strength of any of the other products. Cured with ultraviolet light, fiberglass liners go far beyond other products in strength, reliability, speed of installation and environmental impact. It is the most cost effective in the rehab of pipe infrastructure worldwide. UV light curing technology has been around for decades first introduced into the German CIPP marketplace as an alternative to heat cured felt lining. Since that time, felt lining has steadily lost favor.
 
If comparing fiberglass liner to felt,the curing time for felt liners is 2.5 hours
 
but only 50 minutes for a length of 300 feet of 8" UV CIPP fiberglass liner. There is also one to two hours cooling time for felt and zero for fiberglass. So if you look at just the curing speed, you can see how UV cured fiberglass liner is superior to using felt. But add to that the fact that the fiberglass pipe lining does not shrink (felt shrinks up to 13%, requiring residual grouting and lateral seals) and you really see how using fiberglass CIPP liner is a time and money saving plan.
 
Another plus for fiberglass lining is the fact that it is environmentally friendly. Felt liners which are cured with steam or hot water produce styrene-laced water as a by-product which is harmful to the environment.
 
So What is the Pipe Lining Process?
 
In the case of fiberglass CIPP lining, the broken pipe is cleaned and a robotic camera is run through the pipe noting any issues that may need to be addressed before the lining is installed. A pre-liner is first pulled into the pipe then the fiberglass liner is pulled inside that. The liner is then inflated and the UV light curing device is pulled through via a computer which controls the speed, temperature and pressure of the process carefully monitoring all steps.
 
When the cure is complete, the ends of the liner are trimmed and a cutter is inserted and precision cuts are made at each pipe feeding into the main. A length of 300 feet of 8 inch UV CIPP liner can be cured in 50 minutes - compare that to digging up a whole street.