Drain Solvers Battles Sewer Breaks with Trenchless Repair

Denver, CO (PRWEB) August 28, 2010

When a 42-inch sewer main ruptured in late August near Hawaii’s famed Waikiki beach, surfers and vacationers were forced to evacuate as crews of divers fought around the clock to stem the tide of an estimated five to 10 million gallons of sewage spewing into the adjacent Ali Wai canal.

Denver plumber Bob Ansel, owner of Drain Solvers, says the municipal utility authorities in Honolulu, and homeowners everywhere facing similar emergencies, can tap into cutting edge plumbing technology to quickly solve the problem and save thousands of dollars in expenses.

“In a perfect world, the repair of underground pipes should have done with trenchless pipe replacement,” says Ansel. “Unfortunately, due to the design of the system used in Honolulu, the underground utilities complicate the repair. With a trenchless solution, these underground pipes could have been swiftly repaired without diving and excavation, and without such a devastating impact on an iconic tourist locale.”

Drain Solvers, which serves the Colorado Front Range from Longmont to Littleton with drain solutions and full plumbing services, specializes in trenchless pipe replacement for sewer lines large and small.

Using trenchless replacement, Ansel and his crews dig small access points to the damaged pipe. The breaks are best diagnosed using camera scopes that video the guts of the sewer lines. Once the break is detected, Drain Solvers’ crews inserts a cable and pulls it through the existing line while simultaneously pulling flexible yet super strong polyethylene replacement line into position. Trenchless pipe repair can be used on sewer lines embedded as deep as 16 feet, and polyethylene lines are rated to last 50 years.

“It happens. But sewer backups in a home can cost the homeowner thousands of dollars to repair,” said Ansel. “And it can break city budgets just like it can break a homeowner’s budget on a smaller scale.”

Until trenchless sewer line replacement was introduced in the mid-1990s, there was no alternative to excavating to repair or replace the sewer lines. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that there are more than 40,000 sanitary sewer overflows in this country each year, and as far back as November 2002 the Congressional Budget Office released projections that U.S. cities will spend $24.6 to $41 billion per year for the next 20 years to meet clean water standards in part caused by sewer line contamination.

According to Ansel, sewer lines in some of Denver’s oldest neighborhoods are only 2 to 3 feet below the ground’s surface, and some of these are subject to crushing when homeowners install a pad for a garage over a line so close to the surface. To protect against that, Drain Solvers runs a camera scope to detect the sewer line’s exact position and condition.

“We also run camera scopes proactively for potential home buyers when a plumbing and sewer line inspection can have a real material effect on the sale,” he adds.

For information on trenchless repair and all of the drain and plumbing services offered by Drain Solvers, visit http://www.drainsolvers.com or call 303-423-1000 to reach Bob Ansel.

###