Service
Sewer Relining, Renovation and Rehabilitation
Lanes Sewer Renovation, Rehabilitation and Relining services can help to mend and restore sewer systems, giving them a new lease of life and helping to prevent further damage or disruption. No matter the size of the sewer in question, or whether you’re enquiring as a business or an individual – Lanes is fully equipped to resolve your issue.
Damaged sewers can mean major risks and inconvenience to individuals, businesses, and whole communities, not to mention headaches for the local authority or water and sewerage company (WaSC) responsible for maintaining the sewer network.
Why Sewer Maintenance and Repair is Important
With traffic in the UK reaching saturation point in many areas, minimising disruption to the road network is critical. Little wonder that the travelling public and local communities are keen to see repairs carried out efficiently and quickly, with the least impact on their daily lives.
The knock-on effects of damaged or collapsed sewers include flooding, pollution, foul odours and public health hazards. These are all situations that need to be rectified ASAP, but the sheer logistics of excavating and repairing large sections of sewer can make fixing the problem a real challenge.
CIPP Sewer Repairs
There is good news though. At Lanes, cured-in-place pipe (CIPP) sewer renovation is our default technique in the majority of sewer repairs. And it is good because using CIPP (also called no-dig, trenchless or relining technology), we are able to rehabilitate sewers and drains from 225mm to 2,500mm in diameter without digging up land, roads, or pavements. CIPP relining is an ideal alternative to digging up and replacing large sections of pipe, which can be inconvenient and costly.
At Lanes, our default position in the vast majority of cases is to install a cured-in-place pipe repair or liner, which is cost-effective and minimises any disruption to your business.
With CIPP relining, we make long-lasting fixes and improvements to sewer pipes and drains without the need to dig, which is why this method is also known as ‘no-dig technology’. The CIPP process not only fixes the immediate problem, but also heads off the chance of further issues in the host pipe for years to come.
Lanes has many years of experience in delivering this pipe lining technology, so you can always rely on us to provide the best possible results with the least possible fuss. Call us on 0800 526 488, or fill in our online enquiry form.
What’s involved in CIPP pipe repair?
These ‘no-dig’ or ‘trenchless’ pipe replacement methods involve inserting a liner impregnated with a special resin into a vertical or horizontal sewer or drain. This works for pipes up to 1.8-metres in diameter.
Once placed inside the damaged pipe, the resin-impregnated liner is turned inside out and forced through using either water or air pressure; the liner is pushed out to bond with the interior of the pipe and the resin is hardened using an appropriate curing method, including the application of hot water or ultraviolet light. This curing process effectively creates a new pipe within the existing pipeline, restoring the integrity of the drain or sewer.
Once the new pipe liner has been installed, any lateral connections mapped prior to the lining being fitted are opened using advanced robotic cutters.
Using this CIPP method, we rehabilitate sewers and drains from 100mm to 1,800mm in diameter, accessing the pipe from manhole chamber to manhole chamber. For localised repairs or short sections of drain, we may employ CIPP patch (or point repair) lining. This involves positioning a ‘patch’ (short piece) of CIPP liner which is wrapped around an inflatable packer. Once in place, the packer is inflated leaving the patch to form a new pipe lining to that section of pipe. Several patches may be fitted end to end to make a longer repair.
Full CIPP relining and patch repairs are equally effective for creating long-lasting solutions with minimal disruption. Our expert team always uses the most appropriate method for each situation – you can read about our latest ultra slim-line reline solution here.
What about vertical pipes, downpipes or chutes?
Our no-dig technology has been shown to provide a highly effective method for vertical pipe and refuse chute repairs, which we undertake for a range of clients such as housing associations, landlords, and property management companies. Firstly, we survey the pipes with advanced CCTV cameras, then repair them where necessary using ambient-cure CIPP liner technology.
By adapting the CIPP installation technology we use for horizontal drainage repairs to suit vertical pipes, we have helped clients who would otherwise have been facing total pipe replacement with all the costs that would incur.
For example, we have successfully delivered CIPP installations for cast-iron pipes encased in the stone of a building or other structure. Using CIPP this way allows fast and effective repairs of the existing pipe to be completed quickly and conveniently, where replacement would have taken days or weeks to carry out.
UV Lining Sewer Repairs
Our state-of-the-art ultraviolet (UV) lining process is a key part of our no-dig repairs process, and we continue to invest in new cutting-edge equipment to help us make crucial repairs to collapsed or damaged pipes in a way that’s quicker and more cost-effective than ever before.
With UV lining, our engineers can fix damaged drains and sewers without having to dig up and replace large sections of deeply-buried pipes. This method offers some advantages over conventional cured-in-place pipe (CIPP) repair techniques in many instances.
Read on to find out more about how UV lining works, and the benefits it can deliver; alternatively, you can call us on 0800 526 488 for more information, or fill out our online enquiry form to request a call back to suit you.
How does UV lining work?
The basis of UV drain lining is similar to other forms of CIPP relining: a liner layered with a special resin is inserted into a sewer or drain, before being turned inside out and forced through the pipe by either water or air pressure. The resin then bonds to the surface, creating a new pipe within the old damaged pipe.
The next stage is to cure the resin in the liner. Older methods like hot-cure CIPP involve pumping heated water through the liner at a given temperature for a specified time to cure the material. This can be time consuming and energy intensive. UV lining is quicker and greener, as the resin in the liner cures under UV light from a light train that travels through the pipe. This method cures a liner at a super-fast one-metre-a-minute.
As such, UV lining has become the go-to solution for most drainage repair jobs; you can find out more about how this process works with our in-depth guide to drain relining.
What are the benefits of UV lining?
UV lining CIPP offers similar basic benefits to other CIPP methods in that it provides long-lasting repairs to sewers and pipes without the need to excavate, and can be completed in hours or days rather than weeks.
However, the UV method also offers some additional advantages. Compared to more traditional no-dig CIPP, it is faster, with an impressive cure rate of just one metre per minute. UV also requires less equipment, so site set-up and take-down is quicker, making it especially suitable for busy locations like roads, railways and airports, or for geographically awkward sites where there is limited room to manoeuvre.
What’s more, UV provides environmental benefits over the hot-cure method which generates styrene-contaminated water that must be disposed of as hazardous waste. UV lining does not produce any by-products so is safer and more cost-effective.
It should be noted that hot-cure CIPP still has its place and is widely used, for example, where there are bends in the pipe, the pipe is longer than 300-metres or is badly deformed so that the liner may snag and rip as it is being pulled through. It’s important therefore to take advice from an expert drainage solutions provider, like Lanes, who will prescribe exactly the right method for your project.
Get in touch with our team of experts for a no-obligation quote.
Why choose Lanes?
As the UK’s largest privately-owned specialist drainage contractor, Lanes Group is ideally placed to fulfil all of your UV lining and drain repair needs.
Recognised as a pioneer in the use of UV lining in the UK, Lanes has won many UKSTT awards, including one for installing the country’s first chemical-resistant UV liner at the Solutia factory in Newport, South Wales, in 2016. More recently we have spearheaded the installation of UV liners in motorway drainage pipes as part of Highway England’s smart motorway programme.
Our investment of over £1-million in three dual-core UV lining systems from ProKASRO has resulted in us offering faster curing, reduced energy usage, and greater control. These systems have been designed to our own specifications and come equipped with a sophisticated digital monitoring system so that we continuously improve performance and supply to clients. Read more about this technology here.
Along with delivering relining efficiency and innovation, we have vast experience in managing large-scale projects without impacting on our clients’ day-to-day business operations. For more substantial schemes, our individual project managers provide further assurance and expertise.
Lanes has over 20 years of experience in this field, renovating mainline sewer systems regionally — sometimes across entire counties — and nationally. Currently we hold the record for installing the longest single length of liner in a sewer.
As pioneers in lining technology, we are comfortable using any of the sewer renovation techniques including the newest and most innovative: liners cured by UV light at a super-fast one-metre-a-minute, for example. Managing large-scale projects on public infrastructures whilst maintaining services as far as possible for clients and the public is something we do on a daily basis. And we do it well.
FAQs
Trenchless sewer (also known as no-dig or CIPP relining) involves inserting a liner impregnated with resin into the sewer. The liner is forced through the pipe using either water or air pressure, then the resin bonds to the inside of the pipe where it cures to create a pipe within a pipe and restore the integrity of the drain or sewer.
For localised repairs to isolated defects or cracks, we may use short lengths of CIPP liner known as patches or point repairs, which are perfect for rehabilitating specific areas. Sometimes the patches are installed in sequence to create a longer repair. Either approach is as effective as the other, but we would always recommend the most cost-effective solution for each situation.
Our reinforced liner materials are tested for a minimum of 1,000-hours to ensure that they meet the 50-year design life demanded by the WRc (Water Research Centre). Our CIPP lining delivers a safety factor of x2, so our solutions have an effective life expectancy of nearly 100 years.
Installations may also be verified by Exova, the independent testing and calibration service, so you can be sure our CIPP lining work meets the most demanding industry standards.
Repairs using CIPP technology are very competitively priced, though it is not possible to give a fixed figure because each project has to be tailored to the individual application. Contextual factors will include the condition and type of pipe, the size, cure method, equipment required, location, accessibility, etc. Whatever the specification, we ensure that our pipe lining approach reflects your needs and budget.