Environmental Pipe Cleaning Services

These guys are based in Ashland, Virginia, but seem to travel up and down the East Coast between Richmond and Philadelphia with a caravan of highly specialized gear. I gather their primary target is commercial property managers. What they are able to do is repair otherwise inaccessible drains 3 inches in diameter and larger. They do it by lining the pipe with a reinforced polymer that hardens to form a smooth durable leak proof surface. The process starts by inserting a camera to inspect the pipe and accurately measure where the liner will go. In my case it went about 18 feet to a sanitary "Y" under the concrete slab by house is built on. The only alternative would have been to dig a trench through my floors and the underlying concrete slab. The trenching would have ruined the hardwood floors in three rooms. Once accurate measurements are made all loose material in the drain is cleaned with high pressure water. You will need a garden faucet for them to draw a around a hundred gallons of water into a special tank. Water from the tank is then pumped at pressures as high as 5,000 PSI to dislodge sediment and scale in the pipe. They repeatedly cleaned and repeated the video inspection until they were satisfied that the drain is clean and smooth enough for the lining. Be prepared for lots of water and debris around the accessible end of the drain -- fortunately they do a nice job of controlling the mess. At this point new equipment is brought in. The liner material consists of a cloth like tube inside of which is a reinforced bladder. The space between the bladder tube and that cloth tube is filled with a precise amount of freshly mixed polymer and rolled flat into a long ribbon (about 20 feet long in my case). From this moment on the polymer begins to harden and the team has about a hour to to complete the job. The action then shifts to the one accessible end of the freshly cleaned drain. Here it becomes obvious that this isn't the kind of job that can be done only occasionally. The 6 people operated like a well oiled surgical team to negotiate the ribbon. One man managed the ribbon as it entered a contraption at the accessible end of the drain -- he would call instructions to the rest of the team. Two men managed to connection between the contraption and the drain. Two men maneuvered the ribbon to feed it as necessary. One man managed the trailer mounted compressor adjusting pressure as needed. The true test of any team, such as these guys, is when something goes wrong. And it did. The ribbon snagged in the crack in the drain pipe. Time was running out because the polymer was hardening. Yet they kept their cool, backed the ribbon out, and delicately worked to find exactly the right air pressure to push the ribbon in but not force it to snag in the crack. Finally, they inflated the bladder forcing the polymer and cloth like outer layer firmly to the walls of the split drain pipe. New equipment was brought in to circulate hot water so the polymer would cure uniformly and more quickly. All this took about 7 hours. Equipment would come in as needed and seemed to be moving on to the next job as soon as it was no longer needed. Here's the thing folks. This technique is comparatively new. It involves heavy messy work that absolutely positively must get done before the polymer hardens. It was entirely be chance that I found these guys but it was obvious that I'd stumbled on what must be one of the few specialist outfits that has the team and experience to make it work. I had to cut off a section of the lined drain when re-plumbing a riser. Naturally I grabbed a magnifier to inspect the cross-section. The interior was absolutely smooth the lining wall was nearly a 1/4" thick and bonded so firmly that the cast iron cracked before the lining would release.