New sewer pipes replace 120-year-old pipes without digging

Those workers you saw at manholes on Cedar and Balsam Streets today were saving you a lot of  hassles… and City Hall a lot of money.

Director of public works and engineering Pat Seguin says they’re building new sewer pipes… without having to dig.

“We’re manufacturing pipe within the old pipe.”

To do that, they insert a liner into the 120-year-old clay pipes before the clay disintegrates due to old age.

“You blow the liner inside the pipe,” Seguin outlines. “It forms itself to the pipe and then, with steam, they cure the chemical.” …And that now-hard liner is the pipe.

“They’ll send a robot in,” Seguin continues, “and it’ll cut out where the services – because the building services go into the pipe.  It’ll cut out the hole where the service was and take the cutout and remove it from the pipe and then you have an active sewer.  So there’s very little disruption to the sewers.”

Seguin says current estimates put the lifespan of the new pipe at about 50 years.

The best part is that the city can now replace ten times as much pipe as it used to, for less than half the cost.