“Nu Pipes” for the Standard Bank Building, Pretoria

Site:
Standard Bank Building, Pretoria

Problem:
The Standard Bank Building was experiencing problems with half the full bores on the 3rd and 5th floor of the building.
The pipes are all steel ranging from 75mm to 200mm. The pipes are suspended from the floor slab and covered by ceiling boards.

The facility managers looked at the option of having all the pipes replaced, but a pipe replacement would not be an easy exercise.

The tenants would need to be moved while each section of the building is worked on. The ceiling boards in each section would need to be removed, the pipes replaced, the ceiling boards put back and the tenants returned to their offices.

The facility managers were concerned about the inconvenience to their tenants and looked for a less disruptive solution.

Nu Flow were called in to reline the problematic full bores and main storm water lines in the affected areas of the facility.

Situation:
The relining project proved to be extremely challenging.
The pipes had no access points to pull the liners into place from. The pipes also had multiple sharp 90 degree bends. One specific 110mm pipe had 6 bends before tying into the main line!

The 90 degree bends were created out of tee pieces with one side blanked off. As a result the bends were very difficult to navigate liners through. None the less Nu Flow relined the problematic pipes working from the full bores on the roof and a few small access points cut into the main lines which were patched up afterwards.

The job was done with minimal disruption to the building and tenants.

How it works:
An epoxy saturated liner is pulled into the pipe.
Within the liner is an inflatable bladder. When the liner is in the correct position the bladder is inflated and left inflated until the epoxy has cured. Once the epoxy has hardened the bladder is removed leaving behind a “nu pipe” within the host pipe.

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