Pipe bursting? Slip-lining? Butt fusion or electrofusion? There are as many installation and joining methods for HDPE pipe as there are applications and sizes.

In this ISCO Insights webinar we’re covering some of the most common joining and installation methods for HDPE pipe. From side wall fusion to trenchless installation, learn how to join and install one, monolithic HDPE piping system that’s right for your project.

We’ll cover:

• HDPE pipe fusion methods and equipment
• When fusion isn’t an option…
• Installation methods: open cut and trenchless techniques
• City of Ft. Lauderdale 30″ Force Main field example

Will Vodak 

Hey, welcome back to another version of ISCO insights. My name is will Vodak. The costume departments had a good time with me this week. We’ve got some fabricated fittings and maybe an elbow reducer too. Again, my name is Wil Vodak. I’ll be the host for today’s ISCO insights, we’ve got a good show lined up. So thanks so much for joining us. Let’s go ahead and start off for those that have not joined or even just a friendly reminder of how to participate with us today. All your video and audio is turned off to enhance the quality of the program for feedback or troubleshooting on Zoom. If you don’t know how to use Zoom by now, bless you, please use the chat box and we will do our best to help out in real time. And lastly, q&a If you have questions throughout this process. This is highly interactive. We want to hear from you and answer any questions that you have. Please go ahead and use that q&a feature that Zoom has our resident experts Timmy Tipton and Jeremy Becker are live in studio ready to assist and we will do our best to answer several questions on air. As always, I could not do this show alone. It takes a village and the chief of that village is my good friend, Mr. Garry Bouvet. Garry, welcome back to ISCO insights.

Garry 

Well, great to be here. Been out of town this week. And I come back and I got to stand next to this for the next hour with this shirt. So

Will Vodak 

you might need some sunglasses. It’s kind of blind. It’s yeah, that’s

Garry 

a it’s a little rough. It’s not everybody can pull that off. You

Will Vodak 

look so professional. We had to hang it on over here. So tell the audience who you are, what you do and why people should listen to you.

Garry 

My name is Garry Boothbay. If you’re new to the show, I’ve been with ISCO 25 years, almost 26. Well, we’re, we’re getting up there about as old as you are that I’ve been here at ISCO. But I’ve been in the HCP business for 30 years and a variety of roles and just want to help people understand a little bit more make HDPE simple for those folks who are considering and looking at it for their applications.

Will Vodak 

Yeah, Carrie has been an excellent teacher of mine, and everyone at ISCO, I know a lot of you in the industry know, Garry, for his expertise will be leaning on you heavily today, Garry. So thanks for being here. We’ve got a lot to discuss today, we’re talking all about joining methods and installation methods as well. So with with HDPE, obviously, the number one benefit, Garry, let’s just jump straight in, is to fuse it right. This is a product line that can be brought together under pressure to create a leak free, monolithic system. Why don’t you explain a little bit more about fusion and why it’s crucial to absolutely everything we’re

Garry 

doing right? I mean that that is the key benefit will is the way that this is joint, what you’re doing is taking two pieces, and you’re putting in together creating one piece, right or putting 10 pieces one continuous piece with the way that we do it and we use heat and pressure are the key components to successful fusion. And that joint is a stronger, stronger than a pipe itself. It’s monolithic. There’s various types of fusions, the most common method is the bulk fusion method and the end of pipe. But we also have sidewall fusion, if we’re doing branch laterals, connections, where there’s electrofusion options that are available, if space is a consideration, a couple other scenarios where electrofusion may be more beneficial. And then small diameter socket fusion typically three inch and smaller that we would use a socket fusion well, and

Will Vodak 

we’re gonna go over all of these, but is there one type of fusion that’s better than another?

Garry 

I mean, they’re all good. And they all have a purpose and a place in the complete system will but again, but fusion is the predominant one. That’s where we spend the bulk of our time talking about Yeah, so

Will Vodak 

let’s let’s maybe go over that, again, you can see there, we are bringing two pieces of pipe together, after you complete a fusion, those pipes are indistinguishable from one another, and it becomes one entire system. So in our benefit, or in our view, we believe the true benefit of HDPE is that rather than having a bunch of joints out there a bunch of mechanical connections, Bell and spigot connections, places that that pipe is susceptible to failure. If you can fuse all of it, you’re left essentially with one system. Right? So let’s talk about but fusion you mentioned, it’s one of our favorite methods of fusion here. Why is that Garry?

Garry 

Well, I mean, you know, the main reason is the the success, the strength of that weld, right? It’s stronger than the pipe itself. And it’s one continuous piece, there’s no path for leakage on a buck fusion. There’s an ASTM standard associated with Fusion joining. That’s ASTM F 2620. up to version 19. polyethylene pipe now will in North America is available up to 88 inch in diameter. Yeah, in Europe. They even have larger than that. So, Dan, those sizes have continued to grow. Row, as we’ve evolved in the industry, again, the reliability is second to none. Keep in mind polyethylene pipe has been used in the gas distribution industry for almost 50 years. And this is the method that they do for joining their pipe as well. Right. And so it’s a proven, proven successful joining me. Yeah,

Will Vodak 

absolutely. And the other thing that I like about it, Garry is you can follow this step by step method, no matter what the pipe size is, the diameter, there’s some variables there. But I imagine Mr. Garry Boothbay in the kitchen, cooking a nice casserole, filet mignon, something really fancy. You following a recipe, you know, every single time it’s going step by step. So Garry wants you to take us through these steps here. Yeah,

Garry 

you’re you hit it on the head, these are the same steps, whether you’re doing half inch pipe, or 88 inch. The variable in that is how those steps are completed with the equipment, we have machines in the small diameters that are all manual. Once we then we get into what we call mid range, and the process becomes semi automatic, yeah, you do some steps, the machine takes over on some of the others, then when we get into the much larger sizes, it’s fully automated. It’s really just a matter of operating the levers, the buttons, the controls on the machine, right, absolutely. So those steps that we’ll referenced, you know, the first one is clamping, then we where we hold the pipe in place, then facing that’s where we square the ends of the pipe, get down to clean virgin polyethylene, then we have an alignment, making sure our pipes are properly line. Before we can do the fusion, then we bring do the heating where we dropped the heater in and melt those pipettes. The joining or the fusion method, then takes over where we’re holding those melted ends together under a constant pressure for a specific duration. And then the last is the cooling, which is all part of that holding that process. And then inspection Sure, so

Will Vodak 

easy even I can do it everyone. The cool part about this actually is Garry, we had George Clooney out in our facility last week, did a blood fusion at weather or at river port here in Louisville, Kentucky. I believe we have some videos. So once you walk us through a Georgia is is doing here on this on this track

Garry 

618 Boy, that’s a sunny day and down here in Louisville that George was happy to hear I guess you’ve probably seen some family or something here in the local area. Yeah, scouting up the derby. If so, clamping the pipe, this is the first step. So we bring it in two pieces, clamping and holding those in place so that we can safely do the other processes in the fusion procedure. And you can see the speed at George man, he’s pretty agile for his age there. So pipes clamped in now we bring in that face or that face or drops in those who has blades on both sides of the face or block. And then what it’s doing is it’s trimming the ends of that pipe getting any oxidation layer any dirt area, getting down to Virgin polyethylene, which makes better for the melt penetration. So once the shaving has been completed, you can see those ribbons there that have been peeled off the pipe ends, those get removed. And then now George’s checking for the alignment making sure the pipes are fully aligned square, there’s no gaps. So when we bring in our heater, it’s going to line up properly. Since the oily gloves maybe have touch the pipe ends a little bit, a little isopropyl alcohol to wipe and clean those ends. Now we bring in a heater plate heater is about 425 degrees, and we bring both pipe ends in contact, the left side of this machine is stationary you can see the right side is movable, bring that forward with the hydraulics drop the pressure, all we’re doing is simply soaking those pipe ends against that heat or just contact pressure. Once the time has been achieved, we remove the heater you can see the molten ends and look at this here the B roll back. And they are pushed together under a predetermined pressure based on the size and Dr of the pipe. And it’s held there for specific amount of time per the standard until it’s completed. Cool. And we can remove it.

Will Vodak 

Garry I think this is great because let’s let’s think about it if you’re going to be installing PVC ductile iron HDPE I mean we’re looking at what what time per joint maybe it’s a let’s let’s take six or eight inch six or

Garry 

eight and I mean realistically you’re looking is approximate average two to three minutes per inch of diameter of pipe right for your Fusion time right that include you know doing all the all the steps that we that we just walked through right and that’s going to change obviously the bigger that get the bigger the pipe obviously the bigger your time. Sure.

Will Vodak 

And I think you know I’m getting to there as spend the 10 minutes get a good joint that’s gonna last upwards of 100 plus years when designed correctly well

Garry 

you know if we just took that time element Yes, it looks like this is way longer than joining balance picket pipe. But what you also have to take into account is the the In a product, right? And also, where does that fusion occur? At the left fusion can be handled outside of the trench right above ground. So you’re not worrying about trench boxes, ensuring the safety of the operators in size. But

Will Vodak 

it’s such a good point. We got some great questions, everyone, Jacob is asking how critical is it to remove the bead that is formed on the inside of that pipe? Good question.

Garry 

Yeah, great question. So it really depends on the application that the pipe is being serviced in Jacob. If we’re doing a force main, a pressurized application, that fusion bead has no bearing on the flow doesn’t act as a restrictor or anything with that, where we occasionally see the internal beam needing to be removed as when we get into a gravity application. So we can prevent any puddling or ponding. Back behind that fusion beam. Ravi

Will Vodak 

is asking, and I’m gonna get to this next slide here, bear, if you could pull this slide up. He’s asking what size range is covered in one machine? Do you want to maybe walk us through some of these various examples of fusion equipment? Yeah,

Garry 

there’s a lot, each machine has a size range. And it’s multiple sizes that can be done by simply changing or adding inserts to the fusion machine. So it all varies, but we have small hand machines like you see down in the lower right corner, that’s a one four machine, so do one inch to four inch, and then we get into the machine in the bottom middle, that’s a two eight machine. So that goes from two inch to eight inch pipe, then we get into the next one there in a picture, that’s a t 500 machine, that’ll actually do six inch to 20 inch pipe by changing out the inserts. And then again, each one of those machines has a wide range of size, capabilities with what

Will Vodak 

and what’s great is here at ISCO, we can rent us new equipment, provide equipment for the jobsite, whatever the pipe size is, you can see there that Talon Garry, that looks like a 5463 inch project there. So you know from from a little to LC of half inch pipe all the way up through, you know 88 to 78. Yeah, so there is fusion equipment out there depending on the job needs, and depending on the setup of the job as well. Right. So now but fusion is not the only type of fusion, Garry. sidewall fusion is maybe lesser used, but very effective when it comes to laterals and outlets and service connections. Right. Do you want to talk a little bit about sidewall fusion? Yeah,

Garry 

so again, it’s exactly what it’s using, you’re doing a sidewall. If you’re doing an outlet, you need a smaller lateral coming off the pipe, maybe you need a an air release vent, because of your changes in elevation in your pipe. Any number of reasons why you may need to have some type of outlet coming off of the main that can be done with sidewall fusion, we can actually sidewall fuse up to 16 inch diameter outlet. Yeah, now keep in mind with sidewall fusion will, you have to be at least one size smaller than the main size, we cannot do a size on size, sidewall fusion. But

Will Vodak 

sidewall fusion is a great way for us to for instance, I see a lot of projects that maybe it’s a sewer force main, they’ll install the 10,000 or so feet, and then they’ll install their air release valves after the project is done. This is a great way to do it with a with a simple saddle combination. Exactly. And that the reason being is if you try to put a reducing tee or something in place, trying to maintain exactly where you want it positioned where that during installation of the pipe main itself. Sure that makes it much easier to do it after the fact it’s tough. Now there’s just like but fusion Garry, there is a set of of procedures here, very similar and pretty much exactly want to walk us through the steps on what this I

Garry 

mean, you’re very similar to what we did with but fusion, you’ve got the clamping of the machine, you’ve got the cleaning of the pipe ends, the alignment, the the heating, the joining, and then the cooling and holding time and then inspection. So really, they’re basically the same, that cleaning section really takes the place of the facing, you’re still roughing up the surface of the pipe that you’re fusing to, as well as the saddle of branch saddle that you’re fusing on. Yeah.

Will Vodak 

And Garry, you mentioned there’s probably a couple of different types of equipment for this. There’s the sidewinder here, there are a combination unit. It’s also important to have those very specific heating adapters, concave and convex style to make sure that that joint is done right, appropriately. Exactly. It’s

Garry 

a size combination. So the sidewinder that you see there on the left, that’ll go up to four inch branch saddles, okay. The largest you can do in the sidewinder see that a lot in the gas distribution industry, that combo unit while that’s a but fusion in the whole picture, if you zero in on that, right side of that fusion was seen used See a tailstock with some chains. That’s the sidewall portion of that machine. So you can actually take that off of the wheeled chassis, take that upper works, put it in the trench and do your sidewall fusion up to eight inch diameter outlets with this machine. And then when we get into larger than eight inch diameter branch saddle outlets, then we actually have a extend basically an extended sidewall, if you will, Sidewinder that we’ve built and used to do those larger fusions. Garry, I’m

Will Vodak 

reading all the questions. Again, we really appreciate all this feedback, it makes the participation so much greater and allows for all your questions to come in. I’m reading these as best I can, for the time being some questions about fusion standards and certification processes. You want to explain what standards are governing HDPE fusion and how we certify and train to those standards.

Garry 

So the big one is the 2620. That is that is our overriding fusion standard. That’s what all the HDPE pipe manufacturers conform to for their joining of their pipe, which is very been important for our industry to have one standard regardless of whose HDPE pipe you’re putting in. And that’s what we that’s what we fall into now, we have an additional standard and may have to help me with the numbers will but I think it’s 3130, which is our technicians are trained to be trainers to anyone 90 I believe 3190 See it did

Will Vodak 

I get that? Oh, man, I’m looking. I’m looking at the experts back there. I thought I was so close everyone. Yeah, but

Garry 

there’s a lot of numbers out there a lot, a lot of numbers on ASTM standards. But you know, our technicians, our field techs that we that can come out and do the work that also provide the training, have to be trained to an extra level so that they could then issue certification for the wealth for the people, the clients that we may train. Yeah,

Will Vodak 

guys, let’s take this opportunity to ask our first poll question of the day, which is when did you last spec HDPE on a project? Was it last week? Maybe a couple of months ago? Maybe you’ve never SPECT HDPE? And you’re here to learn more? A little bit more about that. Garry, what is going to be the overriding consensus here? I think it was the second one. Yeah, as always, Garry, you’re about right. Believe it or not, we have had more than 350 responses to this. And most have specified 40% of specified HDPE in the last couple of months. So that’s fantastic. Great to hear. And 20% have never specified HDPE. So for those 20%, get those questions come in, and we’ll see what we can do to maybe to get you into that group. Yeah, getting into the cloth. So okay, so let’s keep going maybe gearing with another type of fusion, kind of the I don’t know how to put it. The electrofusion has not spoken about in the in the kindest of ways. And I think for sometimes for good reasons. Sometimes it’s, it’s maybe misunderstood, do you want to tell people why we we really like electrofusion in certain areas, and maybe others not so much it

Garry 

has its place will all of these things that we’re going to talk about today have a place in our world. electrofusion is definitely one of them. It is a viable option to but fusion kind of originated in for a need for repairs, when you’ve got buried pipe on both ends. If you notice, in the fusion video, we’ll we had to move one side of pipe to contact the other side of the pipe. And if you’ve got Barry piping, let’s say you have to do a repair, you want to do an extension or you want to and you don’t have that luxury of you know, you’ve got friction loads and Soileau keeping it restrained and can’t move to it. How do you do about fuse, right? Right. So electrofusion has a place for that for repairs that you know pipes been damaged. And you need to put in a new section of pipe. It is a method to replace but fusion, it has to be dry just like your butt fusion, right? The difficulties come in as we get larger in size, because there’s a lot of variables that even the greatest technician can’t control. Sure, and we have to account somehow account for that we’re always going to look for but fusion individually as the first method right option. But again, sometimes that’s not an option. electrofusion can be a good one, but it does take the place of a but fusion, right. Instead of putting those two pipe bands together, we’re using that coupling. It’s got wires built in, embedded into the coupling that get heated up with a computer box or processor as it’s called. That injects current into this continuous circuit inside the coupling that gets heated up for the prescribed time based on the size of the coupling and those two ends are held together. And that until it’s cool then it can be buried just like a section of pipe.

Will Vodak 

So these questions are why I love this platform here tad is asking about oval pipe. So one area that I don’t think electrofusion is a good example for is pipe with a lot of a valatie, it’s you’re taking a very round molded fitting, trying to slide it on oval pipe, and there’s going to be gaps there. And that’s where some failures are introduced. With blood fusion, however, you can take that oval pipe, likely putting the the larger side vertically tightened down those jobs and those jobs are going to help reroute that pipe test. So So you’re talking about shying away from using HDPE do the ovality. I understand that however, using maybe a thicker Dr. prevent some of our concerns there as well as maybe, but fusion really can go a long way towards sorting out some of those valatie issues. Right. So we’ve got a step by step process with electrofusion. Garry, I’m going to give you a break and have some water here. So with electrofusion proper tooling, proper setup is key, you want to make sure that you are cutting that pipe in a square 90 degree manner. And you are removing any sort of rough edges around there, maybe even introducing a small bevel so you’re not ripping that copper wire out, you’re going to measure that coupling half the distance on both sides. And then you’re going to go ahead and mark those distances so you know exactly where that coupling is in relation to the pipe itself. Once you’ve done that, you’re gonna go ahead and remove that oxidation, that contamination, dirt, debris, whatever it is, go ahead and slide that cupping on over that clean virgin area of HDPE. And then you’re gonna go ahead and inspect everything to make sure there’s no gaps around that coupling, you’re going to do everything you can to eliminate the ovality any, any kind of flat spots in that pipe whatsoever. And then we’re using this this electrofusion processor there, which you see in the center of the screen, that’s going to take electric current, it’s going to send it through to the actual coupling itself. And that’s how we’re going to generate that heat, it’s going to melt those those HDPE areas up to about 420 550 degrees. And you’re gonna go ahead and create that fusion using a combination of heat and pressure as well. And then obviously letting it sit and cooling. So we love electrofusion Garry, when it’s the right setup, we’ve also taken a lot of steps to make sure that the right tooling is out there, such as good processors, rebound clamps, do you want to maybe go over some of these here. Yeah, so

Garry 

you’ve got scraper tools, and we’ll talk about peeling, scraping the ends of that pipe that would be what in but fusion what we did with the facer, we’re now doing it with the scraper. So we’re taking the outside oxidase oxidized layer off of the pipe, and getting down to that virgin polyethylene. And it will help for the heat penetration of the coils. The rerouting clamps, you mentioned you talked about that earlier, that the pipe can get oval sitting on the ground, this can help facilitate and assist rerouting that pipe to get that perfectly sized coupling onto the pipe ends. Sure. And then of course, you’ve got your, your processor there in place. With the lightning, you’re going to need a generator, some type of power source to power the unit.

Will Vodak 

If you’re doing a lot of electrofusion couplings, I highly recommend checking out PPIs municipal advisory board document on electrofusion install, they do a great job of going over all the tooling that’s required. All of the industry leaders manufacturers have consulted on this. Please reach out to us if you’d like a copy of that we’d be glad to present you with that. Again, it’s a great technology just has to be used in the right places. So okay, if we can’t use Garry, should I just abandon HDPE? And not use it?

Garry 

Absolutely not? Well, we’ve got options there. There’s

Will Vodak 

always options with Garry here. So, Garry, you have used mechanical couplings on several different jobs with great success. You want to maybe go over some of the key things with HDPE Yeah, so

Garry 

there you know, mechanical is another option when fusion just isn’t a viable choice. The ground conditions, you’ve got a water still coming down the pipeline, which would interfere with a successful fusion whether it was but or electrofusion. Mechanical can be a good effective way to make a make a repair, put in a new installation, what have you and there are a variety of options. A lot of variables that go into these, you know, some of these are limited in size, and availability. Some of these don’t require any extra equipment, some require stiffeners some don’t. So again, restraints, some are not exactly there’s a whole lot of just about lots of Yeah, lots of things there. The best thing is to get with us, let us help you walk through and navigate that minefield of of options that can be available. But we’ve got we’ve highlighted a couple here in this picture will you know we’ve got Victaulic go obviously a very well known mechanical coupling in a variety of pipe markets, they have an HDPE coupling. We have the Romac Alfa coupling, we have the George Fisher multi grip, again, all have different requirements necessary have limitations in pressure, you know, cylinders rain, yeah, there’s no one right one one coupling for every application.

Will Vodak 

And the cool part about these mechanical couplings is you can actually build kind of a preassembled HDPE system and just fit it together using mechanical couplings. When time is a concern, we had a, we’ve had a couple plant shutdowns where time was a major concern, and they did everything they could just to get a mechanical coupling in there. And that joint is is working and pressure rated today, so can be a very good fit depending on your situation. And then we’re getting some really good questions here, Garry, about repairs with HDPE. Typically, we get the question. All right, well, I love what you’re saying, I love your shirt, I really want to use HDPE. But we’re scared when we have to repair it. So what do we do when we need to repair it? My answer is you repair it just like you would any other piping system, except you have more options with HDPE. So Garry, you want to talk a little bit about repairs? And we’ll go through a quick case study here.

Garry 

Yeah, absolutely. I’d love to sit here and say you never have to repair HDPE will, right? But we all know the best pipe locator is a guy inexperienced guy in a backhoe. Right? Right, he could find that pipe faster than any pipe locating tool I could ever come up with. So those third party damages are going to happen. And when they do, what are their options. And you mentioned it, whatever you do with your existing The first thing is, if you’ve actually got a full fledged failure, like water coming out, right, you got to get control of that. Put a repair clamp on just like you would do with any other piping material, right? Get a hold of the situation, then you have time to evaluate what’s going to be the best ultimate repair. Is it a full pipe replacement in that area? Is it putting in a couple of mechanical couplings can we do an electric you know any number of those options that we’ve kind of touched on, right you get with ISCO or a get with your local representative from ISCO, and we’ll figure out what’s going to work best,

Will Vodak 

you know, we can squeeze the pipe shut, we can put a hair clamp around it, we can flange it, we can fuse it, there’s so many different options. Let me paint a picture here for everybody. Beautiful Friday night in Georgia, we’re about ready to go out and have some sodas after a hard week. And we get a call from one of our major customers that loves to use HDPE. And they had a drilling pole operator drill into a main 30 inch effluent line for you know one of the one of the state’s largest power plants. And they needed this line to be backup or they were going to have trouble keeping people like very cool indoors during the GA summer. So what were the options here, the primary concern for this customer was how to go about getting this done quickly. They needed speed, they needed something to be done immediately. So we went in there took a look at the situation and decided they also wanted a permanent repair, they wanted to dig this up and make it permanent. So what we decided is maybe let’s let’s drop in a flange spool piece, which we use some specialty fusion equipment to go ahead, we cut open that line, turn the system off, used on two flange adapters and then fit inside a flange assembly. Garry, this is a permanent repair that’s going to last decades, the system is back up and running. And this took no longer than I believe it would have taken with another piping materials. So a lot of these items are on the shelf, or on the country at ISCO. And other distributors like ISCO. There’s no other distributor, it’s really like in scope. But there’s couple out there that do a really nice job as well. And you know, these things can happen very quickly. So if you do have a repair setting, or you’re concerned about your group’s ability to maintain and repair these systems, as Garry said in the very beginning, we don’t think you’re gonna have to do it that often because HDPE is just so tough. But if you do, there are plenty of options out there out there for you. And we got it done by the end of the weekend. So we still had a good weekend, Garry. Anyways, we’re going to talk about a little bit of a training here just real quick before moving on installation methods, believe it or not, that’s certification card somebody actually trained me to fuse pipe. I’m sure it’s outdated by now out of date, but do you want to just go ahead and tell everybody where they can find some training resource right.

Garry 

So, we provide as I said earlier that 3190 ASTM, our technicians are trained to that that makes them kind of a train the trainer capabilities where we can cover but fusion electrofusion sidewall fusion, any of those processes of joining methods that we’ve talked about, our technicians can provide that the the in depth training to get that card is about a day and a half to two days. It includes classroom work where you’re understanding not just how to run the fusion machine, but your understanding what you’re doing in the fusion process, why it’s so important for this step. And to follow this just a certain way, as well as then getting the equipment of whatever size range that you’re looking for. And we can offer that and then that certification, I believe, is good for two years, that certificate card on that equipment, but you go through the classroom, you do an actual fusion, we do a destructive test on the weld, make sure that that joint is done properly and performs as it should be under stress. Garry,

Will Vodak 

we are halfway through our presentation here. And we’re gonna just we’re gonna mention the fusion manual, briefly here, if you’re looking for a good resource to have with you at all times, keep in the back of your gene pockets, fusion manual is the place and the item to have. It’s so good, even our competitors use it. It covers but fusion sidewall fusion, electric fusion in great detail. And it’s a great reference for anybody that’s out in the field inspectors that just want to take a look at things, it’s free on our website, or you can reach out to ISCO. And we can send you guys some physical copies of this. So Garry, we’re gonna move forward, I just want to be mindful of time here. Let’s move on to the kind of the second half of our act here. Act. Number two, is talking about installation methods. So first and foremost, with HDPE. There’s open cut, there’s just the same way you would install any other pipeline, you want to maybe talk a little bit about why even working with HDPE and open cut type of installation methods is so unique, right?

Garry 

Well, it’s you know, we touched on it earlier, the big benefit with even for an open cut with HDPE is the joining is done outside the trench. So your operators are safer, they’re away from the risk of having cave in, or you’re not messing with trench boxes and shoring and stepping your your trench depending on the size of pipe. So the pipe is fused and joined and then dropped in the trench. Now a question. If it’s not already in here, I guarantee it’s going to come up. Do I need? You know, how do I bet this how do i backfill this pipe? Is it different than what I’ve been doing? And the the kind of the simple answer is no. Whatever you’ve been doing, if you’ve done PVC pipe, you would do the same bedding and backfill. Now, that being said, but go into it a little bit deeper. There is the ability in many cases, depending upon your Dr. Depending upon your soil conditions, your burial depths, all of those factors that you can drop HDPE pipe directly into the trench without any any special bedding, any special backfill that can be a time and a cost saver on many projects. But again, it’s kind of a job by job scenario, right that we’d have to look at and evaluate. The biggest concern and things that we always have to make aware of is point loads point, impingement areas on the pipe, no big rock points, things like that laying in the bed area of the pipe. So

Will Vodak 

a good example of an open cut project is a project you’re involved with Texas a&m where lots and lots of miles and miles of a CPU is used once you tell us a little bit more about Yeah,

Garry 

this was actually a campus District Energy campus job. This is a hot water and cold water application, all in the same trench as you can see here. And they this was a direct bury, they didn’t have any special bedding or backfill required. You know, Sandy, we’re using Dr. 11, which is pretty robust piping materials. And that really was a very smooth process for for the contractors to do that installation. Job

Will Vodak 

went so well. Texas a&m is basically using HDPE exclusive that is their standard. Yeah, they’re heating and cooling water. So this is just a show that we’ve got. We’re going to talk about some really creative installation methods here but open cuts still is bread and butter HDPE daily. A great way to use HDPE and we think use everything outside the trench, drop it in afterwards safer, easier. And in a lot of ways there are there are a lot of benefits to using HDPE and open cuts applications. However the real reason that we’re here today to talk about HCP is trenchless installation methods. This is South Beach Miami, your your home away from home Garry’s second home if you look closely, you can see Garry sashaying down Ocean Boulevard there me and pebble me and you and people looking at this HDPE pipeline trying to get, you know, out into the nightlife scene on a Friday night. We’re in his private helicopter to go over this one. But we’re here to talk about HD HDPE and trenchless installations because trenchless HDPE installations, less trench provide a whole host of benefits once you tell us where they are, yeah,

Garry 

well, the trenchless is kind of a little misnomer, because we still have some excavation with what we call trenchless methods, we still have to have an entry pit and exit pit. So we still have some digging to do. But we significantly minimize it with trenchless. And really well, this is kind of where HDPE kind of got its gets its start in a lot of municipal type of applications. Right, the difficulty jobs that other pipes aren’t built to handle. And what do we do, right? Oh, what? We can use polyethylene. Oh, yeah, we’ll use that for a directional drill, a pipe bursting, right?

Those are methods that polyethylene is designed for. It’s always the hardest stuff, right? And then when they get to the more easy stuff, it just, we just

Garry 

are now moving back to do it for the whole thing now. Right?

Will Vodak 

So cost savings, labor savings safety. Lesson erupts. Oh, yeah. It’s enormous. So let’s go through we’re running a little short on time here. Let’s go through some of these examples. A lot of questions on horizontal directional drilling. This is kind of the gateway into HDPE. Gear, we’ve got a quick animation here. And this is pretty it’s common sense. Most are familiar with with HDD. Yeah,

Garry 

you see it driving around anywhere, whether it’s fiber optic, these directional drill rigs are everywhere. But you basically have an entry pit, you have a drill rig set up, he’s pushing rods through as he’s as his forehead on the front end is opening up a hole underneath the obstruction. This happens to be a body of water, we’re going under, coming up on the other side. In this simplified animation will we simply remove the the spade head, the cutting head, attach a pulling head that’s attached to the HDPE pipe, and the pipe is pulled in flexibility of that HDPE pipe lends itself perfectly for this application, one continuous piece of pipe fuse together, pulls it in. Now in most installations, there’s a series of back reamers that they have to do that you can see on on your photo there, that back green or behind it that opens up the hole larger and larger to accommodate the pipe size that you’re doing. Absolutely.

Will Vodak 

Couple questions really good ones about size limitations. With HDD, Garry, we’ve seen some large directional drills with large diameter climbing up all the time. Exactly. So 24 inch, not a problem 36 inch, not a problem. I’ve been on 42 inch directional drilling, and we’ve seen up to 54 inch and that before was in the Miami Beach hereto in there. So really, it’s about design, it’s about buoyancy, it’s about lubricants for the drill, there’s a whole host of of factors factors that go into it, we can certainly help with that or point you in the consulting engineer direction that might be able to. But please consider this as a really creative way to save the people, the installers and everybody around this project, a lot of hassle. In fact, that’s what they did here in this fort lauderdale case study where a really bad problem became, you know, a really good example of creative use. Do you remember this prior

Garry 

I do remember this project, it was an emergency. It was basically a break in the line and emergency repair. They couldn’t didn’t couldn’t shut down the primary road, the thoroughfare there. And so with the help of the contractor, Murphy, the utility service came up with a basically a directional drill job, you can see the pipe fused up there on the right hand picture strung out behind but they were able to keep a lane of that road open and accessible for the folks for the traffic. And as you can see the footprint of the drill rig and they pulled that pipe in this was job was done basically in three different polls. They also had a nice interruption with one of the map many hurricanes that that came through and disruption for a while. But still were able to complete 22,000 feet in less than nine months of installation datatable then open Cadet been way longer and

Will Vodak 

savings and look at all right now that’s you and I go into work every day having to drive around that would not fun. little tough. Yeah. So we’ve got some actually some images and some video here of some of the the installation that’s occurring. These are some really good images you can see here, obviously, maybe the FedEx truck is having a tough day because it’s got to go around. But for the most part, you know, this is a massive amount of pipe to be installed in a very short amount of time, creative use of equipment. And there are actually quite a big list of contractors that are able to perform this type of work.

Garry 

And we can help with that right I mean this is that work that we do, but we obviously assist them with Fusion equipment, obviously with the material, any fitting connections that may need to be had after it’s all installed. But yeah, very, very successful project there, you can see that the drill rig, the reamer, the ejecting the bentonite the mud lubricant that helps. So when you pull that pipe in,

Will Vodak 

we can talk about that. Although, yeah, as we’re going along, I’d like to ask one other poll question here, which is now that you’re a little more familiar with the benefits of HDPE. Before continuing, how likely are you to use HDPE on your next project? I hope that you’ve learned a little bit today. We’ve only got a couple of naysayers out there, Garry. It looks like only four of the 300 people that have responded are not likely to use that I think they were offended by your shirt. Probably I am too at this at the same time. So really appreciate the feedback, everyone. 54% is very likely and 37% said they’ll consider it. So really good feedback. Thanks so much for that. Let’s keep going here to Piper’s to Garry. Another really common method of trenchless rehabilitation more. So for existing sanitary sewer lines, typically, yeah,

Garry 

directional drilling is for new pipe being pulled in. pipe bursting is a rehab a rehabilitation, you’re taking and breaking up essentially a host pipe and old pipe. And you’re replacing that same in the same annular space, a new polyethylene pipe in its place. That can include upsizing from time to time depending on several factors that always would have to be evaluated. But it is a great, great way to do a repair replacement of an old failing line without the massive excavation of tearing up the entire road the street, because that’s where you typically commonly see the pipes is out in the street. Absolutely.

Will Vodak 

So the cool part about Pipers in here is you can upsize capacity. So if the soil conditions are correct, you can take a 12 inch existing system and maybe upsize to a 16 inch line. In some cases, in some cases more depends on a lot of factors there are

Garry 

there we’ve I’ve been on jobs will where we we actually increased from 12 inch to 24 inch, double double the size, there were no other utilities around it in the area, right, which not always the case. So the burial depth was plenty. So we weren’t going to look like a gigantic mole went through the entire street. So again, all of those factors is a case by case basis on what kind of upsize we can do. So

Will Vodak 

two different types of pipe bursting here, there’s pneumatic and there is static, this animation is really just going to talk about, you know, some some differences, I believe this pneumatic system that we’re looking at with them and this animation, but essentially, you’re taking a piece of HDPE there’s a number of different manufacturers out there that manufacture this really specific equipment that is capable of pulling through that HDPE. And at the same time, in most cases, fracturing or breaking apart or slicing open the other host pipe. And right behind it, you get this brand new, beautiful piece of HDPE. That’s going to last the test of time. So I told you we had some examples here, Garry, real quickly, we’ve got this looks like a pneumatic system here with a fracture wall pipe such as cast iron. Yep, yep.

Garry 

And you can see the pneumatic head, the hammer that they call it is inside underneath that, that area on the tool. And you can see it coming through. And as Will said this is fracture, double pipe, you know, concrete pipe, cast iron pipe, things that that will break and fracture. We can do pipe bursting, but in the static mode, where you’re actually pulling the head through. This is pipe that is not fractional. This is ductile iron, here’s a repair clamp. And we actually cut through in the leading end, slice through it. And then when the expander head comes through pushes it displaces it into the soil making room for the new HDPE pipe. Yeah, absolutely.

Will Vodak 

Garry, we’ve also got slip lining here not to move too quickly. But we’re running a little bit out of time here so I can talk all day. That’s the thing. If you have questions, please reach out to ISCO during or after this presentation, we’d be happy to talk all day about this stuff, which is what we love doing. So slip lining here is a really easy way to get rehabilitation or in some capacities, you know, just a better lifetime system from you know, an existing, typically larger diameter line, you want to talk a little bit about slip line and Gavril historic

Garry 

method of you know, replacing, you’re obviously going to size down. You know, people say well, what does that do to my flows? Well, in many cases, even though you’re going with a smaller size, you may Increase Your flows because of the smoothness of the HDPE that your flow actually ends up being the same or even better, even with a smaller diameter pipe. But you simply, you’ve got a push or a pull method for slip lining, you’re showing an animation here of a pull in using the winch to pull that pipe in. And then this is the push method where you actually use mechanical equipment to assist in pushing and sliding that pipe into the old hose pipe. You know, typically, you know, we have about a 10%, annular space smaller. Sometimes they’ll use spacers. To center that pipe in there, they may just lay it on the bottom many in cases they pour grout around the pipe to keep it an anchor and hold it in place. Once it’s slip lined in a

Will Vodak 

lot of questions about slip line and Geary which is okay, you’re gonna take a 54 inch line. So it’s concrete, right? You’re gonna put in a 48 inch HDPE that’s a smaller system.

Garry 

I’m certainly gonna lose capacity, or I’m certainly gonna lose flow, right? Maybe, okay. Again, concrete see factor in probably in maybe 100 100, something 90, right, right, polyethylene 150, they may actually get a better flow, right.

Will Vodak 

And that’s why there’s so many variables that it comes to don’t just look at the ID or the OD of that system, we can help you know, work through some of those calculations, when it comes to making sure the flow requirements are awesome. I

Garry 

don’t know if you’re gonna show it. But there is another slip lining method that actually gives them a little bit bigger size or like always,

Will Vodak 

you’re ahead of the game. So I apologize about the cosmic tunnel though. First, before doing this, this was a creative installation method of using maybe similar directional drilling equipment, as well as some slip lining equipment. Yeah, once you go through this, quickly, we’ll share the video

Garry 

this one was a an old, basically a brick deteriorating tunnel, and that they couldn’t do a repair, it’s outside of Denver. You can see the small workspace they were provided a lot of to do the work and trying to figure out how to do I can’t remember I think it may have been like 6000 feet, he’s like 7000 feet up and like 1000 feet of pipe in one pole. So ingenuity use the directional drilling equip equipment, I know there’s a video somewhere on it. That actually said to drill drill rods through the pipe, grabbed the whole of the pipe and and actually pulled using the drill rods and the drill rig to pull it back through the main because they couldn’t shut down the the existing line anyway, right either. So it had to be done while the flow was still still coming in. They’re there you can see the drill rig going through, you still see it’s got full of the waist, the by the waist coming through the line. And they actually there’s the pulling head on the pipe. And they use the force of that drilling rig to slip line all 7000 feet in one pole. Yeah. Unbeliev it was really an amazing project. It’s an

Will Vodak 

incredible product. Little pipe. Mike actually just texted me it’s a seven 800 feet.

Garry 

Oh, he’s correct. Yeah, he’s always good for that.

Will Vodak 

So you can see some fusion being done here. Again, large diameter fusion. Garry, we go on and on about this a lot. That just the flexibility, the toughness, the options that you have at your disposal, and HDPE I think just are so numerous in comparison, other Friday didn’t

Garry 

have it around. They didn’t have another choice, right. Ultimately, this there was no other way to do it. And that went from a 70 to a 48 that was pulled in and still enough provided enough capacity because of the smoothness of HDPE that we brought. Those are some happy humans, right? Yeah, I think there’s a high five

Will Vodak 

pole coming out there in one piece. You know, that’s, that’s a job well done. And a lot of design, a lot of hard work went into that. So we’re really happy to be there it is. Yeah. Garry, we’re gonna move on you spoke a little bit about compression fit. So you want to maybe go through the reason why we think compression fit other people call it suede lining, tight lining, couple of different names for it out there similar technologies where you’re doing all you can to take away as much of that annular space as possible. This is like Tesla NASA SpaceX technology at our

Garry 

fingertips here. Yeah, this is kind of unique. It’s actually taking a larger, larger diameter pipe than what the opening is on the existing host. And we’re compress it, we’re condensing it, we’re basically compressing it. Hence the name compression fit, we’re actually stretching it and hydraulically compressing that pipe to a smaller outside diameter for a temporary installation into the new into the old hose pipe. And then once that tension is released on the pipe ate polyethylene with its flexibility and having a memory will actually expand back and do a compressed, tight fit against the inner wall of the host pipe. Really

Will Vodak 

cool technology. Let’s go through this video here brought to us by our friends at Murphy pipeline. You know, Todd goes around the country talking about this technology, for good reason. Yes, it’s really interesting. So here we’re seeing that reducing dye pulling this HDPE through, and no joke, you’re temporarily reducing the diameter of that HDPE due to the inherent properties, the elasticity, the flexibility of HDPE, and you’re pulling it through basically a same sized system, exactly 24 inch, maybe you’re pulling a 23 inch or 24 inch through it. And you’re pulling it all the way through and then the very end when you reduce that pressure, or tension or stress off of it, it reverts back to you know, it’s got a memory, it’s gonna revert back to that shape. And you’re gonna get basically as as much of that annular space filled up, right, and we

Garry 

get quite a gig, you know, one of the questions that we get a lot, you know, well, what happens if the host pipe is gone? Well, it doesn’t matter, this pipe can be in stand alone independently. If that that old hose pipe corrodes deteriorates away, the pipe that is installed in there can stand alone, by itself and still function properly.

Will Vodak 

Yeah. Eric’s asking a good question. Garry, what are some of the lengths you can do with this technology? Wow,

Garry 

I every seems like every week I see a new person. Yeah, that somebody’s doing length, a lot of it’s going to depend, you know, you’ve got tensile limits on HDPE pipe, whether you’re doing a directional drill, or in this case, a compression pole. So you’re going to have limits. It’s all a lot of factors going to go into that many times the lines that we’re doing have already inherent built in stopping points, manholes, etc, right, where we’d have to have a stopping point anywhere.

Will Vodak 

But it depends on wall thickness. Yeah,

Garry 

it’s hard to give you a definitive concrete answer on that. Just know that, you know, I’ve seen upwards of 234 1000 feet, you know, pull down on it on a compression fit run. So

Will Vodak 

the Gulf Coast water authority did several of this, these types of installations totaling 6800 feet, we’ve actually got video this but this is a really cool trenchless project of the year. Yeah, you want to walk through this video. And

Garry 

yep, I think this part is up to my head no on that, on that same video, it has a little bit of the same thing that you showed will. So it’s a replica of what we’ll just showed you earlier. But here’s the actual in the field, and you can see right there, at that juncture, that’s where the compression of the pipe is actually occurring. So we’re squeezing, squeezing that down as it’s being pulled through that die head temporarily as it’s pulled into the to the host pipe. And then once the tension is released, the pipe will have a memory it goes back to its original shape, and compression against the host wall.

Will Vodak 

Very cool. We’re getting a lot of really good questions about that. Really quickly, we want to talk about two other just methods we want to talk about SNAP tight COVID lining rehabilitation, we also want to talk about maybe plow in for some bit to other ways to join, order us HDP you want to touch on those? Yeah,

Garry 

the snap tight, it is a slip line. Similar to what but instead of having fuse joints, we have mechanical snap locking in together for gravity applications, do a lot of culverts, replacement old concrete that are failing rate culverts, that HDPE pipe can be used in and you’re seeing that using the come along chain to snap those two ends together. They’re usually you know, 1919 foot lengths of pipe that we lock in, doesn’t require a lot of equipment on site. You don’t have fusion equipment and so forth. Highway Department uses again, a lot on the we have a whole other group that can really address the whole snap tight. If there’s interest, the plowing method will we see that a lot in rural water, you’re not going to do plowing in downtown Louisville, but out there and some of the more open areas you don’t have a lot of utility invasion. It’s a great way very, very fast way of adding pipe into the ground right they have equipment now will that can plow six foot deep pipe upwards of 20 up to 24 inch in diameter. Garry, look

Will Vodak 

at that the host did such a good job today that we’ve left off with just five minutes to spare We’re gonna go ahead and get through a little bit of who ISCO is. And I’ll take this if you don’t mind. ISCO is a national solutions provider of HDPE materials, fusion equipment, expertise. We’re basically a one stop shop. If you’re looking to build a pipeline. And you’re you’d like to learn more about HCP, please give us a call. We have individuals, highly qualified experts all around the country, yards near you with stock materials, fusion equipment, custom fabrication resources, like Timmy, Jeremy and Garry. You know, we really are a one stop shop for all projects, whether they’re simple or complex. So we hope you’ll give us a call. We’re gonna go through some questions, please go ahead and connect with us on social media so that we can continue to engage and we’re turning out some really good content, I believe next month’s Insights is going to be a brand new one of our large diameter HDPE. So please stay tuned, that’s going to get upwards of 120 inches in pressurized bike go big or go home. Exactly. And if you need see us today, this is super important. We have so many requests for PDH CEU. requests, please go ahead and use this website is go dash pipe.com backslash CEU. And fill this out. And we will get back to you in one to two weeks. As our team is busy getting all those questions and and CPUs filled out for everybody. So Garry, we’ve got a couple of questions here. Let’s make the Go rapid fire. Let’s go. Um, Chad is asking can you sidewall fused on old pipe? Do you need to? Do you need to round the pipe first? Or how is that done?

Garry 

Ya know, if it’s oval pipe, it’s going to be really difficult if because though, you looked at those heater adapters, you mentioned concave and convex heater adapters are our size to the curvature of that pipe in that fitting. So if those aren’t aligned properly, you’re not going to get a good successful fusion. So we may need to use rerouting clamps around that area to get that pipe exactly where we needed to allow for the Fusion.

Will Vodak 

Sure. Why not as asking how has HDP increased costs parallel PVC and tip over the last year? I’m sure their producers are screaming right now will do not answer this question. I’m actually going to take it HDPE over the last several years, I believe has been the most competitive material. From a price standpoint, on a lot of municipal projects and industrial projects nationally, our supply chain doesn’t seem to have been hit as hard as the other supply chains in which we compete against. And I really urge you if you have a project and are looking for some budgetary comparisons, we’d be happy to show you those those. You know what today’s pricing looks like? And I really think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised how well HDPE stacks up against competing materials right now, a lot of projects have been steered towards HDPE over the last couple of years away from a material simply due to price and wait time. So give us a shot. I think you’ll you’ll enjoy the results. So Garry can let me keep going. What can we get a t shirt like that? Rick is asking?

Garry 

Boy, I’m not Rick, are you really sure you want one of those?

Will Vodak 

Back bank that may be one of a kind right now is asking Will HDPE stand up to corrosive dirt, Garry?

Garry 

Oh, great question. Yeah, really good question. ACPE is a very corrosion resistant material. Now I’m not gonna sit here and say that it can’t be attacked by something. But we’d be hard pressed to find it. Particularly, you know, in in the dirt. Unless it’s some type of hydrocarbon that we may have to have a little bit more in depth consideration and evaluation on.

Will Vodak 

Garry, we are out of time. Oh, yeah. No. It always flies when I’m with you, man. I have very fun. So let’s, let’s go ahead and launch one last poll question here, which is which of the following topics would you like more information on we could really use your help. We’re trying to create content for future months. And we’d really like it if you would tell us what topic you are looking to hear more about. So that we can cater to, you know, what the industry is looking for in terms of information. So we really appreciate your help on this while everyone’s answering this. Garry, any final thoughts for the audience? No.

Garry 

I mean, you you said it earlier, if you’re if you’re on that fence of looking at Should I try and HDPE I’m hearing some good things about it. Get with us get with our team. We’d be glad to walk you through and we’re going to you know tell you if a CPE is the right application for what you have there are times when I’ve had to say no HDPE is not a good choice. But take a look at it. And let us help you.

Will Vodak 

Absolutely. While I’m signing off, please see us PDH is if you need them, go ahead and scan this barcode or go to isco-pipe.com/ceu for more or help. You can also find the ISCO-pipe.com a ton of resources for all your future projects and current needs as well. So on behalf of everybody here at ISCO, I want to thank you so much for spending an hour of your time with us. We hope you found this informative. And please continue to be on the lookout for future episodes of ISCO insights. In the meantime, everybody please stay safe out there and happy fusing. As always, thanks for joining us on ISCO insights