When a leak occurred on a critical 24-inch domestic water main serving Texas A&M University, restoring service quickly was essential. The line supplies water to a significant portion of the campus, making a prolonged outage a major operational concern.

Texas A&M has been transitioning its campus utility infrastructure from carbon steel to HDPE and PE-RT since 2008 after experiencing high leak rates in its legacy water system. Today, nearly all existing domestic and heated water lines have been converted to HDPE and PE-RT, and new utility installations continue to follow that standard.

Recently, a leak occurred on a critical 24-inch DR17 HDPE domestic water line serving the campus. The leak did not originate in the HDPE pipe itself, but rather at a metallic coupling that had been improperly installed. Because the line is a critical component of the campus water system, a prolonged outage could have significantly disrupted university operations.

In the past, isolating and repairing HDPE pipe of this diameter was considerably more challenging. Today, that has changed.

Enter the Footage Tools C2400, “Squeeze Boss.”

The same day the leak was discovered, ISCO deployed the Squeeze Boss to isolate the 24-inch HDPE water main, completely stopping the flow of water and allowing crews to safely complete the repair without further disruption to the campus water system.

The repair included removing the failed coupling, installing a replacement section of HDPE pipe using flange adapters, back-up rings, McElroy fusion equipment, and a new spool of pipe. Once the repair was completed, the squeeze was gradually released, returning the pipeline to service the following day.

The repair was successful, flow was fully restored, and the HDPE pipe returned to its original shape after the Squeeze Boss was released, demonstrating the material’s resilience during large-diameter emergency repairs.

This project demonstrated both ISCO’s emergency response capabilities and the effectiveness of the Footage Tools C2400 Squeeze Boss in supporting emergency repairs on large-diameter HDPE pipelines. It also reinforced another key advantage of HDPE infrastructure: while the failure occurred at a metallic coupling, the HDPE pipeline itself remained intact, allowing the system to be isolated, repaired, and returned to service with minimal disruption.