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Adaptation leads to innovative solution

In partnership with our customer South West Water (SWW), we’ve successfully developed a new mini collapsible ‘pipe bursting system’ that enables water mains replacement without the need to dig open trenches.

The system is ideal in situations where work has to be carried out in inaccessible areas - for example in a customer’s back garden – and where it’s important to be as unobtrusive as possible.

Brendan Trays, site manager from May Gurney, says: “We first came across a mini pipe buster about three years ago – it was being used to replace old sewers with new plastic pipe.

“We thought it could be adapted to replace water mains and arranged a demonstration in back gardens not accessible by traditional heavier pipe-bursting equipment where working conditions were awkward and expensive.”

During the early stages of testing on site it became apparent that the splitting head was the wrong shape to break through the cast iron water mains.

Brendan and his team designed and developed an alternative splitting head and ultimately increased the flexibility and application of the mini pipe bursting unit. To date it has been used to replace smaller water mains in the back gardens of 1,700 properties occupied by SWW customers.

Clive Dumbleton, SWW, adds: “Without this innovative device the only method would have been to ‘open trench’ in the road at the front and employ a plumber to transfer each individual service from the back to the front of the property. This would have been extremely costly and taken considerably longer.

“The pipe bursting system adapted by May Gurney has saved time and money and enabled work to proceed with minimal disruption to our customers.”

We are now looking for the next generation of technology to further reduce costs and improve productivity for South West Water.