Contractor Profile Rehabbing with Ivis Inc.
The City of Fort Saskatchewan — the gateway and regional service center to Alberta’s Industrial Heartland — is in a position for rapid expansion. Fort Saskatchewan takes pride in ensuring that any long-term sustainable solutions protect its urban resources within its growing communities and industrial infrastructure. The mobility of energy and water to and from residential and commercial buildings is essential within a healthy urban ecosystem.
The City of Fort Saskatchewan awarded IVIS Inc., Edmonton, Alberta, the installation projects for mainline rehabilitation, lateral lining and installation of cleanouts. IVIS is no stranger to this type of rehabilitation work and is capable of delivering a wide variety of technologies and products for the underground wastewater industry.
IVIS employs trenchless solutions such as Performance Liner Cured-in-Place Pipe (CIPP) products for renewing sewer laterals, Main/Lateral Connections (T-Liner) and vacuum-excavated, cleanout insertions (VAC-A-TEE), which are engineered by LMK Technologies. IVIS Inc. can identify any infrastructure problem, large or small and provide cost-effective solutions.
IVIS is a leading service solutions provider of hydro excavation, utility locating, high-pressure flushing and vacuum, with high rail services, sewer main and lateral line inspection and permanent cost-effective structural pipeline rehabilitation in Western Canada.
Dolores Eaton — founder and CEO of IVIS Inc. since 1996 — has led the way in servicing underground infrastructure in Western Canada. Eaton’s business acumen has made her one of Canada’s fearless leaders in trenchless rehabilitation and underground services. She currently serves as a committee member of the University of Alberta, Centre of Excellence, which provides students of engineering with an opportunity to learn about trenchless technology. She is also a member of the North American Society for Trenchless Technology (NASTT).
“IVIS has the right people, attitude and technology making us Alberta’s safe and economically sewer service company” says Eaton.
In addition to the cured-in-place (CIP) mainline technology, IVIS has achieved success by installing several products manufactured by LMK Technologies, specifically the T-Liner system for renewing and sealing lateral pipes and the VAC-A-TEE technology for quickly and cost-effectively installing cleanouts on sewer lateral pipes.
LMK Technologies has created advanced, diverse infrastructure solutions to delivery consumer success in the sustainability and rehabilitation of underground collection systems. LMK products use gasket sealing technologies designed on practical engineering principles that provide long-term leak-free performance for sealing a sewer collection system. LMK has led the CIPP industry through the evolution of CIPP pipe renewal systems that have evolved with more than 20 years of innovation and new concepts for the CIPP market.
The LMK T-Liner lateral technology can be remotely installed into a lateral pipe from the mainline and extending up the lateral several feet to up 200 ft in length with no digging required. This technology is installed in conformance with ASTM F2561, the only industry specification for CIPP lateral rehabilitation and sealing. The installed T-Liner pipe creates a smooth, leak-proof solution to a long-term rehabilitation of a lateral pipeline. The T-Liner technology incorporates the use of engineered hydrophilic seals at multiple location of the installation. A hydrophilic gasket shaped like a flange (Hydro Hat) is installed at the junction of the mainline and lateral sealing the annulus between the main pipe and the mainline CIPP while the upper terminating end of the lateral liner is sealed by hydrophilic O-rings.
The gaskets provide an effective end seal at each end of the lateral CIPP preventing leakage that commonly occurs with CIPP. This gasket-sealed CIPP technology improves water quality, extending the service life of the existing buried infrastructure, eliminating further root intrusion and significantly reducing customer complaints of sewer backups and overflows while meeting the requirements of ASTM F2561.
“IVIS has used innovative technologies to reduce impacts on residents and to improve performance,” says City of fort Saskatchewan engineering coordinator Brad McDonald. “In particular IVIS can supply lateral main-connection liners meeting requirements of ASTM F2561.”
In conjunction with the T-Liner technology, IVIS typically installs a clean-out on the lateral pipe using the VAC-A-TEE technology. The cleanout installation is fast and extremely non-disruptive as it incorporates vacuum excavation technology for making a small diameter (20-in. +/-) borehole from the surface to a lateral pipe. A special pipe saddle having self-clamping properties is remotely connected to a lateral pipe to provide a quality cleanout installation without the mess of a large excavation and less dirt in a homeowner’s yard. Cleanouts are essential to renewing and sealing lateral pipe using CIPP technology. A cleanout as described in ASTM F2561-11 allows the contractor to temporarily plug the lateral service, which prevents any discharge of water into a lateral pipe during inversion of the liner. The plug also prevents any odors entering a home through dry plumbing fixture traps and also allows for removal of excess resin as the standard calls for 5 to 10 percent excess resin to properly saturate a lateral liner.
Using the minimally invasive cleanout not only ensures a resin-rich liner is installed, minimizes the risk and complications for both the installation crew and the homeowner, but it also provides access to the lateral for future inspection requirements by Fort Saskatchewan operations personnel.
“Best of all, many homeowners ask us to renew their private sewer lateral and we use LMK’s lining through a cleanout process where we insert a liner through the cleanout up to the house with no excavation needed. It is a win-win for our customers, both the municipality and the homeowner,” says Eaton.
The VAC-A-TEE is installed with minimal disruption and restoration through hydro-excavation while saving trees and expensive landscaping from being disturbed. It’s installed in a few easy steps using minimal equipment and requires no large trench boxes, no shoring and no man-entry, thereby providing a safe work environment. The VAC-A-TEE system will work with a variety of pipes including vitrified clay pipe (VCP), concrete, PVC and cast iron.
Throughout North America, technologies are being re-invented to provide better solutions to municipalities and utility owners to not only meet the immediate design and service life rehabilitation after installation but also after years of operation in the field. Studies by independent laboratories have clearly verified that the design life of a product is not always the same as the service life.
The City of Fort Saskatchewan has an annual sanitary sewer rehabilitation program for its mainline pipes and laterals. The program includes all mains and laterals from house to main within the program area, established each year since 2007. In addition to the structural rehabilitation of the mains, the structural rehabilitation of the laterals, including the lateral/main connection using the single piece T-Liner, is also accomplished.
The end goal for all utility owners is the best return for their investment and that is more of a reality today than ever before. With trenchless products having watertight properties produced by technology providers combined with high-quality contractors and contract specifications geared toward a long-term performance; the result is that collection systems are being structurally renewed with long-term leak-free performance similar to that of a new pipe.
Le’Mar Davis is director of human resources and safety operations at Ivis Inc., Edmonton, Alberta.
