This is a picture of a manhole in Chicago. After being inundated by two massive storms within a short period of time the one hundred year old sewer beneath the manhole collapsed and brought a large portion of the street down with it. The manhole survived and was able to maintain its structural integrity because it had recently been relined using trenchless technology.
The City of Chicago has spent millions of dollars over the past few years in an effort to rehabilitate tens of thousands of manholes throughout the city. Digging up and replacing every manhole would have been cost prohibitive, but many of the manholes throughout the city were a century old and in bad condition. As an alternative they decided to reline the manholes with a concrete liner. The liners are expected to last another hundred years and if this picture is any indication they seem to be holding up pretty well. Read the full story here.
Almost any sewer repair can be done with little or no digging these days. It used to be that if you needed to have a repair done to a sewer that ran under your house you would have to dig up your entire basement and it would take days to dig, repair or replace the pipe, fill in and then return the basement to its original state. Now it can be done without digging if there is a cleanout or manhole access nearby or with a 3’ x 3’ hole outside of the house if there isn’t. The lining product that we use lasts as long as a traditional PVC pipe (about 50 years) and is impermeable to tree roots, meaning that you don’t have to sacrifice durability or longevity to utilize trenchless technologies.
