A large mechanical contractor was undertaking a renovation project at a hospital in northern Alberta. Water was noticed under the sewer system cleanout covers in the floor of the kitchen and cafeteria of the hospital.
The mechanical contractor hired a drain inspection company from Edmonton to perform a video inspection on the sewer system. What the drain inspection company found was alarming and cause for serious concern. There was a large rock broken through the top of the pipe underneath the cafeteria and much of the sewer pipe was slumped, but no video was provided to the client.
The mechanical contractor realized this situation needed to be dealt with quickly to avoid a collapsed sewer blockage.
The mechanical contractor needed to dig up the entire cafeteria floor to access the sewer pipe, tear the deteriorated old cast iron sewer pipe out and install new sewer pipes. The trench would have to be refilled and compacted and new concrete poured and flooring laid. The kitchen would have to be shut down for the duration of the repair as the sewer lines ran through the kitchen.
In addition, the sewers from above floors ran through this area and would have to be diverted to keep several floors of the hospital in operation. Initial thoughts were that the replacement would cost around $200,000.
Revive Pipe Restoration was contacted to look at a less intrusive structural lining alternative rather than excavating to replace the sewer pipe. Revive Pipe’s highly skilled technicians use advanced equipment and techniques to inspect sewers and with our wealth of experience we can assess sewer conditions accurately even in challenging situations.
What we found was that there wasn’t a rock broken through the pipe and there was no slump in the sewer system. Further to this, we discovered that the source of the water around the cleanout caps was not from the buildings sewer system. While the sewer pipes did not have a rock broken through it or a large slump, there was calcified buildup at some of the joints that required professional removal, however it was not cause for a highly disruptive and costly emergency repair.
Revive Pipes skilled technicians provided a sober second opinion that there was no cause for the impending emergency sewer replacement and directed the facilities efforts into tracing a nearby water pipe leak.
It is unfortunately fairly common for Revive Pipes skilled technicians to find errors in other drain inspection company’s assessments of sewer pipes. We have saved our clients more than $500,000 due to erroneous diagnosis of catastrophic failures in their sewer systems that other contractors had claimed were situations requiring emergency excavations.
The erroneous diagnoses are typically caused by poor technician training, substandard video inspection equipment, inexperience in sewer pipe inspections and a lack of understanding of plumbing sewer systems. In certain cases, the erroneous diagnoses appear to be rooted in a desire to obtain a large project at the expense of a client putting their trust in the opinion of someone they believe to be a trusted expert.
Revive Pipes experienced and skilled technicians take the time to properly assess sewers. We ARE trusted experts and we only recommend CIPP liners or sewer replacements when the situation actually calls for it.