2005 0809 Ca

TECHNICAL ARCHIVES

PROJECT LOG

DATE

August 8–13, 2005

CLIENT

Marriott Hotel, 3400 Market Street, Riverside, CA

CONTRACTOR

ARS Rescue Rooter, Riverside, CA

RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA: AUGUST 2005 2

Tuesday: Fusing 8” SDR17 HDPE pipe behind hotel. Note PE cap and short pieces of SDR11, for use as initial fuse after cap.


A close shave to make fi rst fusion. Thicker walled pipe (SDR11) makes a stronger leading section to follow bursting head.


Entry point (at left) roughly 7 feet deep with angled access. Note temporary connections for residual fl ow.


Wednesday: Rescue Rooter confers with hotel management. Another active tie-in is discovered upstream from entry point, and further excavation is required near loading dock to uncover that connection. Pull is postponed until the following morning.


6-inch steel I-beams are driven almost 4 feet into the ground to brace against pull at exit pit (4’ x 6’ x 6’ deep in hallway).


Wednesday afternoon: Work inside hallway precludes the use of large power equipment.


Thursday morning: Water supply is shut off. Heavily corroded and restricted cast iron pipe at entry point, near property line.


Attaching cable and bursting head to fused pipe.


Head driver (front) screws onto 2” diameter threaded cable stud, and pipe driver threads on behind.


Bursting head, or mole, slides onto assembly, and is ready to go.


Shortly after entry, Thursday afternoon. 40 feet later, just inside the building foundation behind the loading dock, the bursting head is trapped by a combination of no-hub couplings and a thick external sleeve of PVC plastic.


Friday morning: After excavating to free the bursting head, shoring was reset and pull was resumed. The 12+ hour delay in resuming water and sewer service required hotel management to relocate numerous guests, including an entire wedding party.


Friday afternoon, viewed from Market Street. About 130’ of new pipe is in the ground. After another 30 feet or so, the bursting head will show itself at the other end.


Not without a fi ght, however. Another PVC sleeve is encountered about 25’ from the fi nish. This requires another excavation inside the hotel, at a wall separating lobby rest rooms from an adjacent hallway.


Ram, pulley base, and plate are hoisted together out of the pulling hole to clear the way for reinforcement of the shoring.


After the second impasse, the entire pulling support structure is failing. The left I-beam is noticeably bowed and shifted, and the right I-beam is buckled and twisted out of place altogether. 6” x 6” wood beams spanning the steel were crushed.


ARS Rescue Rooter crew digs up the mole for the second time, then cuts away the PVC sleeve and collected couplings. PVC often does not break apart like cast iron, clay, or concrete pipe, but rather folds and expands. Couplings around the bursting head within such a sleeve can create a long and corrugated anchor, which in this case withstood about 45 tons of pulling force.


11:05 PM Friday, and the head has arrived! A second pair of 6” I-beams was driven in next to the failing ones, and they were starting to shift after only 25’ of pulling. The last leg of the pull still required almost 40 tons of force and caused some pipe stretching, even though the entire run contained no bends other than the entry.


Pulling assembly and cribbing removed. Note garden hose, used to put water down the line when pulling upstream. This re-duces friction against the bursting head and softens surrounding earth, often resulting in signifi cantly lower hydraulic pressures needed to burst existing pipe. In this case, water was less effective against couplings and foundation sleeves embedded in sand.


Head slides off core assembly to facilitate cutting of pipe. This design also simplifi es removal of the mole in restricted areas such as manholes and narrow culverts.


Saturday Morning: Shortly after Rescue Rooter fi nishes connections and sewer is operational, steel beams are cut off at ground level with an acetylene torch and removed.


Marriott General Manager Tom Donahue and TRIC Tools General Manager Myles O’Dwyer rejoice in the hard-earned (and not so simple) pleasure of running water and working drains!

Business

2005 0809 Ca