A home with no room for error!

This job was bound to be "fun" — pull 95' of PE sewer pipe under a garage, a breezeway and a house terminating under a 4' x 5' room in a 2' x 3' pit dug through a concrete floor right beside a hot water tank!

Jimmy Blisset took over the business, Drain "O" Rooter, from his father, 'Big Jim', about a year ago after his father died tragically at the hands of an armed intruder in the office. Drain "O" Rooter had been a successful plumbing business for over 25 years, and for the preceding four years had been an approved contractor for the City of Denver for the purposes of rehabilitating pipe systems with the 'slip lining' method. Jimmy saw that the future is in 'pipe bursting', and fashioned his own home-made pulling system, which worked well for him and earned him approval from the City of Denver as am approved pipe bursting contractor.

Pipe bursting is a new concept for the City of Denver but the city is moving more toward it given the many advantages bursting offers. Therefore a city inspector was assigned to observe the pipe bursting job presented here. Not long ago, Jimmy realized his home-made system — one that requires a backhoe to pull the pipe — had some limitations, so he began researching manufactured systems. After doing his due diligence and researching available bursting systems, Jimmy settled on the Pipe Genie and decided to 'give it a try' on this project.

The reasons for his choice were very straight forward. The Pipe Genie, available through Trenchless America, offered the user-friendliness, simplicity and power needed for the jobs he was being requested to do. In addition, Pipe Genie's technical support offers him the benefit of 15 years of pipe pulling experience in a multitude of situations — to him this meant not only that the machine's operation could be supported, but also the machine in the hole actually working could be supported as well — where sometimes unexpected challenges can present themselves!

(Pipe Genie is currently attempting to develop a specialized pair of X-Ray goggles so that all underground factors can be seen and anticipated in advance. However the Pipe Genie engineers specialize in trenchless technology, not optics, so it may be a while!)

The specifics of the job are as follows: The job began at 8:30am when pits were dug and machines set in place. By 2:30pm the pull (95' of PE pipe) was complete. The pull, itself, took approximately 45 minutes at 2 ft/min pulling speed through existing soil conditions. By 3:30pm the necessary hookups were completed, and by evening the residence had a fully functioning sewer system again. It is of particular note that the new pipe's destination was a 2' x 3' pit inside a small 5' x 4' utility room within the home. Because the Pipe Genie unit is both small and light-weight, the crew was able to hand-carry the machine into the space and assemble it, ready for action, in approximately five minutes!