The Village of Baldwin, Ill., recently made the decision to
replace a failing 40-year-old clay tile sewer main with a new 10-inch gravity
sewer.
Since the new sewer main had to be installed in a
high-traffic area, parallel to a main village street and under a state highway
and a set of railroad tracks, Rhutasel and Associates Inc., of Freeburg, Ill.,
the village’s consulting engineers, chose directional drilling as the method of
installing pipe for the new sewer. In order to minimize disturbance to the
public and keep costs down, directional drilling was the only realistic option.
For the new sewer, 600 feet of CertainTeed Certa-Lok C-900/RJ
restrained-joint PVC pipe was used, which the engineers chose for its strong
performance in directional drilling applications.
“We specified the Certa-Lok C-900/RJ restrained-joint PVC
pipe mainly for its rigidity and ability to withstand stretching that may occur
from the pulling force of the directional drilling rig,” says Travis Liefer,
staff engineer for Rhutasel and Associates, a multi-disciplinary consulting
engineering and land surveying professional services firm. “We needed a product
that would be able to resist any minor deflections that may be in the actual
bore itself.”
Certa-Lok C900/RJ is a PVC product suitable for both water
and wastewater applications. Its joining system, which utilizes a high-strength
spline to connect pipe lengths, holds the pipe together during installation and
pressurization, while elastomeric O-rings provide a pressure seal.
The Village of Baldwin hired contractor Korte-Luitjohan Contractors
Inc., of Highland, Ill., to install the gravity sewer main and
build a new sewage lift station. Korte & Luitjohan Contractors Inc.,
established in 1958, is a family owned, full-service general contractor serving
central and southern Illinois.
The contractor used a Vermeer directional drill and a DCI Digitrak F2
Drill-Head Locator with target steering crew to make a 600-foot bore. The bore
began at a depth of 14 feet and ended at a depth of 17 feet, meeting grade
requirements all the way. The installation took 8 days, and the installed pipe
then was camera-tested for sags and deflections, and passed with flying colors.
Thanks
to the use of directional drilling, traffic suffered only minor, short-term
disruption, and there was no disruption to the railroad, Illinois Highway 154
or businesses in the area. In addition, grading, seeding and roadway repairs
were minimized by avoiding open trench installation.