Here’s Your Sign
An RV blogger and author friend, Nick Russell, writes a blog on RV’ing and this past week pointed out questions from blog readers who ask some pretty challenging questions. One guy lost his pins locking his tow vehicle to his motorhome and wrote to ask if using heavy-duty zip ties would work until he found new pins. He used a line from Bill Engvall, the comedian who did a bit on things people ask, “Here’s Your Sign”. I’ve accumulated a few of these over the years of doing lining and coating and thought I’d share a few.
1-“I looked at a job that the guys who line pipe regularly have turned down and the customer asked me if I’d do the job. I told him I was sure I could handle the job. Since I’ve never done lining before and don’t have the equipment, I’m wondering if I can buy the equipment from you and have you help me do this job?” –
Here’s Your Sign! There’s a reason people turned down this job. Not every job is a lining job and without seeing the job I have no idea if it can be done. If you are going to get into the lining business, you may want to walk before you run, learn the capabilities, and do a few jobs before you commit to attempting to do an impossible job.
2-“I lined a 4” cast iron pipe that was so corroded I decided to use 3” lining material to line it. The guy is complaining that the line keeps backing up and he’s having to have it jetted regularly. Your guys told me liner would eliminate the problems they had before lining the pipe but it’s being cleaned more now than before. When I put a camera into the lined pipe it looks really rough and there are several spots where it’s so necked down I’m surprised anything gets through as I had a hard time getting my 2” camera head through.”
Here’s Your Sign! It’s not good practice to put a 3” liner in a 4” pipe. Look, I know cleaning with conventional tools such as regular cable machines and jetters doesn’t work very well but there are other tools, particularly the new line of high-speed cables & machines driving a chain knocker & sanders to properly clean and prepare the pipe. Your choices now are to chew out the liner, clean and prepare the pipe, then line it to the right size or just replace the pipe. In the future when you want to go down a path that is out of the ordinary, contact us or someone with experience for a 2nd opinion.
3-“A customer had a problem with a belly in their pipe. It was a constant source of trouble as the belly was so big, solids would fill in the belly and plug the pipe. I lined the pipe with the idea that the liner would straighten out the belly and solve the problem. Sad to say that after lining, the belly didn’t straighten out and it is causing the same trouble as it did before I lined it. Why didn’t the liner straighten out the belly?”
Here’s Your Sign! Liners, as well as coating, follow the profile of the host pipe you are fixing. If your logic was the liner would push the belly to straight, your logic was flawed. Dig it up and fix the belly.
4-“I want to coat an entire apartment from a single entry point with your coating machine but your training guy says it doesn’t work that way. Why not?”
Here’s Your Sign! Let’s think about this. The apartment building has a 6” stack. How would you put a 6” brush on a cable, push it through 1.5” or 2” pipe and coat the line? If you entered a pipe that tied into another pipe at a 45-degree angle and another 45-degree tie in from another appliance, how would your coating train negotiate to turn around the 45 then reverse direction and crawl up a 45 going the opposite way?
5-“Just bought an old 40’ trailer and a tractor to pull it to put my equipment in. I work in a metropolitan area and wondered how hard it is to get parking permits from cities to park my mobile wet out rig? I figured it would be easier to wrap the inside with roller tables so I could wet out inside the rig without worrying about UV affecting my liner resin.”
Here’s Your Sign! Working in metro areas presents special challenges such as what you described. Usually lining in a metro area requires smaller, not bigger equipment. Lining a 100’ line doesn’t mean you need a big trailer for a workspace. Working with this size equipment in a metro area will add permits, traffic control, possible by-pass pumping, and other logistics that add costs to your jobs.
If any of these questions help you avoid a problem or any other question, contact us at +1-888-354-6464 or email us at info@pipeliningsupply.com
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