Special Resin For PVC Pipe vs. Other Pipe
“My supplier told me I had to use a special epoxy resin to line PVC pipe. Is there different resin formulations for different types of host pipe material or is this guy blowing smoke?”
Either your supplier is mistaken in their understanding or they are indeed blowing smoke but there is no resin formulations that apply to different types of pipe. First of all, CIPP lining materials including the tube and resin are typically designed to be stand-alone and fit closely to the host pipe. There is no interaction of bonding on a molecular level between the host pipe and the liner. It’s a close fit liner and bond and it doesn’t matter what type of material it comes in contact with. If it did matter it would complicate the process.
For instance, if lining clay pipe needed pre-lining material made of PVC, which resin would you choose? Further, which resin would you choose if you started in one type of pipe that transitioned to another type of pipe? When these claims are made you could take it to another level by promoting different resins for different diameters of pipe, vertical oriented pipe resins and horizontal pipe resins, or different resins for rainy days vs. dry days. Hopefully, this gives you an idea of resin types.
We do provide different hardeners that have different work/cure times. We formulate resins with 15, 30, 60 and 180 minute work times. Some suppliers make “winter” and “summer” blends that they market for different times of the year to try to predict work/cure times aligned with seasonal temperature changes which are close to our 15 and 30-minute resin models. With that in mind, you can control your resin temperatures to adjust the summer version to think it’s winter by chilling the resin and the reverse for warming the winter blend to think it’s summer. All resins are tested for performance at 77F, so the 15 minute or winter resin formulations chilled to 55F would extend the work/cure times to perform similar to winter even in the heat of summer.
With this information, you are equipped to challenge a supplier who tells you that you need a special resin system to work with a particular type of pipe that needs a particular type of resin.
For more information call us at +1-888-354-6464 or email us at info@pipeliningsupply.com.
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