The crisis: Pinhole leaks
Lincoln Towers is a 22-story luxury apartment complex with 800 high-end residential units. Even though the Towers had been re-plumbed just five years prior to our arrival, the high-rise building was already experiencing pinhole leaks throughout the structure. Management was, to say the least, not happy. That’s when they gave CuraFlo a call.
The solution: CuraFlo Epoxy Lining
First, we brought in our water infrastructure experts to examine the extent of the leakage and recommend the best course of action. The building managers were expecting another total re-pipe. But CuraFlo had good news: The problem could be solved with our innovative Engineered Flow Lining System - a process that would minimize demolition and virtually eliminate disruption to tenants. The Engineered Flow Lining Process is proven and certified to the highest safety standard - ANSI/NSF Standard 61. Delighted with our proposal, management gave us the go-ahead to proceed.
Phase One consisted of 48 risers totaling service to 480 fixtures. In order to minimize disruption of water supply, we installed isolation valves on each hot and cold riser. That enabled us to precisely control water supply so that water supply was shut off only on those sections actually being repaired. No suites were without running water for an entire day.
Working one section at a time, CuraFlo Professionals dried and cleaned the pipes using controlled high-pressure air, then did a visual inspection. Next, using our proprietary blow through technology, they applied our patented epoxy, CuraPoxy. Because CuraPoxy has a very short cure time - just five hours - we were able to restore service quickly, keeping tenant disruption to a minimum.
The following day, our technicians ran pressure tests on the epoxy-lined pipes to confirm their integrity. They then flushed the pipes and reinstalled the fixtures. With that section repair completed, they placed the riser back in service. They repeated this procedure, section by section, until completion.
Phase Two included 39 risers consisting of 390 total fixtures. By the time we had completed the entire project, our CuraFlo Professionals applied epoxy lining and alleviated all pipe problems in 516 risers totaling over 5,000 fixtures.
The outcome:
The total cost to service the entire building complex was only a fraction of a complete re-pipe job. The entire project took approximately 120 weeks-- about one-third of the time of a re-pipe.