Innovation is dramatically improving storm water and sewer line cleaning efficiency, even in the largest pipes with the heaviest debris accumulation.
As storm water flows through the lines, sand, sediment, and debris settles, builds up, and then must be cleaned out using powerful, high-pressure water. Municipalities and contractors often rely on floor cleaners, also called bottom nozzles, to clean out this debris from the storm water pipes.
Floor cleaners are crucial for eliminating sand, mud, sludge, and heavy debris from storm lines, sanitary lines, and culverts by directing powerful streams of water to clean pipelines effectively. The challenge becomes more demanding in large-diameter stormwater pipes as they face issues with the accumulation of oversized debris like bricks, concrete chunks, wood pieces, corrugated metal, and the occasional manhole cover.
Furthermore, offset joints resulting from pipe dislocations may act as barriers hindering the floor cleaner’s advancement. These obstructions can hamper effective floor cleaning, obstruct the device’s path, and potentially lead to its overturning—necessitating labor-intensive manual intervention and retrieval by the maintenance team.
Although floor cleaners are well established in the industry, some nozzle manufacturers have substantially improved the fluid mechanics of the jets to remove even heavy sediment and debris from pipes. As an example, Spartanburg, SC-based KEG Technologies offers a complete floor cleaner family with 5 to 14 jets using patented fluid mechanics that provides superior cleaning efficiency in large diameter pipes, typically from 6” to 72”.
The company also manufactures sewer and storm line products including Tier 1 to Tier 3 nozzles, chain cutters, and camera nozzle systems and is a member of NASSCO, the National Association of Sewer Service Companies.
Due to advanced design fluid mechanics, the flow from the high-pressure water hose is converted to maximum cleaning power in each jet of the floor cleaner. The resulting flow from the various jets, as well as the jet angle design, make these floor cleaners ideal for removing sand, sludge, mud, and compacted materials as well as heavy debris like rocks, bricks, and broken concrete.
Conventional floor cleaner configurations are inadequate in navigating the numerous obstacles present in large-bore pipes. The skids can often get hung up on offset joints within pipe. For this reason, floor cleaners must still be designed to climb over, or avoid, significant obstacles.
To resolve some of these issues, leading manufacturers of sewer jet nozzles design floor cleaners equipped with stabilizing skids. KEG Technologies elevated the skids an additional inch to provide increased clearance over obstacles within the pipe, thereby preventing potential obstructions. This allows the floor cleaner to run over cracks and even offset joints in pipe without getting stuck and having to be retrieved.
KEG Technologies also tackled another persistent industry problem – floor cleaning very large diameter pipe with heavy debris – in an innovative way. The company designed a Y-connector that allows two floor cleaners to be used together at the same time. This allows the cleaning crew the ability to clean very large, big bore round pipe, arch pipe, and even large box culverts.
For more information: visit www.kegtechnologies.net; or call 866-595-0515.