Pipe Patch questions

[Nevada plumber]

I went to look at a job at our local prison today. The maintenance people tried to unclog a 4" drain line and managed to punch a hole in the 4" PVC elbow where it turns from vertical to horizontal. I have a straight shot down to the elbow so I was thinking a pipe lining system would be better than taking out the prison floor and digging down 5 feet to replace the elbow.

Looking at the Pipe Patch website I see there is a kit for repairing elbows like this. I am going to contact the rep and ask some questions, but I was wondering if anyone here has used the system to repair elbows before? If so, how did it go? Also what is the strength of the patch? Since the maintenance people already managed to blow a hole in the fitting, I am curious if the patch will stand up to someone running a sewer machine.

[PLUMBER RICK]

Re: Pipe Patch questions

I did see the special 90 degree packer on the reps truck. The material is stronger than the pvc.

Shouldn't be that hard to dig, heck give the inmates a spoon and they'll have it dug before sun up

I believe mike covers your area for the pipe patch. He's in Colorado but would love a road trip to sin city.

Spoke to him a few weeks ago while he was ready to fly home from Indianapolis pumper show. Max was at the airport with him and they called.

Rick.

[Gene Bickford]

Re: Pipe Patch questions

I have done a 45 but it was before they had an elbow system. I would NOT recommend This on a 90 or even a 45 for that matter, but this is what I did.

4" clay *45
12" x 24" Patch

Placed packer and patch at location and inflated as normal.

waited 5mins and deflated packer and immediately inflated back to PSI.

after 5 mins I did the same.

Another 5 i did the same and left it for the full cure time.

Patch came out very good. No wrinkles, nice and smooth turn.

last summer this same customer was having a problem that had nothing to do with the lateral, but I got a vibe she thought it had something to do with the patch so I put the camera in at no charge. Once she saw the condition of the patch after 4 yrs and the condition of the lateral she was A OK for me to address the current problem at hand.

I can not tell you who gave me the deflate/inflate advice as I'm not sure that was an "approved method" at the time, but I can tell you it worked.

Again I would not try this in a 90, but I do trust their products.

[SewerRatz]

Re: Pipe Patch questions

When I went to get certified at their factory, they had me do a few patches and one of them was a 90º elbow, and they have a special material for the elbows along with an elbow packer. It works amazing.

[Dhal22]

Re: Pipe Patch questions

I did see the special 90 degree packer on the reps truck. The material is stronger than the pvc.

Shouldn't be that hard to dig, heck give the inmates a spoon and they'll have it dug before sun up

I believe mike covers your area for the pipe patch. He's in Colorado but would love a road trip to sin city.

Spoke to him a few weeks ago while he was ready to fly home from Indianapolis pumper show. Max was at the airport with him and they called.

Rick.

Rick, I don't know about the digging being easy. I worked on a project at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary as well as a project at a state prison years ago and they are serious about their thick poured floors. I think the Federal Pen had 18" of rebar in the floor. Rebar close enough together you could walk across it without looking down at your feet. That was an interesting job, 1 tool at a time. The helper ran ragged fetching and returning tools.

David