August 24, 2007

WILLIAM CONWAY/PROGRESS PHOTOGRAPHY

The pipe for this Hamilton residential development presented unique challenges by virtue of its massive and unusual size.

Innovation

Big plans under way for big pipe

Massive storm water system makes better use of land

PETER KENTER

correspondent

HAMILTON

A new residential subdivision of single-family dwellings is nothing new, but Hamilton’s Dicenzo Gardens is unique in its storm water drainage pipe requirements.

“It’s a big pipe, sure — so we need to dig a big hole to lay it in there,” says Erwin Wall, president of Trenchline & Roads Inc., the contractor installing the massive storm water drainage pipes.

Wall’s telling the truth, but he’s being modest. The development contains some of the largest pipes ever constructed by Munro Concrete Products of Utopia, Ont.

“Big?” asks John Pozzobon, project manager for Munro. “We’ve never produced anything this big and we’ve been in business for 50 years.”

The storm drain consists of about 100 massive sections of pre-cast concrete pipe a little over two metres long and 2700 millimetres in diameter. Each section weighs about 14,000 kilograms.

The large storm drain is being created to act not only as a conduit for the development’s storm water, but also as a holding tank located beneath its roads. While traditional residential developments often include a storm water collection pond, the land is eventually turned over to the city with no benefit to the developer. By locating the pond underneath the subdivision’s roadways, the pond area can now be dedicated to additional housing.

“It’s a unique steel-reinforced design,” says Pozzobon. “We had to go through several prototypes here at the plant before we could go into full production.”

Pozzobon says delivery of the huge pipe has spectators lining the streets. “If this was traditional 600 mm pipe, we’d be delivering them 30 at a time. These are so big, we can only load two of them on a truck.

We have to use specially-made drop deck trailers and had to rent eight additional delivery vehicles just to get them to Hamilton as fast as we could.”

The pipe sections are installed in granular bedding and connected using neoprene gaskets in trenches so large that Trenchline purchased a new excavator for the job. “The trenches are deeper than normal, about five metres,” says Pozzobon. “It takes a large sized excavator to lift the pipe from the delivery trucks and place them into the trenches.”

Assembled, the pipes will stretch into a single storm water holding tank about 210 metres long.

Pozzobon says that the storm sewer project, which will be completed in August, has generated a lot of interest in the development community and among municipalities. “The developers like the idea of devoting an additional acre to construction — the payback in usable land is enormous — and the municipality likes the idea of reduced maintenance when they eventually assume the development’s infrastructure,” he says. “Many of the storm water ponds eventually become filled with sediment and the pipes require routine inspection. You wouldn’t have to send a closed-circuit camera down this length of pipe — it’s so big you could drive a bicycle through it if you wanted to.”

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