Challenging Jobs

Task

Our task was to repair three internal PVC downpipes in an eight story residential unit block at Tuncurry, New South Wales.

We received an enquiry from insurance assessors to determine the feasibility of relining the downpipes which had been damaged when satellite television was installed into the unit block. The downpipes were damaged when cables associated with the satellite dish were installed, penetrating the internal downpipes on each level and creating an entry for rainwater.

The downpipes were located on the building internally. This presented a major difficulty in the repair/replacement of damaged downpipes.

Scope

Access to the downpipes was gained from the floor waste grates on roof level and the exposed drainage in garden area as access points. The downpipe was 80mm PVC with 50mm junctions at each level picking up balcony floor drains. We installed on average 6 x patches (that were located about 700 – 800mm above floor level in each unit) on each downpipe (18 in total). The downpipe system has had approximately 10 months use without reports of further problems.