Leaking Vertical Apartment Sewer Stacks - Note the longitudinal crack along the length of the pipe

As sure as death itself, after about 30 years the old vertical sewer pipes in apartment high rise condominiums will rust and crack along the length of the pipe. The sewer water will leak into walls and cause some serious damage. Since all the building’s sewer stack have the same age and the same environmental conditions (water flow rates, materials, humidity), the remaining pipes soon leak after the first one. The easiest solution is apartment high rise condominium pipe lining.

Most apartment high rise condominiums start off by making individual plumbing repairs by moving cabinets, mirrors etc. and cutting open concrete and drywall surfaces, replacing the leaking section of pipe, then repairing the wall or entire sections of walls if they had water damage.

A cleaner, faster and less expensive way to replace these vertical leaking stacks is by “cured-in-place pipe” lining (CIPP).

How Is Vertical Pipe Lining Installed?

1. Clean the apartment high rise condominium vertical pipes - there are essentially two ways to do this. The first, by using a high pressure water jetter, is somewhat dangerous as the brittle leaking cast iron pipes may leak or break allowing the high pressure water jetter to cause serious damage or even injury to residents! The second and more safe way is to use an assortment of proprietary steel brushes that are passed through the pipe allowing the corrosion and scale to fall to the bottom of the apartment high rise condominium pipe where it is collected and removed.
2. Use a pipe video inspection camera to measure the length of pipe lining needed and where the pipe connections are - these measurements are used to cut the new inner lining material to precise length, and to cut access point in the material for where incoming pipe connections are. So the entire length of pipe is lined, exept for the small area where a pipe connection is. (there is a method used more rarely due to its cost and time consumption that lines the entire pipe, covering up incoming pipe connections, after which a robotic cutter is sent into the lined pipe to precisely cut open the pipe connections. see this video – click here
3. Once the fabric liner is cut to size, it is saturated with self-hardening resin. The pipe liner is then either pulled into the pipe or “shot” into the pipe with air and left to cure for 3-4 hours. It is only during this brief cure time that the apartment high rise condominium stack cannot be used by the residents in the apartments.
4. Once the liner is fully cured, the new apartment high rise condominium pipe is video inspected to make sure installation was perfect.

Vertical Roof Drain Pipe Lining

Top of Hotel Sewer Stack Pipe Lining

Of course apartment high rise condominium roof drains eventually corrode too and will leak into walls. These pipes are much easier to reline because there are few or no pipe connections to take into consideration. The installation process is the same as for vertical waste stacks.

Example 2:

We re-lined 5 x 100’ four-inch rain drain stacks from a rooftop in Boca Raton, FL (video on our web site) in 2 days for a cost of $50,000. There were no pipe connections to open afterward so the job was fast and relatively inexpensive. Each pipe had 3 x 90 degree bends and was leaking into the condos though poorly connected joints, which once lined over, stopped leaking of course.

40-50 years ago a revolutionary rubber pipe connector was invented and patented and then used to attach PVC pipes to cast iron pipes. Since then the invention disappeared and here’s why: it was unique in that it could fit around the outside of cast iron pipes and has a tapered end allowing it to be glued to the inside of PVC pipe. The problem was that after a few decades of drying and shrinkage, the glue and rubber separated from the inside of the PVC, creating leaks.

We re-lined all 5 one-hundred foot stacks from the rooftop in two days, without disturbing the privacy of the million-dollar condo residents.

When high-rise condos have leaks in their cast iron vertical sewer pipes or rain drain pipes, the inside of the condos become flooded. The cost of repairing drywall, mould control, carpet and tile replacement, and painting is very high.

To solve this problem the old-fashioned way by removing drywall or concrete, replacing the cast iron with PVC, and then replacing the drywall and tiles floor by floor can run into the hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars per building.

Also, tenants have to move out for the duration of the construction, which lasts months. In addition, strangers (workers) are inside your tenants’ condos which raises privacy and security concerns.

Example 1:

One 4” cast iron sewage stack in a 10 story building will take 10 days to replace and cost around $30,000.

To re-line the same stack will take 1-2 days and cost $10,000 – $15,000. The work can usually be performed from the rooftop only without invading the privacy of tenants.

Most of us will live an entire lifetime and fortunately never experience the need to replace pipes. And if you have never had the problem, you probably are unaware of the array of solutions. The fact is however, that pipe lining for large diameter pipes (10” – 72” in diameter) has been around for four decades, originating in Europe and Japan, but the technology for smaller diameter pipe lining has only been around for about 10 years. In fact, Perma-Liner, the manufacturer of our materials, was the leader in pioneering new ways to install these liners.