Is PVC actually more durable, over time, than clay pipe, provided it’s properly installed? There are a LOT of houses that have clay pipe for drain tile, and they’ve been around for 40, 50, 60+ years.
VCP’s claim to fame is it’s resistance to corrosion from acid often found in sewers. It will last a long time. The downsides are its fragility and numerous joints that can allow root intrusion.
PVC is lighter, and more nearly leakproof. I asked our city’s water/sewer manager a couple of months ago about it, and he said NY City was just about the last major municipality to specify VCP in construction.
Hereabouts, when they retrofit an old sewer, they clean out roots, and then line it with an epoxy inner coating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cured-in-place_pipe
Walter, thanks for sharing. I’ve had several point this out.
Kurtis Alexander
Staff Writer
(415) 777-6063
kalexander@sfchronicle.com
From: Walter Abbott
Date: Sunday, June 25, 2017 at 9:41 AM
To: “Alexander, Kurtis”
Subject: Oroville Spillway Repair
Kurtis,
Interesting interview you had with former Department of Water Resources manager Dave Gutierrez. Taxpayer mistrust of government factotums as your title implies is very well founded.
You quoted him thus: “You can’t even find clay pipes anymore,” Gutierrez said, as he looked down from the top of the 770-foot earthen dam that was completed in 1968.
Why would he tell such an obvious mistruth? It took me but a few seconds to Google up several current domestic manufacturers of Vitrified Clay Pipe (VCP), of the exact same type that was used for drainage beneath the original Oroville Dam spillway.
It he told that lie, what else did he lie about?
http://www.ncpi.org/
National Clay Pipe Institute
http://www.loganclaypipe.com/pipeprods_b.html
Logan Clay Pipe Products
http://missionclay.com/
Mission Clay Products
http://www.canclay.com/
Can Clay Corp.
http://www.loganclaypipe.com/
Logan Clay Pipe
Walter Abbott
Ruston, LA