Many believe that trenchless technology has been around forever. However, it only goes back a quarter of a century, at least in terms of its role in the plumbing industry itself. Today, trenchless approaches to sewer repair are standard all across the industry. These sorts of methods are used in commercial buildings, as well as residential buildings. They’re incredibly versatile, which is one reason why they have become so popular throughout the modern plumbing industry. To understand trenchless technology, it’s important to look back at its history.
Any popular and successful technology like this will probably have an older and earlier origin than expected; this is the case with trenchless sewer repair techniques. Interestingly enough, these sorts of processes were once perfected to be used in the coal mining industry. These industrial processes were also used for the sake of oil drilling. During this time period, the professionals would have recognized the name ‘horizontal directional drilling.’
Before horizontal directional drilling was available, the professionals in this field had to drill new holes downward to get to any oil deposits or an original coal deposit. Horizontal directional drilling gave the technicians in this field the chance to use lateral drilling machines to reach mountains and hills at an angle. These machines made use of horizontal borers.
While horizontal directional drilling more or less revolutionized the fossil fuel industry, there weren’t many additional applications for it throughout the mid-twentieth century. However, all of that began to change by the late twentieth century. Using a form of technology like this in a residential setting or an urban environment truly changed everything.
Many urban planners were trying to find a way to modernize the infrastructure they already had. There were also new regulations in place, which only gave the people additional incentives to make some changes. The urban planners were making sure that the people in their areas could get new pipelines and power lines. However, to do that by using the technology they had available to them, they may have accidentally ended up upending neighborhood streets. This was not an option.
Fortunately, there were emerging technological solutions to this problem. Horizontal directional drilling had been used for decades by this point in time. Professionals used it to put advanced and complicated oil pipelines into place, and these pipelines were miles long.
Engineers did have to adapt the horizontal directional drilling technology that existed at the time. Still, it was used to establish electrical conduits and fresh piping below urban streets. This process was not anywhere near as disruptive as it otherwise would have been. These devices were able to utilize the sewer lines that existed at the time, which is one of the reasons why the technology was adapted for use in the context of sewer repair in the first place.
The equipment involved with trenchless forms of sewer repair has started to become less costly in recent years. It is becoming much more widely used than it was in even the recent past. Companies like Green’s Plumbing are now gaining access to advanced sewer repair technology.
