A situation in which slip lining would work well is repairing a large culvert that passes beneath a busy roadway. Hopefully the deterioration is caught before it fully collapses, which would not only stop the flow of water or wastewater it’s tasked with carrying, but also greatly compromise the safety of the roadway overhead. Another might be a pump retention pond whose original corrugated metal riser has lost its bottom to rust, resulting in the danger of a sinkhole above it.

Because slip lining doesn’t require much excavation, instead accessing the pipe from either end, it’s an ideal technique to use when keeping traffic flowing above is important. It can sometimes also be accomplished in a live-use pipe, without requiring any bypass work, making it time efficient and cost-effective.

Because the slip lining method is simple and straightforward, it usually takes far less time to complete than other trenchless methods, and the materials are ubiquitous and easy to find. This makes what could have been a months-long, massively disruptive and expensive project into a 2-3-day, long-lasting fix that pretty much leaves surface traffic and life alone. You’re left with a fully functioning pipe that—due to the materials we use, which restore smooth flow features lost to the friction of the previously deteriorated pipe—can generally handle its design flows for another 100 years, while fully supporting the weight of traffic above.