Working With Customers To Stop Inflow
The new year is right around the corner. But before we celebrate 2022, we’d like to share a few updates on the activity that took place in 2021.
The Numbers
Even with the uncertainty that 2021 brought us, we still helped a number of city and local municipalities, telecommunications organizations and power companies with their inflow challenges. Check out these details:
- 0 warranty claims were made on the PRO-RING – that’s 11 years without a warranty claim!
- 50 free product demonstrations were conducted, across 22 states
- 2,900 X-85 External Chimney Seals were installed for our customers
- 7,500 LSS Internal Chimney Seals were installed for our customers
- 55,000 PRO-RINGS were installed across the United States, Canada and Australia
Product Demos Helped Solve Customer Challenges
Our goal with product demonstrations is to help customers solve inflow and infiltration challenges, and show how easy it is to install our products. Here’s a recap of a few of the product demonstrations that took place:
LSS Internal Chimney Seal Demo in Missouri: A suburb was experiencing infiltration issues in the grade ring area on their manholes, a common issue that we see quite a bit. At the close of the demo, the manager indicated that he would be ordering additional LSS internal chimney seals with the goal of eliminating the infiltration issues that the suburb had been encountering for a long time.
PRO-RING Demo in Alabama: A Superintendent was experiencing I&I issues with a manhole on a major highway. Logging trucks utilize that highway on a regular basis, and the extra weight and on-going pounding from the trucks was creating cracking, separation and severe I&I issues around a number of manholes. The Superintendent was pleased with the demo and ordered and installed additional PRO-RING adjustable grade systems on the main highway, and other highways as well.
PRO-RING Demo in Illinois: A municipality in Illinois had installed concrete rings on the storm sewer inlets a few years ago, but they were already beginning to fail causing inflow and infiltration issues. The concrete rings were corroding due to the road salt chemicals, and other chemicals that are commonly used to help clear snow and ice during the extreme cold temperatures of the winter months. Our demonstration of the PRO-RING, was a success and the municipality purchased additional PRO-RINGS for storm sewer inlet repairs in multiple locations.
Stopping Inflow And Infiltration Continued To Be An Important Topic
Conversations with customers and presentations at events had a very similar theme – the importance of stopping inflow and infiltration. This topic was so important that the Cretex Specialty Products team presented “Devices To Mitigate I&I in Sanitary Sewer Manholes” during the UCT I&I elimination event in TN.
The presentation provided insights on a range of “devices” that can be used to stop inflow and infiltration in existing sanitary sewer manholes, as well as prevent it in new manholes. These “devices” are proven to be cost-effective and relatively easy to install for contractors and sewer maintenance personnel.
Product Lead Times Were Not Impacted
While the sewer industry, as a whole, was impacted by long product lead times, our customers didn’t experience significant products delays. We continued to deliver products on time and on budget throughout 2021. We’re set-up to ship the same day, or next day, depending on the product and size of the order.
What We Expect In 2022
The need to maintain, rehabilitate or replace aging sewer infrastructure, and stop inflow and infiltration from impacting cities and budgets, will continue to be a focus. In addition, our free product demonstrations will continue into 2022. These product demonstrations have been a benefit to so many customers, and have saved them time and money over the long-haul.
If you’re interested in requesting a product demonstration, please connect with us on our website. Answer a few questions, and we’ll take it from there.
Happy 2022 Everyone!