Predicting Costs of Pipe Cleaning and Lining Projects

Abstract

Cleaning and cement‐mortar lining of water mains is the method of choice for many water utilities seeking to restore lost carrying capacity to their old pipes. In order to make good decisions concerning whether to clean and line a main, as opposed to replacing it, paralleling it, or leaving it alone, it is important to he able to quickly, yet accurately, estimate the costs of a cleaning and lining project. This paper gives a procedure for estimating the costs of cleaning and lining water mains. The costs predicted using the procedure described in this paper were compared with actual costs from 51 projects and were found to be within an average of 16% of the actual costs, even though a large variety of projects were considered.