Grout Expectations

By Author: Roker Smith
Total Articles: 1
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The New England Pipe Cleaning Company (NEPCCO) of Watertown, Conn., is a full-service contractor with a talent for taking on large-scale municipal grouting contracts using a fleet of customized grout vans.

The company has also found a niche by offering specialized lateral grouting and cured-in-place (CIPP) shortliner pipe rehabilitation services as it expands geographically into new markets.

Today, NEPCCO fields more than 10 customized trucks fully devoted to grouting. The units are either custom-built by NEPCCO or standard inspection vans offered by CUES or Aries Industries, which are then modified in-house.

NEPCCO was founded in 1935, primarily as an equipment sales company. In 1955, twin hurricanes spawned massive Connecticut River flooding that saw the company refocus its energies.

NEPCCO bids for the MDC contracts either as general contractor or as a subcontractor providing specialized services. The company has worked with a slate of lining contractors that includes Insituform, Reynolds Inliner, and Allstate Power-Vac, who acted as prime contractors.

NEPCCO broke its ...
... own record for a lateral grouting contract in 2008 with an MDC project that involved sealing more than 2,000 laterals in West Hartford and Newington. The contract, from January 2009 through July 2010, employed as many as three full-time crews.

A lot of communities here had their collection systems silted up and looked to us to help get them back into operation, says general manager Mike Poplawski.One of the few things you could do at that time was clean the pipes.We got our taste of pipe cleaning then and developed the business along that line.

Insituform was the general contractor on that contract as well, lining about 170,000 feet of pipe. Work began in February 2010 and employed as many as five full grouting crews to meet a tough March 2011 deadline.

By 1969, we purchased our first video pipe inspection camera, and we also bought a system for grouting mainline pipe joints, which was new technology at the time. In 1985 we became involved in the grouting of lateral connections.

The company's traditional market area includes Connecticut and the New England states, but it also does work in New Jersey and parts of New York.

Heitkamp Inc. bought the company in 1992, but NEPCCO kept its identity because of the goodwill associated with the name. Four years later, Heitkamp purchased TRB Specialty Rehabilitation of Gambrills, Md., which also maintained its identity.

The company uses a range of approaches to generate sales leads, including its website, a trade show presence, targeted advertising in trade journals, and educational seminars. In the past, sales were handled by a number of NEPCCO employees.

Heitkamp, since purchased by the Sekisui Group, concentrates on cement mortar, epoxy, and polyurethane lining of potable waterlines. TRB and NEPCCO form Heitkamp's Water Environment Division (WED).

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