Rehabilitating Cleanouts and Floor Drains in a Northern Quebec Winter
In early 2022, FORMADRAIN was mandated to do CIPP work in the northern territory of Nunavik, Quebec. The area’s new airport terminal, built in Salluit a year before, was showing some deficiencies under the slab of the basement. Nine cleanouts and floor drains had shifted in the vertical area between the floor and the sweep.
Because of the permafrost and the thickness of the slab, the engineers and the contractor were looking for a non-invasive way to solve the problem and prevent it from getting worse.
Our no-dig CIPP solutions solved the problem in less than 3 days
The project was accepted and took place in March 2022. The FORMADRAIN crew had to overcome several different challenges:
Transportation
Salluit is only accessible by air at that time of year; there are no roads that link Salluit to other villages in Quebec.
Our team had to travel light to get everything on the Pilatus PC-12 that carried crew members and equipment from Québec City to the camps; we had two pallets worth of equipment to send up north. At the same time, because pretty much every village in Northern Quebec is isolated, the FORMADRAIN crew needed to bring as much extra material as possible in case anything went wrong.
Climate
With the windchill, Salluit can be as cold as -50°C (-60°F) in March. What’s more, the community sits on permafrost (meaning the ground is always below freezing). An active curing method was essential, so we went with steam curing.
Timeframe
FORMADRAIN’s crew flew out on the Monday. Our experts had only three days to perform the job. Some of the equipment was on board the plane with the crew at takeoff. However, all that cargo had to switch planes without warning when the first attempt at landing in Salluit was aborted due to high winds. Fortunately, the crew finally made it after 11 hours of travelling!
All in all, a total of 9 liners were successfully installed in 2.5 days. Now that’s proof of the performance of our team and trenchless CIPP solutions!
