Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter.

The material that makes cured-in-place pipe is blown down and into the old corrugated metal pipe under a parking lot. Workers from FerraTex in Martinsville get to see their product in action: (from left, in blue) Julio Santamaria, Blake Orr, Matt Baker, Christian Pugh and (not pictured) Chris Nixon. FerraTex CFO Carl Fleming was watching from across the street.

The cured-in-place pipe material is guided into the old pipe.

Prillaman & Pace Project Manager and Estimator John Turner (left) and Senior Vice President Dean Prillaman oversee the installation of the cured-in-place pipe under the parking lot and building at the old Gulf station on Spruce Street.

A worker from Prism guides the cured-in-place pipe material into the old metal corrugated pipe which is deteriorating.

It’s not every day that the people who make products in a factory get to see those items being put to use.

Yet recently, some workers at FerraTex did just that: They went to Spruce Street, where a major project united three Martinsville companies – unexpectedly.

Prillaman & Pace, a locally-owned utility and mechanical contractor company in Martinsville, had contracted with another family-owned firm in Williamsburg, Prism, to work on a drainage line repair under the old Gulf station on Spruce Street. While P&P Project Manager and Estimator John Turner and Senior Vice President Dean Prillaman were on the job site, they realized that Prism was using a product made by Applied Felts and FerraTex Solutions, both out of Martinsville.

It was just neat to realize that a company from the other end of Virginia was using Martinsville-made materials, which ended up back in Martinsville, Prillaman said. Someone from Prism called the folks at FerraTex to come out and see the interesting way in which it is used.

The old 36-inch metal corrugated drainage pipe which runs from Spruce Street, under the Gulf station and out to drain on a hillside below, had deteriorated, creating a sink hole behind the station. Using old methods – digging out and replacing the metal pipe – would have required not only dealing with the asphalt parking lot above it, but also the building.

However, a relatively new technology, Cured-in-Place Pipe (CIPP), fixed the problem in a more simple manner.

A liner, made from an industrial felt base by Applied Felts with wetting by FerraTex, was inserted into the metal pipe, then steamed and cured.

“Once it’s steamed and cured, it hardens to basically a brand new HDPE,” Turner said, referring to high density polyethylene pipe. “It’s an easier method than to dig the parking lot to put a new pipe.

“A lot of times when it’s in a hard-to-get place,” companies use HDPE instead of metal pipe, he said.

FerraTex employees watching the process included Christian Pugh, Matt Baker, Chris Nixon, Julio Santamaria, Blake Orr and Chief Financial Officer Carl Fleming. They put in ear plugs before the noisy process began.

The ground around the pipe had been dug out, revealing the 3-foot-wide underground metal pipe and muddy water. A metal pole extended from apparatus on the back of a Prism truck into that hole.

Then a casing was eased down into the hole, looking like a larger-than-life blown-up balloon of the type used to make balloon animals poking its way down there. A machine kept it pumped with air. One end of the bluish cured-in-place pipe material was in it. The rest of it was in the truck and would be fed through a conveyor through the casing and into the old pipe.

A man from Prism donned a white suit and heavy boots and climbed down a ladder into the hole, where he stood in murky brown water at least up to his knees – then crouched down into the pit to guide the white material into the pipe, once bracing himself low against the back of the pit to push in the white material with both feet.

Then a Prism worker in a yellow T-whirt and white hard hat operated the apparatus, which unrolled the long bluish length of piping into the white balloon-like guide, down into the hole.

Another man climbed onto a ledge to pour mineral oil between the blue piping material and the white outer layer. As the bluish line went down through the white guide, the man would occasionally spray it with mineral oil from a bottle.

As the CIPP was guided into the pipe, other men were behind the building helping in the area where the pipe drained onto the hillside.

Once the bluish layer was in place, a boiler housed in another truck heated it to fit and then cure in place.

Prillaman said the project falls under Prillaman & Pace’s Underground Utility division. “A lot of people don’t know about the underground department of Prillaman & Pace,” he said. “It does a lot of work out of town ... and for the city and county” when needs arise.

The Cured-in-Place piping has been in use for about 15 years, he estimated.

“I thought it was cool, working with someone from Williamsburg and we ended up with two companies from Henry County” involved through the use of their product, he said.

“It’s great for those guys in Ferratex to come out and see it,” Turner said. “They’re in the plant and warehouse every day,” and don’t normally get to see the fruits of their labors.

See a video of the interesting process, plus more photos, on www.martinsvillebulletin.com.

Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter.

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.

The old corrugated metal pipe under the old Gulf station on Spruce Street had deteriorated, and Prillaman & Pace oversaw the installation …

The material that makes cured-in-place pipe is blown down and into the old corrugated metal pipe under a parking lot. Workers from FerraTex in Martinsville get to see their product in action: (from left, in blue) Julio Santamaria, Blake Orr, Matt Baker, Christian Pugh and (not pictured) Chris Nixon. FerraTex CFO Carl Fleming was watching from across the street.

The cured-in-place pipe material is guided into the old pipe.

Prillaman & Pace Project Manager and Estimator John Turner (left) and Senior Vice President Dean Prillaman oversee the installation of the cured-in-place pipe under the parking lot and building at the old Gulf station on Spruce Street.

A worker from Prism guides the cured-in-place pipe material into the old metal corrugated pipe which is deteriorating.

Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device.