December 12, 2017

Using the Live Mains Insertion (LMI) method, tRIIO, a joint venture owned by Skanska UK and Morrison Utility Services working on behalf of Cadent, Britain’s largest gas distribution company, recently inserted a new 355mm PE gas main 740 metres into an 18” underground cast iron pipe in one push. This exceptionally long insertion, given the diameter of the PE, was carried out in minimum time...

February 13, 2017

Steve Vick International’s (SVI) Contract Service team have renewed ten 1.5” live gas risers in multi storey buildings in an affluent suburb of Leeds, without the need to decommission the services whilst the work was in progress. Using their Live Gas Riser Transfer technique, SVI were able to offer Northern Gas Networks (NGN) a service that kept external pipework to a minimum and thus...

January 5, 2017

Location: Winfrith Project: Isolation of four Primary Circuit Feeder Pipes from the Steam Generating Heavy Water Reactor Contractor: Magnox Limited (previously RSRL) Equipment: SVI FOAMBAGS™, umbilical filling system, CCTV and closed cell polyurethane foam Steve Vick International (SVI) has recently completed a project for Magnox Ltd. The project required SVI to design, test and...

April 20, 2015

A leaking drain which was causing waste water to enter the basement pool complex of a luxury Kensington town house was successfully sealed off by Dyno-Rod using the DRAINBLOCK BAG™ technique developed by Steve Vick International. Dyno-Rod franchisee, Candid Services Ltd of Staines, Middlesex, were called in when the home owners found water on the floor around their underground swimming pool....

A leaking drain which was causing waste water to enter the basement pool complex of a luxury Kensington town house was successfully sealed off by Dyno-Rod using the DRAINBLOCK BAG™ technique developed by Steve Vick International. Dyno-Rod franchisee, Candid Services Ltd of Staines, Middlesex, were called in when the home owners found water on the floor around their underground swimming pool....

A two kilometre section of the main, which was cast iron at one end and steel at the other, was to be abandoned. The team installed two double-skin FOAMBAGS™ at each end of the section. Once the expanding foam was cured, the main was vented and then purged using Steve Vick International’s new Mini Purge Ejector. It took just 45 minutes to purge the gas from the abandoned main. The team then...

Steve Vick International has been working with Corus Process Engineering (CPE) to provide sealing solutions for redundant sludge and effluent lines at Sellafield. The latest project is to eliminate any potential fault scenarios on the plant and reduce operator dose uptake during implementation by avoiding the need to drain the effluent tank pipes of radioactive sludge before the sealing...

Steve Vick International Ltd was recently retained to carry out works at Chapelcross for the nuclear decommissioning company Magnox North. The works required Steve Vick International engineers to seal off a number of redundant manholes – 43 in total – each containing between two to six inlet and outlet pipes of varying sizes from 20mm to 12”. The deepest manhole was 1.5 metres and the...

The project involved filling a sump and 3-4 metres of redundant 4” clay pipe that contained residual contamination from historic operations. Following several visits to the site and specific workshop trials – and based on previous experience of similar jobs for UKAEA – Steve Vick International successfully completed the sealing off operation using the Foam Bag™ system, in half a...

Procord, the company which manages the land and buildings at Winfrith Power Station, needed to safely seal off two 180mm (6”) underground pipes. These pipes connect pits that are, respectively, 43 metres and 28 metres apart. As the pipes run under a concrete road that would have been costly to dig up and reinstate, Procord decided against removing the pipes, preferring instead to completely...

Specifically, the company was commissioned to design a method of safely removing one metre lengths of ducting without contaminated particles becoming airborne, to carry out on-site trials and subsequently supply application equipment and sealants which Sellafield operatives would be trained to use. The method devised by Steve Vick involved using the company’s patented FOAMBAG™ technique,...

Steve Vick International has been involved in a pipe sealing project at Sellafield where “a complex set of decommissioning challenges” exist in dealing with the 60 year old First Generations Magnox Storage Pond (FGMSP). The scope of the work covered the removal of redundant pipework in a high radiation area and then cleaning and sealing a contaminated pond wall. The redundant 10cm...