March 13, 2019
The village’s new combination sewer cleaner is designed to use jetting and vacuum forces to break up blockages in sewer lines.
Like many smaller municipalities, Carrollton, Ohio, works with a tight budget and looks for equipment that can meet a variety of needs for their 2.5-sq-mile village of approximately 1,400 households. Like larger municipalities, Carrollton must weigh its equipment budget against a constant need to maintain sewer line flow, keep storm drains open, and handle water line replacements and breaks.
The village recently replaced its trailer jetter with a Vacall AllJetVac R Series combination sewer cleaner, designed to use jetting and vacuum forces to break up blockages in sewer lines and extract debris into a 10-cu-yard debris tank. The machine also is equipped with a hydro excavation wand that came in handy on at least one pipeline-cleaning job when the jetter hose got stuck during pipe cleaning. The workers used the hydro excavation wand to dig further down the line to release the jetter, solving the problem and completing the work with just one machine.
On another occasion, a fire hydrant was run over by an errant driver. The crew drove the combined sewer cleaner to the site, dug up the surrounding area, and removed and replaced the hydrant, all in a half day.
The combined sewer cleaner has a positive displacement high pressure pump that can deliver up to 120 gpm of continuous flow without the need for an accumulator. Operating efficiency is simplified with AllSmartFlow CAN bus smart controls, which are standard.
“On one job, we cleaned out a 48-in. box culvert that ran 50 or 60 ft under a state route,” said Derik Kaltenbaugh, superintendent of the Carrollton Water Department. “There was so much debris, sediment and vegetation inside, water was no longer going through it. We used the AllJetVac for 12 hours straight, dumping seven loads of debris, and we completely opened it up.”
The Carrollton Water Department had been quoted $10,000 by a contractor to do the culvert clean-out work, but the village was able to save that money using the combined sewer cleaner and its own workers.