Small towns like Forest, Ohio, have the same sewer infrastructure issues
as cities like New York or Chicago. However, they don’t have
the same budget or manpower to fix their problems.
But public works officials in Forest are smart. They discovered that
vacuum sewer technology by AIRVAC would solve their problems at a cost
they could afford, and the contractor who installed it is now a big believer
in the technology.
As you might expect by their name, Forest is a town with many large,
mature trees. It also is a city built on a layer of bedrock. These factors
made engineers cringe at the thought of installing deep gravity sewers,
a project that would be extremely expensive and disruptive.
With AIRVAC, the contractor was able to install new collection lines
in trenches that were, on average, only five feet deep. By comparison,
a gravity line would have required a trench 22-feet in depth. Also, the
system required only one vacuum station instead of multiple lift stations,
another big cost saver. And, because vacuum sewers are closed systems,
Forest has no infiltration and inflow (I&I) worries, as do cities
with gravity systems.
“We’ve recommended vacuum sewers to lots of cities,” said
Joe Musgrave, general superintendent of Kirk Brothers Company, the company
that installed Forest’s vacuum sewers. “Public works crews
love vacuum technology and vacuum sewers typically cost less to install.
They make everyone’s life easier.”
This article appeared in the September, 2004 issue of Underground Construction.
If you would like to read the entire story as it
appeared in the magazine, you can download
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With AIRVAC, the contractor was able to install new collection lines
in trenches that were, on average, only five feet deep. By comparison,
a gravity line would have required a trench 22-feet in depth. Also, the
system required only one vacuum station instead of multiple lift stations,
another big cost saver. And, because vacuum sewers are closed systems,
Forest has no infiltration and inflow (I&I) worries, as do cities
with gravity systems.