New environmentally-friendly chamber section range

Highway & Pavement Solutions Ltd (HPS), established in 2009 by Mike Combrinck who has been involved in the water industry for over 20 years, working closely with UK water companies has, in response to industry demand, developed a new concept in access chamber sections. With an understanding of the problems being experienced water companies and their contractors using traditional concrete chamber sections, such as excessive weight, rough edges, fragility/disintegration if mishandled during loading, unloading and installation, HPS looked for alternative materials that could more than adequately do the same job without these pitfalls.

Traditional concrete chamber sections cannot overcome such problems and further tend to be environmentally unfriendly as well as posing health and safety issues. This often results in manhole covers needing to be dug up and reinstated/replaced frequently, even as little as every 12-18 months. The HPS solution has been to design and manufacture a product that will overcome all these costly problems. The new chamber section is known as the ECO₂ Chamber.

Commenting on the new chamber, Mike Combrinck, managing director of HPS, said: “Our solution was not rocket science and our raw materials are now readily available. The new chamber sections are made to British Standard sizes and are exactly the same product in size and shape as concrete with improved performance whilst being highly cost effective and manufactured using recycled material (that is itself recyclable). Should the chamber be removed the sections can be reused making them highly cost-effective.”

The units are manufactured in one piece, this being possible after significant investment in special tooling for the manufacturing process. Using PVC, PP, HDPE and LDPE plastics that would otherwise have been destined for landfill, the chamber sections now produced offer strong, robust construction which gives an improved whole life cost through increased working life and reduced wastage. Health and Safety is also improved because the plastic units are significantly lighter in weight and have not rough edges with all but one of the current chamber section range conforming fully to the present Manual Handling Regulations (heavy lifting equipment not required).

The sections are also frost proof to -30^oC and are resistant to acids, alkalis, fats and oils and will take a D400 loading. There is also no requirement for adaptor pieces when used in association with concrete section, as is required by some of the other chamber sections available on the market.

Highlighting the success of the new chamber sections, HPS recently secured a contract with Yorkshire Water to supply chambers for its operations with, according to the client: ‘The HPS product ticking all the right boxes as well as enabling chambers to be rehabilitated in their upper part in conjunction with existing concrete sections without the need to replace whole chambers’. The plastic sections offer much improved resilience than concrete, ‘cushioning’ traffic loads better and reducing the potential difference in flexibility between tarmac/ashphalt road construction and concrete inspection chambers, which should help retain the integrity of the road surface around surface box frames.

The HPS ECO₂ Chamber sections are available in a wide range of 14 different sizes for almost all possible applications, with the smallest being 150 mm x 150 mm x 25 mm, with each section weighing just 1.5 kg up to the largest 915 mm x 610 mm x 75 mm sections which even then weigh in at just 27.9 kg. Base slabs are also available with 430 mm x 280 mm x 40 mm dimensions weighing just 11.8 kg. The base slabs offer either a 230 mm offset opening or a 230 mm central opening. All sections are manufactured to cover all requirements when stacked and therefore eliminate the need to offer 100 mm and 150 mm deep sections. This in turn reduces stock holding requirements for contractors whilst retaining the ability to finely adjust chambers to the required level during construction and final reinstatement. The chambers are available nationwide through the Burdens network of 50 branches.