Case Study: Purcellville, Virginia
Acoustic Inspection as a Solution for Rural Water
Located in the heart of Loudoun Valley, the Town of Purcellville serves a population of just under 10,000. A dedicated team of four manages both the town’s water distribution and wastewater collection systems. Like many rural utilities, Purcellville faces the challenges of limited budgets and small staff.
Sewer Infrastructure
Purcellville has 36 miles of gravity sewer – covering 3 square miles. Their system is 25% clay lines with the rest consisting of PVC and ductile iron.
Goals
Due to their limited team, their goal has been to clean and inspect 20% of their system each year. They also maintain a small hot spot program.
Decision to Innovate
Purcellville adopted a condition-based maintenance program to more efficiently meet their goals. They purchased a SL-RAT in 2018 and measured 50,000 ft in the first year.
Strong Early Results:
To date, Purcellville has acoustically screened over 220k feet of gravity sewers. Only 9% of their system scored low enough to trigger follow-up cleaning.
Big Savings:
Purcellville has reduced cleaning by over 50% and has saved over $180k. Additionally, they have saved over 800k gallons of flushing water.
A Perfect Solution for Rural Water:
Acoustic inspection has been the perfect solution. It works for small teams, is portable, and comes with a data portal that lets you QA/QC the data.
“Acoustic inspection has been a gamechanger for our system. We are working more efficiently and reducing risk in our system”
Sean Grey, Maintenance Superintendent