Comparing high-pressure jetting, suction trucks, man-entry and dredging robots: use cases, safety and cost.
There are four main ways to clean municipal sewer pipes today, each with its own use case:
- High-pressure water jetting: efficient, but limited against compacted sediment and large debris, and banned by some asset owners;
- Suction truck: suitable when slurry is already liquefied, usually needs equipment to break up sediment first;
- Man-entry cleaning: the traditional way, but confined spaces carry serious hydrogen sulfide risks and permits are increasingly hard to obtain;
- Dredging robots: enter pipes from 450mm up, break, crush and extract sediment — no man-entry at all. This is the clear trend as regulations tighten.
When sediment depth exceeds 60% of the pipe diameter, high-pressure nozzles generally stop working — a robot + suction truck combined solution should be the first choice.