In early June of 2011, DFI installed a 21 meter oil derrick at the Red Deer College near the Centre for Trades and Technology building. The derrick was generously donated by High Arctic Energy Services and will provide students in the rig technician program with a platform to put their classroom knowledge to the test.

The installation was straight forward enough, and more than one DFI worker commented on how enjoyable it was to haul equipment on pavement for a change. The derrick was loaded at High Arctic’s yard with a 30 ton RGZ crane, and hauled to the college with a tri-drive tractor.

Along with time and equipment, DFI donated the foundation for the project. A 40 ton RGZ all-terrain crane equipped with a 4.5 tonne hydraulic hammer was used to install four 16 inch, 14 meter piles. The derrick was set into place with a tandem lift using the RGZ-130 and RGZ-100 cranes.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Once in place and secured to the driven steel pile foundation, a platform was raised into position, and crews working from a man basket permanently mounted the railed platform.

Watch this video on YouTube.

The derrick includes a functioning set of draw works and winches and will allow for hands-on training by College instructors. DFI is proud to have contributed to a great cause—training future oilfield workers for a stable growing industry benefits all Albertans.

When the Canadian City of Burnaby, British Columbia, studied the results of a recently completed sewer infrastructure assessment, it was evident that a significant portion of the improvement project would require an innovative approach to sewer repair.

It’s a classic case and a contemporary dilemma. The City wants to preserve the natural, lush wilderness of its past, and at the same time, meet the demands that come with an incredible population growth and post-modern urbanization.

Then, mix in a healthy dose of “green initiatives” mandated by the City, and strongly supported by its residents, and the City felt compelled to look for unique solutions like the new trenchless pipeline repair system — RS CityLiner, a fully-equipped, turnkey mobile CIPP installation system that utilizes epoxy resin impregnated liners.

With the Canadian Rockies to the north and the Pacific Ocean to its west, Burnaby experiences mild summers and cool, rainy winters. The City boasts a wealth of freshwater lakes, forested and mountain sites, wetlands and watersheds, making it a popular place to live. And everywhere you look, citizens and tourists alike are reminded to be environmentally responsible — such as the presence of recycling waste cans on street corners and warnings against idling your car when leaving it to take a picture at one of the city’s countless scenic overlooks.

Today, Burnaby’s sewer system is buried beneath more than a century of progress. Hundreds of new roads and sidewalks, high-density residential areas and scores of high-rise condos now dot its landscape. Restaurants, commercial retail centers, and businesses have replaced and revitalized old neighborhoods. Parts of the city that were once untapped forested areas have given way to schools and professional buildings. Each and every one of these developments further taxes a sewer infrastructure originally designed to serve only half of the current population of nearly 225,000 people.

Understanding that repairs were imminent for the 60-plus-year-old sewer infrastructure, city officials thoughtfully and carefully established repair criteria to provide improved sewer services, without compromising the environment. “We wanted to make sure we addressed several areas of concern expressed by our own department and the community, as well,” stated Bill Lowrie, City of Burnaby engineering technologist–public works. “We had to find a way to improve sewer services while minimizing the negative social and environmental impact on their daily lives,” he added.

When the assessment revealed that root intrusion was causing significant inflow-and-infiltration problems, city engineers quickly prioritized the areas in need of immediate repair. These sections were scattered all over town and were difficult to access. The contractor that would ultimately be awarded this project would need the ability to efficiently move from location to location, while minimizing surface disruption. Adding to this logistics problem was the wide range of sewer line diameters that needed to be repaired.

In all, roughly 4,300 ft (1,300-plus m) of clay tile pipe ranging in diameter from 6 to 24 in. (150 to 600 mm) were identified. This included 20 different manhole-to-manhole segments, 79 service lateral reconnects and numerous other laterals to cap.

The contract was awarded to DFI, an Edmonton, Alberta-based company that specializes in infrastructure rehabilitation. DFI was awarded the job because it uses a cost-effective, environmentally sound process — RS Cityliner, an advanced and highly mobile CIPP installation system.

It features a computerized, onsite wet-out unit capable of quickly and precisely impregnating a wide variety of liner sizes. It uses an environmentally friendly, epoxy resin-impregnated liner system that is strong, and durable. Collectively, these advantages would also enable DFI to conduct multiple repairs in a day.

Once on the job, DFI found each installation to be unique. Installation runs were long, short, up hills, straddling property easements, down the middle of major commuter paths, in back yards and parking lots — and a lot of rain.

“Given all these challenges, we were able to substantially complete the project inside of three weeks,” said DFI operations manager Matt Meyer. “There is no way we would have accomplished this, within that timeframe, with any other system. Our ability to wet-out and calibrate the liner thickness onsite was critical to us accomplishing our goal.”

“We live in a time where we have to pay careful attention to what we’re putting in the ground, especially when it comes to repairing the water and sewer infrastructure,” stated Joanne Hughes, managing director in the Americas for RS Technik. “We also pay attention to what goes on above ground. This system was designed for fast, efficient installation that minimizes social, environmental and economic impact. Our CIPP systems utilizing epoxy resins deliver a trenchless or “no-dig” solution that is virtually odor free with no styrene and no VOCs. It delivers a highly durable renewed pipe for water and wastewater infrastructure. We believe minimizing the carbon footprint we leave behind above ground, is just as important as the environmentally safe product we put in below ground.”

When cured-in-place pipe lining technology was first introduced, epoxy resin use was limited due to handling difficulties and much higher cost than other resin alternatives. That is no longer the case today. Over the last 15 years, RS Technik has been perfecting its mobile, environmentally friendly, epoxy resin cured–in-place systems. It has proven to deliver higher performing resins and liners that are designed for long-term durability. Today’s systems are fully-integrated, tested and proven to answer the industry’s increased design, environmental, economic and safety demands for the repair and renewal of both potable water and sewer gravity or pressure pipelines.

Each component of a RS Technik System — from its on-board mixing module, computerized controls and data logging, to the Dow epoxy resins, hybrid liners and standardized installation procedures — is critical in obtaining consistent and predictable performance. Contractors throughout Europe, and now in the Americas, are successfully bringing these mobile CIPP systems to municipalities that place a high priority on environmentally sound trenchless rehabilitation systems.

And the benefits to residents and business are plenty: no VOC emissions, elimination of styrene odors, minimal surface disruption, less construction time and equipment; all leading to a reduced carbon footprint. The first phase of the sewer rehabilitation project is now complete, and the City of Burnaby is now evaluating the next phase.

“We were pleased with the responsiveness of DFI and the quality of the product,” Lowrie stated. “And we were pleasantly surprised at how quickly the job was completed. Just a few years ago, ‘dig and replace’ probably would have been the mandate for repair. I can’t even begin to imagine the mess and the inconvenience to the residents. I don’t even want to think about the cost.”

Kit Jones is owner of Wheelwright Marketing Communications, which specializes in working with clients who cater to the trenchless pipeline rehabilitation marketplace.

When you’ve spent 40 years building a reputation for getting the job done “on time and on budget,” unplanned downtime isn’t just costly – it’s unacceptable.

For oilfield services provider DFI, keeping its versatile fleet of equipment up and running has been crucial to the company’s success.

“Downtime is costly on a number of different fronts,” says DFI shop foreman, Chris Whitford. “For one, you’re not working for the customer when your equipment’s down but also, what does it cost you to leave their site? Are they going to call you back? What has it done to your name and reputation?”

DFI is an oilfield services provider that specializes in driving piles that are custom-built at its own pipe mill in Edmonton, Alberta. At any given time, the company has up to 35 work crews driving piles throughout Western Canada. It also runs a fleet of highway trucks, vacuum trucks, winch trucks, pickers and cranes. About 90% of DFI’s equipment is powered by Detroit Diesel and backed by Waterous Power Systems.

“One of the reasons we use Waterous Power Systems as much as we do is because of the service side,” says Whitford. “The product is good, but the service is what makes it for us. They have a lot of good branch locations spread all over the province and field mechanics we can actually get a hold of.”

DFI made the switch to Detroit Diesel power in 1991, after growing frustrated with the poor support it was receiving from other suppliers, says DFI general manager Sean Freeland.

Keeping a fleet as diverse as DFI’s running smoothly requires a supplier that’s every bit as versatile, Freeland points out.

“If it’s a road tractor, I can go rent one of them. But I can’t rent one of these cranes, we build them ourselves and they have a very sophisticated hydraulics system on there,” he says.

Building its own equipment is nothing new to DFI. It also builds its own hammers and piledriving leads. But DFI is most proud of the pipe mill it constructed in Edmonton.

“We have a crew of young guys on our design and engineering staff that just love building new equipment,” Freeland says.

DFI has been able to differentiate itself from its competitors thanks to its custom-built solutions. But the company still requires a strong partner to service its vehicles and get them back on the road quickly in the event of a breakdown.

Freeland acknowledges equipment failures are inevitable in trucking and in oilfield services. It’s how you respond that can make or break a business. He recalls an incident with a Western Star picker truck in the mid-90s, shortly after making the conversion to Detroit Diesel power. The truck was still under warranty but Waterous Power Systems went beyond his expectations.

“We had a problem that caused the engine to seize up,” Freeland says. “We hauled it in to Waterous on a cold, miserable Friday night around midnight. I went back Monday morning and picked that truck up, it had a brand new engine in it and they didn’t charge me a nickel. They worked all weekend on it.”

With the recent integration of Allison automatic transmissions into the fleet, Freeland says he also appreciates being able to turn to one company to service both the engine and the transmission.

“It’s not left for me to be fighting between two different companies,” he says. “Things get done. There’s a nice marriage there.”

As the oilfield industry and the economy bounce back, DFI is too busy focusing on its own customers and new opportunities to be worrying about its equipment. In fact, Freeland says the company is considering opening a satellite office in Regina as it makes its first foray into Saskatchewan.

“I wonder if Waterous has a branch there?” he asks. They do.

Definitely building custom equipment. DFI builds a lot of its fleet from scratch which is unusual for an outfit our size (about 180 employees). To work on a unit that was designed, fabricated, and assembled all under the same roof is a great thing to be part of. This is a family owned company, and I work directly with the owners every day. Because the team is fairly small, decisions can be made in minutes that would often take months in bigger operations.

What’s been your most interesting project so far?

DFI is best known for driving the steel piles under gas plants and other field facilities. Our most used piledriver in the past has used a gravity drop hammer to drive the pile into the ground. Our latest project has been a hydraulic piledriving hammer that outdrives a conventional hammer four to one. I can honestly say that these are the only self contained hydraulic hammer piledriving trucks in the world. We bring our own crane, loader, hammer, leads, and the beginning of the pipe load all in one picker truck–trailer unit. It takes only two men to set up and be driving piles within an hour of reaching site. Our goal was to create the best mobile, high performance piledriver for the oilfield. We’ve done it.

As shop foreman, what’s your role in creating a new machine?

When our engineers are working on a new project, the shop has a lot of input in the design. We can weld, cnc plasma cut, or machine almost everything we need onsite so changes are easy. The shop staff creates most of the hydraulics, controls, and programming right out on the shop floor. We have some very talented staff; my job is to get them whatever they need to succeed.

What else have you done at DFI?

In my nine years with the company, our most ambitious project had to be the pipe mill. It’s unusual for a company our size to make its own pipe, let alone scratch build its own ERW pipe mill. I helped put it together until the day we made the first piece of pipe—in fact, I wound up supervising the operation for a while. The mill produces 30,000 tons a year, and the pipe is shipped all over North America.

Give us the bottom line.

DFI runs a true custom shop and I’m proud to be a part of that.