The saying goes that actions speak louder than words. That's why Leon E. Wintermyer, along with Harr Technologies, decided to show government officials what culvert cleaning attachments for horizontal directional drilling machines can do, rather than just give them an explanation.

Recently, contractor Wintermyer performed a culvert cleaning field demonstration in Harrisburg, Pa., for officials from Lower Paxton Township and other municipalities, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, Norfolk Southern Railroad, and civil engineering firms. Wintermyer used a new technology that entails attaching tools to their Vermeer Navigator directional drilling machines that are specifically designed to clean clogged stormwater culverts.

Bob Harr, owner and founder of Harr Technologies, LLC in Mosca, Co., came up with the idea for the culvert cleaning attachments after noticing county workers replacing a clogged culvert pipe. "I knew that I could take one of my horizontal directional drilling machines and build some tools to clean the culvert pipes," he says.

Two years later, Harr Technologies has produced more than 170 attachments, which have been used to clean more than 1,800 culverts in 38 states. The company has also recently entered into an alliance with Vermeer who will now distribute the attachments. There are more than 50 varieties of the five different attachments, which range in size from 6 inches to 110 inches.

The first attachment used in Harr's patented culvert-cleaning process is the barrel reamer, a round tool with fins and water jets. The barrel reamer rotates through the culvert pipe, mixing water with the debris inside. Harr says the tool allows the operator to evaluate the integrity of the culvert pipe and the type of debris inside. With the barrel reamer, the operator can decipher whether there are large rocks and trees, or just dirt and sand clogging the pipe.

After running the barrel reamer, operators attach either the push bucket or pull bucket, depending on whether they can push the material out into a wetland or creek. In environmentally protected areas, contractors must remove the material from the culvert and dispose of it properly. To do this, operators can attach the pull bucket, which rotates inside the culvert pipe, gathers the soil and debris, and pulls it back toward the operator. The push bucket also gathers soil and debris as it rotates, but it pushes the material out to the far side of the culvert.

While the push bucket and pull bucket are shaped like a half cylinder for round culvert pipes, Harr soon realized they would not sufficiently clean debris from culvert pipes with square sides. So Harr invented the square box bucket, which works the same as the pull bucket but can better clean the sides of box structures.

Harr says the metal barrel reamers and buckets impress people because they are strong enough to cut through tree roots and pick up large rocks, while sensitive enough to maintain the integrity of the culvert pipes. "Our tools are designed to not cause damage to the integrity of the culverts, whether they be concrete, steel or plastic," he says.

As a finishing touch, Harr designed the brush attachment, which is used to clean the crevices and grooves of the culvert pipe after the soil and larger debris have been removed. "We use the brush to superclean the culvert," he says.

In addition to the barrel reamer, the buckets and brush also have water jets that are controlled by the drilling fluid system on the drilling machine. Unlike jetter cleaner trucks, which disperse a large amount of water into culverts to unplug pipes, Harr's attachments allow the operator to control the amount of water needed to clean the culvert. In fact, operators can opt not to use the water jets at all and just use the tools dry.

In Harrisburg, Wintermyer demonstrated how to use the culvert cleaning tools to clean a 16-inch culvert pipe that was about 30 feet long. The corrugated metal pipe was completely clogged with sediment, and it had roots growing through it.

First, Harr described to attendees the options available for either fixing or replacing deteriorated and damaged stormwater culverts without cutting open the road. He advised that they could either install a plastic liner inside the culvert pipe using a drilling machine or install a steel sleeve over the existing pipe using a pipe jacking system.

To install the plastic liner, crews pull the liner inside the old pipe with a drilling machine and then grout it into place. With the pipe jacking system, a steel sleeve is pushed over the existing pipe, and the sediment and debris are then cleaned out of the existing pipe. Once clean, a drilling machine removes the old pipe and a plastic liner can then be pulled inside the steel sleeve and grouted into place.

In other cases when ground settling damages pipe joints, an expandable grouting sleeve can be inserted. The grouting sleeve, which fits various types of pipes (concrete, cast iron, plastic), is inserted into place, expanded and then grouted to restore the structural strength of the pipe.

At the site, Wintermyer demonstrated the use of the push bucket and barrel reamer to clean the pipe. Once the barrel reamer entered the pipe, it took about 17 minutes for it to reach the exit side of the open pipe. The barrel reamer was moved forward and backward to push and pull the sediment out of both ends of the pipe.

After most of the sediment and debris was removed, a vacuum unit was used to remove excess water as it flowed out of the pipe. The material that remained inside the culvert consisted of a very thick mud. At this stage, Harr says the brush, which rotates through the pipe while spraying water, should be attached to clean out additional remaining material.

In all, Wintermyer used only about 40 gallons of water, which greatly minimized cleanup of the water and mud. The water drained from the exit end of the pipe was minimal and did not require the use of the vacuum unit. The remaining material was dry enough for the Wintermyer crew to shovel by hand into a dump truck.