Cleaning of sewers with Bagela winches

In past decades underground sewers used to be cleaned mechanically, with buckets and root cutters pulled by steel wire rope winches. But such methods seem to get out of use. Today sewers are usually cleaned with mobile high-pressure flushing and suction units. The simple and obsolescent rope winch is apparently becoming more and more redundant. However, although most sewers are cleaned by highpressure flushing at present, there are towns and villages where sewers pass through nature preserves or marsh land which are impassable by the heavy flushing vehicles. And it is specially for such cleaning jobs that Bagela has developed a sewer cleaning set which consist of a 40 kN capstan winch Type RW 4000 and a 10 kN drum winch Type KTW 1005.

Bagela RW 4000 capstan winch in its standard version is equipped with an automatic hold-on (static torque) system and pulling force preselection switch, which are both paticularly useful for underground pipe renewal jobs. By electing a pulling force in proportion to the strenght of the material to be pulled. The inliner to be drawn into the old pipe is protected against overstreching. In sewer cleaning jobs these features prevent the cleaning equipment from getting stuck inside the sewer. Additionally, the RW 4000 capstan winch is equipped with steel rope deflection rollers and a swivel arm, allowing the filled cleaning buckets to be lifted and slewed aside for emtying.

Bagela KTW 1005 drum winch is used in sewer cleaning jobs for lowering the cleaning equipments into the starting pit. The winch is placed before the pit, a special triple beam is fitted, and is ready for the job. Once the cleaning equipment has been lowered to the pit bottom, it is connected to the steel rope of the RW 4000 capstan winch. Now the drum of the KTW 1005 winch is disengaged from ist drive and the cleaning process may begin. The steel rope ofe the KTW 1005 winch is dragged behind the cleaning equipment. If the sewer is blocked up with hardened sludge or other objects to such a degree that the pulling comes to halt, i. e. if the pulling winch has reached the limit of its preselected pulling force, the drum of the KTW 1005 winch may engaged and the cleaning equipment be withdrawn from the sewer in order to try again with a smaller calibre. Both winches are hydraulically operated and hence give shockfree performance. With Bagela winches of the advanced generation even such as nasty but necessary jobs as sewer cleaning will become at least bearable.