MuckStopper

The brief

The team at Drainfast approached us after several other successful product developments, with an issue that commonly occurs within the groundworks industry. Mud and debris fall into manholes and inspection chambers during the construction of housing developments. A solution was required to capture the construction debris and keep it within the chamber. This product would then be removed from the shaft at site completion. The shafts are 450mm in diameter and the chamber can be at depths of up to 2m. Traditionally, there is no specialised equipment to prevent dirt from entering the chamber. Therefore, often there is a very costly exercise using pressure hoses to unclog the new chambers and advanced pipe network.

The bang

We experienced the problem first hand on site, and explored several conceptual routes, realising quickly there were two main challenges to overcome. The first is the construction and assembly of the shaft, leaving an internal diameter that varies up the entire shaft. The second is the importance of preventing the product from jamming or rotating as you lower or raise it from the inspection chamber. Both of which can allow for debris to pass through the product and into the chamber and pipes.

The importance of prototyping and testing was very evident on this project. Each prototype iteration produced improvements resulting in the final effective product, MuckStopper.

The result

A mechanical and technical design project in a rugged and unforgiving environment, this utilised our engineering skill and experience requiring us to get stuck in. Being responsible for design, implementation and testing to the end, it’s rewarding that Muckstopper is now successfully launched and receives positive feedback and continually increasing production volumes. To complement their range, Drainfast have also developed the MuckStopper 600 for larger sewer and manhole covers.

Bang are continuing to assist Drainfast on additional projects, enforcing our client value partnership and ethos, helping them to transform the groundworks industry.