Obduramus Umwelttechnik is a young company from the black forest in the south of Germany that was founded in 2009 with the idea of making product solutions for the sewer rehabilitation industry that are easy to use, quick to install and well thought out.
Easy Engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
Obduramus Umwelttechnik: The main area is the development and production of solutions for trenchless sewer rehabilitations. Like our main products Circum-MINI and Circum-LEM, which are designed to negate a common flaw in the function of stainless steel sleeves for trenchless sewer rehabilitations. Conventional sleeves are working with a lock that’s on the inside of the sleeve that keeps it stretched after installing. That can cause problems and damage to the rehabilitation devices like robots and flushing nozzles. Or even the sewer itself, if parts of the waste water is getting stuck on the lock and blocks the hydraulic system of the pipe. This leads to frustration on the side of rehabilitation companies as well as local authority districts. To eliminate these problems, we had to engineer our sleeve in a way that prevents the lock to be on the inside. The goal: an external lock. Something that hasn’t been done before in over 30 years of rehabilitation sleeves history.
E.E: What’s the news about new products?
Obduramus Umwelttechnik: Currently we are working on the development of Circum-SWELL and Circum-EXPRESS. With these new additions to our MINI and LEM sleeves we are able to expand the sizes from a maximum of 800mm to up to 4000. Especially in large cities there is a high demand for such large diameters. In an area with thousands and millions of people sewers need to be extra-large to manage all the sewage. If those sewer pipes need to be refurbished it has to be as quick as possible because the sewage needs to be diverted or even held up. And with a lot of people there is also a lot of sewage. So time is the most relevant factor when it comes to such projects.
E.E: What are the ranges of products?
Obduramus Umwelttechnik: Besides our Circum-MINI and Circum-LEM stainless steel sleeves and their accessories like packers for installing, we are also offering our Ascopa-rehabilitation hose for large socket rehabilitations. This hose is based on the principle of a inflatable seal that is designed to be installed in less than 12 Minutes.
E.E: At what stage is the market where you are currently active?
Obduramus Umwelttechnik: The rehabilitation market is an ever-growing segment. Right now, there are over 1,2 million kilometers of public sewers in the U.S.A. and 3 million in the EU. Germany alone has around 600.000 kilometers of sewer lines with a value of 600 billion euros and one third of them is older than 50 years. Many of them have cracks and other damages that can lead to contamination of groundwater. With this in mind, a growing population, the age of the sewer network as well as rising costs due to Covid and other challenges, renovation of the sewer lines has to be as quick, environment friendly and cost efficient as possible.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
Obduramus Umwelttechnik: We can see a huge rise in sewer rehabilitations due to more inspections by local authorities. In the past years the sewer network rehabilitation hasn’t become a lot of attention by local governments because of their low visibility. Sewer pipes were only renovated when they showed major failures. And these often led to a lot of problems like the contamination of groundwater or the reduction of the capacity of the sewage treatment plants caused by the infiltration of water into the sewer pipes. This changed due to a more environment friendly oriented policy. Not only that, but the sewer network is getting older and the network is also getting larger. So, there are a lot of reason to invest more in the rehabilitation of the sewer network. This is also the reason why the trenchless rehabilitation of sewer pipes has become more and more popular over the years and is expected to grow even more. It has many benefits compared to a classical renovation using trenches. It doesn’t need a lot of time or effort and doesn’t hold up a lot of traffic. It is also quieter and cheaper as the conventional method. This satisfies local authorities and citizens alike.
E.E: What are the most innovative products marketed?
Obduramus Umwelttechnik: The most innovative product is our Ascopa-rehabilitation hose. With it’s unique mechanism it is not only able to be installed in a very short amount of time, it is also able to fit in a lot of different sewer pipes. Whether they have a box- , round- or egg profile. The materials do not harm the environment, it moves with the pipes if they shift due to tectonic activities and it is the only renovation product of it’s kind. On top of that it is not expensive either. In a market, where sewer rehabilitations need to be faster and more cost efficient than ever before, Ascopa is the product that feels right at home. It was also the first product of our company and the foundation stone for our company’s philosophy: innovative products, that are easy to use, quick to install and friendly to our environment.
E.E: What estimations do you have for 2022?
Obduramus Umwelttechnik: The shift from conventional rehabilitation to the trenchless variant increases the interest of rehabilitation companies in new products that are specialized in this area. We are also working on new products for this segment with SWELL and EXPRESS to accommodate for large sewer pipes and a wide variety of damages as well as other products like specialized cutback sets that help to reduce the amount of dust created during cutting in sewers. On top of that we are further expanding our line of products to further help rehabilitation companies to achieve their goals in renovating our sewer networks all over the world.
OBDURAMUS UMWELTTECHNIK GMBH
Brückenäckerstr. 2, D-75328 Schömberg
Tel.: +49 7084-9348320
Mail: info@obduramus.de
