BENEFITS

  • High performance, broader window of performance
  • Longer life
  • No Clogging
  • Clear discharge water (low turbidity)
  • No geotextile required
  • No sand/gravel required
  • Easy to install
  • No maintenance required e.g. rodding of drains
  • Easy to store, transport and handle on site
  • Vertical drainage and Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems.

High Performance

As explained in the How it works section Drainbelt and Draintube continues drawing water out of the soil long after conventional drainage has slowed down, having only removed the free water. This means that prior to the next rainfall event, with Drainbelt and Draintube, the soil will be in a drier state than it would otherwise have been with conventional drainage, so the soil can absorb more water, thus taking advantage of the attenuation capacity inherent in the soil.

Furthermore, Drainbelt and Draintube starts draining sooner than conventional drainage, which doesn’t start to drain at any appreciable rate until the soil is at or above Field Capacity when there is free water in the pores. The capillary action of Drainbelt and Draintube starts draining water before the soil reaches Field Capacity.

Conventional drainage systems have a narrow window of performance, whilst Drainbelt and Draintube have much broader performance window.

Long Life, Non-clogging

Conventional drain systems often clog up with silt, reducing performance. Fine particles such as silt and clay are carried in the water and deposit in the pipe, building up over years. Wrapping the perforated drainage pipe in a geotextile filter or sock, doesn’t solve the problem it just moves the problem to the sock so the geotextile gets clogged reducing flow into the pipe.

Drainbelt is installed with the grooves facing downwards, so the water flows up into the belt, leaving soil particles behind. Furthermore water enters the belt along the entire length of the grooves and there are multiple grooves in the belt, this means there is a much higher percentage of the surface area of Drainbelt/Draintube into which water can travel compared to perforated pipe where the perforations (holes) are a low percentage of the surface area of the pipe. This means that the velocity of water movement is lower in Drainbelt/Draintube than it is in a perforated pipe, for the same flow. This low, but continuous, velocity of water movement is called called laminar flow and doesn’t carry soil particles. With perforated pipe the flow is often turbulent and this turbulence is what keeps soil particles (clay and silt) suspended in the water, entering the pipe through the perforations.

The laminar-type flow of Drainbelt and Draintube means it not only has a much longer effective life, it also discharges cleaner, low turbidity water, making it much more suitable for harvesting, storing and re-cycling.

Simple Installation

Drainbelt and Draintube are easy to install, whatever the application. No specialist tools are required to assemble the product. No heavy machinery is required to transport or handle the product. The products can be assembled separately or together as a system in an intensive network

Ease of Handling

Drainbelt is compact and easy to handle on site. A 50m roll of 20cms width belt weighs 19.5 Kgs and fits inside a box of 39 cms x 38 cms x 22 cms. This is a fraction of the volume and weight of sand required for a sand-slit drainage system, for example.

Draintubes are supplied in 1 metre lengths and easy to handle on site.

Cost

Because of the ease of installation and handling and the fact that it replaces many other expensive and heavy components of conventional drainage (sand, gravel, geo-textile), Drainbelt and Draintube systems are very cost-effective.