Even in this modern era, we are still concerned with many of the issues that early civilizations faced when providing water to our communities, such as supply and demand, pipeline construction and upkeep, cleanliness, conservation and cost. In the fall of 2018, McWane Ductile’s Senior Regional Engineer, Roy Mundy, had the opportunity to interview Consolidated Utility District General Manager Bill Dunnill. The two gentlemen, both with utility management experience, had a candid conversation about Bill’s day-to-day challenges, successes and his preferred choice of pipeline material. The following are excerpts from their discussion.
Today there are several funding methods and sources for water and wastewater projects, not only in the United States but throughout the world. Most, if not all, require some sort of report or project summary. You may have seen these with such names as Conceptual Design or Engineering Report, Facilities Needs Assessment, Preliminary Design Report, Preliminary Engineering Report. Different agencies and different countries have different names for these respective documents, but most are like each other in scope and requirements.
“Why should I use ductile iron pipe?”
The question is ostensibly meant to include “instead of other types of piping material.” Well, the reasons are vast and varies depending on project requirements. Since we aren’t talking about a specific project, we’ll look at the general overriding reasons ductile iron pipe is the best choice for your piping projects.
Having managed water and wastewater systems for most of my career, I have engaged with interest in the operations of specific water systems. Many times, those conversations have lead into areas beyond the engineering criteria for daily operations and into areas such as customer satisfaction. The great majority of these systems meet all required regulatory quality standards each day. Then why do customers become dissatisfied with the utility? One notable answer: SERVICE.
Need to build a pipeline project submittal? You’ve come to the right place! Select from numerous informative documents, and our Submittal Builder will quickly and neatly package your personalized presentation.
BUILD MY SUBMITTAL
Looking for answers to your DI pipe questions? Find decades of Ductile iron expertise with installation guides, videos, tip sheets, training resources, and more in our Learning Center.
GIVE ME ANSWERS
Stop struggling with those hard-to-figure field calculations and put ease and efficiency right at your fingertips with our Pocket Engineer for mobile and desktop devices.
CALCULATE NOW
McWane Ductile is proud to be a part of the McWane family of companies.
