Row HousesThe scene was a typical urban residential area comprised of a line of row houses along a busy city street. Under the street and below the building was a world of underground systems including sewer, water and gas lines. Within the building, indoor air exceedances caused by an underlying plume was of growing concern.

The original plan was for a vertical system to be installed directly above the plume which required access and installation within the basements of the row houses. An industrial client was responsible for the mitigating plume but did not own the impacted property. So, not only was the disruption of the residents within the building of concern, but access to the basement with a vertical drill rig was impossible.

Because access to all residential space and installation of vertical sub slab systems would have been difficult to coordinate, expensive and highly undesirable to the residents. The solution to use Directional Technologies, Inc. (DTI) to install a horizontal air sparge (AS) and soil vapor extraction (SVE) system beneath the existing set of residential row houses utilizing Horizontal Remediation Wells (HRWs) was made to avoid the intrusive nature of a vertical sub-slab systems. A staging area for the horizontal drill rig was chosen in an adjacent parking lot several lots away from the row houses. From there, DTI installed the horizontal AS/SVE system beneath the row houses.

The benefits of a horizontal remediation well system:

  • Mitigates the indoor air issues
  • Remediates the underlying groundwater plume and impacted soil
  • Provides complete external operation & maintenance of horizontal AS/SVE system
  • No internal building access necessary
  • No coordination with onsite residents
  • Reduces public relation nightmares
  • Provides a sound and proven technology

Changes in regulatory action limits for indoor air quality have increased the amount of sites exceeding the regulatory reporting limits. Clients, like the industrial one in this case, have struggled with methods to remediate the source while coordinating with offsite residents or business owners.

Directional Technologies, Inc. is the global expert on the Horizontal Remediation Well System having installed thousands of horizontal remediation wells since opening it’s doors in 1992.