CIPP failures are costly. Learn how rigorous QA/QC prevents rework and disputes.

Where CIPP projects go wrong and what failure costs look like

Every cured-in-place pipe (CIPP) failure tells a story—and the ending is always expensive. Direct costs include the resin and liner that must be replaced, additional traffic control, renewed mobilization of boilers or UV rigs, extra CCTV, and overtime. Indirect costs—schedule slippage, penalties, liquidated damages, reopened permits, and public complaint management—often dwarf the material bill. In contested cases, legal and claims administration can exceed the installation cost of the segment itself. For municipal owners, a failed liner also delays service restoration and can heighten environmental and public health scrutiny. The smartest way to protect both contractors and owners is rigorous, instrumented quality control from planning through acceptance. Industry standards and guidance leave little doubt about process control requirements. ASTM F1216 defines the practice for rehabilitation by inversion and cure, with acceptance criteria and guidance on materials, inspection, and testing. You can review the current version here: ASTM F1216. NASSCO’s CIPP specification guidance distills best practices and helps align owners, engineers, and contractors on what good looks like: NASSCO CIPP Specification Guideline. Cities codify similar expectations—for example, Tulsa’s specification calls for visual inspection per F1216 and documented compliance: City of Tulsa CIPP Spec. Why do failures still happen? Because many projects rely on fragmented checks: a thermometer reading at the boiler, sporadic IR scans, a quick end-of-cure “rock test,” and only after that, CCTV. None of these by themselves track the temperature at the liner/host interface across the entire length—the zone that determines exotherm, degree of cure, and bond conditions. Without continuous, location-aware data, cold spots, early cool-downs, or overcure go unnoticed until defects appear. Quality control is also about protecting communities. Numerous agencies have examined emissions and indoor air concerns during steam or hot-water cures using styrene-based resins; see overviews such as the Florida Department of Health and general background from the U.S. EPA. Whether you specify non-styrene systems or enhanced capture/venting, verifiable cure records and documented procedures are your best defense in pre-bid meetings and community outreach. The bottom line: A disciplined QA/QC program reduces total installed cost by preventing rework, compressing schedules, and building defensible acceptance packages. The technology to do this exists today and is straightforward to deploy, as the next sections outline.

Time, equipment, and data gaps that drive avoidable rework

Downtime is the silent profit killer in CIPP. When a cure stalls or overshoots, crews wait; when a liner wrinkles or lifts, video inspections multiply; when resin ratios drift, schedules slip and change orders fly. Many of these setbacks trace back to three avoidable gaps. - Time gaps: Spot checks (e.g., occasional temperature readings, “rock tests,” or late-stage CCTV only) cannot capture the dynamic, moving heat front that determines exotherm and full polymerization. Critical minutes are missed, leading to premature cool-down, undercure, or scorching. Continuous profiles across the full length are the only way to see whether the cure was uniform. - Equipment gaps: Incomplete instrumentation (no calibrated thermometry at the liner/host interface, missing or unlogged pressure, poor flow/UV irradiance tracking) forces decisions on best guesses. Basic tools—pressure gauges, IR/Thermocouples, flow meters, UV sensors—must be paired with a data logger. Industry guidance reinforces this need; for example, see NASSCO’s specification guideline for CIPP QA/QC: NASSCO CIPP Specification Guideline. - Data gaps: Without a permanent, time-stamped record of temperature, pressure, and cure phases, it’s difficult to prove conformance to ASTM F1216 and project specs, settle disputes, or train crews. A complete record protects both contractors and owners. Review the standard practice here: ASTM F1216. The compounding effect is real: a 4-hour delay can ripple into missed traffic-control windows, overtime, and rescheduling of upstream/downstream segments. If a liner must be reinstalled, resin, transport, and crew costs double—plus the reputational impact. Public health concerns can also trigger additional scrutiny when styrene-based systems are used near buildings; see summaries from state and federal health agencies such as Florida Department of Health and U.S. EPA background on styrene exposure: EPA Styrene Fact Sheet. Shoring up these gaps starts with a plan: define cure targets, sensor placement, acceptance criteria, escalation paths, and documentation deliverables before mobilization. Then ensure on-site instrumentation and cloud storage make the data accessible in real time to field and remote experts.

A practical QC playbook to de-risk every installation

Turning QC from a checkbox into a process advantage requires a practical playbook. 1) Preconstruction alignment - Specifications and submittals: Reference ASTM F1216 (or F1743 for pull-in) and clearly state thermal/UV cure profiles, minimum interface temperatures, pressure ranges, and hold times. Include CCTV acceptance, reinstatement criteria, and chemical resistance per ASTM D5813. - Roles and training: Assign a QC lead trained through programs like NASSCO ITCP. Define who watches live data and who has the authority to pause or adjust the cure. 2) Instrumentation and setup - Temperature at the liner/host interface using a continuous sensor strip (or distributed thermocouples) to capture the advancing heat front, not just air/fluid temps. - Pressure measurement at the inversion head and distal end; including calibration tube tracking. - Process-specific signals: flow and return temperatures for hot water/steam; lamp irradiance and speed for UV. - Continuous data logging with time-stamped storage, preferably cloud-synced for remote oversight and permanent records. Coverage of the entire length helps verify uniform cure and catch cold spots early; see industry context on the importance of cure monitoring in Trenchless Technology. 3) Execution and intervention - Watch the temperature curve crest and confirm hold times against resin TDS. If a cold crown or invert lags, adjust flow, pressure, or lamp speed immediately. - Document anomalies (flows, bypass events, lamp errors) and corrective actions. Capture photos, calibration certificates, and a copy of the data log with chain of custody. 4) Acceptance and closeout - Verify structural targets and dimensional compliance; conduct post-CCTV and reinstatement. Retain a single package of cure data, pressure logs, and video for the owner. 5) Continuous improvement - Use the dataset to tune future setups (water volume, boiler set points, UV speed) and to mentor new crew members. Over time, your deviation rate and rework costs decline. When quality control is instrumented end-to-end, the financial outcomes improve: fewer change orders, faster approvals, and stronger owner confidence. The alternative—treating QC as an afterthought—invites do-overs and disputes you can’t afford.