Elite Development laid down 116 rows of Recharger 180HD chambers to manage nearly 23,900 cubic feet of stormwater. The system was topped with 2,178 tons of crushed stone.
piping and fittings that forced Tonitis and his team to adjust the system as they encountered obstacles. “Instead of removing them, we were able to work around them,” Tonitis said. “We would not have been able to do that if we had been working with concrete chambers. We did not lose any days because we used the CULTEC system. We snapped the system together and worked around the issues that we found. It’s an easy system to put together.” Tonitis and his team also worked around existing landscaping, leaving trees and other plantings intact. He also knew that CULTEC could de- liver units swiftly, while he would have needed to wait several months for concrete chambers to be manufactured and delivered. “Concrete vaults are expensive,” said Dan Gera, a technical specialist for CULTEC. “Once a system is designed with concrete, the cost sav- ings have to be so great that the engineer will go back to the developer to redesign the system. We give the consultant as much information as we can to make it a plug and play system. We don’t take credit for the design. We pride ourselves on giving them as much information as possible.” The system that Tonitis eventually installed was one of the most elaborate he has ever encountered. Working with a computer-assisted program on CULTEC’s website, Bohler Engineering created a system that included 21 sections of various sizes. While most stormwater systems are long, linear systems that are stitched together with feed connections, the design for the Sarasota project required a complicated
map that steered stormwater away from the property in smaller, bite- sized positions. Bohler and CULTEC designed two systems. The first had to be scrapped because the footprint extended into an adjacent lot. Engineers reconfigured the system with a smaller footprint but bigger chambers. The complex design included 1,023 Recharger 180HD chambers. They measure 7.33 feet long and are 36 inches wide. They offer 163 gal- lons of storage, or 3.45 cubic feet per foot. The mid-size chamber is typically used for installations with depth restrictions or when a larger infiltrative area is needed. In all, Elite Development laid down 116 rows to manage nearly 23,900 cubic feet of stormwater. The system was topped with 2,178 tons of crushed stone. “The majority of stormwater management systems are rectangular or square,” Tonitis said. “We couldn’t do that in this case. We had to go around a lot of encumbrances. There are a lot of stops, starts, and loops. We discovered a lot of things we had to go around as we built the system.” “I grew up in the business, and this is the most comprehensive install we’ve ever done,” Tonitis said. “There were a lot of obstacles, but in the end, the owner was very pleased that we were able to get it done and save him a lot of time and money.”
THOMAS RENNER, who is based in Connecticut, is an award-winning journalist who writes frequently on construction, manufacturing, and other trades.
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csengineermag.com
may 2018
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