17 Nov More Competitor Misinformation – Correction Provided
"BranD X"
A friendly engineer sent another competitor (“Brand X”) presentation full of misinformation about nozzle-based underdrain systems. You may remember in February’s video chat, we clarified and countered a host of problems with a certain competitor presentation. Apparently, it touched a nerve as we received a lawyer letter from the competitor. They didn’t like a handful of things that were said in the 47-minute long video.
In 23 years and with 200 installations, Orthos has never once, ever, had a monolithic underdrain failure, which is a completely different experience than our competition. We focus on a new presentation slide not part of February’s deck. “Brand X” apparently attempts to show nozzle-based underdrain failures—the problem is that these are poor and invalid examples. They’ve evidently dug deep and wide and really should know better.
Traveling Bridge Filter
Precast Block System
Lateral System
The left picture shows cell dividers of a traveling bridge filter. EIMCO, now OVIVO, used to sell several decades ago a nozzle-based traveling bridge filter mainly for wastewater tertiary treatment. Not really sure why they would think this picture is relevant today.
The middle picture shows a precast block style of nozzle-based underdrains. These blocks are arranged side-by-side, grouted in-between, and cinched down with hold-down hardware to create a suspended floor underdrain. This technology is mainly used in second and third-world countries where enough consistent-quality concrete mix cannot be found to pour a monolithic floor. The grout in-between the pre-cast blocks, much like the grout in-between plastic block underdrain laterals, is a point of repeated failure. It also appears in this picture that a one-inch skim coat was poured, which wasn’t a good idea. This picture is not a monolithic underdrain system such as the resilient Orthos Centurion™, so we’re not sure why they included this picture either.
The bottom picture admittedly took us a little while to figure out. After contacting a well-experienced colleague in Europe, he pointed out that this is a pipe lateral system with a failure of the central channel—he’s seen some of these over there. It appears that the riser tubes, not nozzles, are embedded in concrete above the laterals. This is really a poor design and it’s no wonder that it blew up. With no nozzles and being a pipe lateral system, we seriously question why “Brand X” would believe this picture is relevant.
We urge those in our water/wastewater industry to not deceive their clients with disparaging competitive information that isn’t even relevant or valid. Orthos clients value our resiliency, reliability, and permanency.
