Pair Of Montgomery County Water Tanks Get Major Makeover
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Two Montgomery County water tanks have undergone a huge renovation to ultimately save area customers lots of money.
The state's largest utility company, Pennsylvania American Water, supplies 16,000 households in the Royersford-Collegeville area with two 1.5 million gallon tanks.
"1.5 million gallons of water is equal to 12 million pints of beer, or about 7.5 million bottles of wine," said Ralph Wawrzyniakowski, who manages the rehabilitation project.
"Rehab is the most cost-effective way compared to replacing," he said. "This project itself was about $500,000 to repaint the inside and outside of the tank, to replace this would be several million dollars.
"We start by draining (the tank). We then inspect it, to determine what repairs need to be made. We make the repairs, then we sandblast the interior and exterior to remove the old coating system. We then repaint with a three-coat system."
They are then disinfected, filled and tested to meet state requirements.
Each tank takes about three months to renovate.
"We don't have to paint these for another 15-20 years," he said.
