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How to keep underground vaults dry

Pre-seal with the Roxtec knock-out sleeve.

How to keep underground vaults dry

The Roxtec knock-out sleeve is a cast-in solution for securing planned conduit entries into buildings and vaults. The knock-out sleeve provides a pre-sealed opening that keeps the site dry during construction. And, as the name describes, you can easily knock out the pre-sealed plate to access your engineered pathway when it is time to run cable or pipe through the conduit and install your mechanical seal around it.

“You can save time, reduce cost and improve construction quality by using our knock-out sleeve,” says Jim McElgunn, Regional Sales Manager Power at Roxtec. “It is a one-piece solution that combines three essential protection features which enable you ensure an efficient barrier against water, gas, and dust.”

With rising water levels and severe weather events, water ingress is in focus for many companies within civil construction. It is causing issues for buildings, shelters, kiosks, and vaults, both during construction and in operation. Now you do not have to spend time and money pumping out water from flooded vaults.

Overcome typical challenges

The Roxtec knock-out sleeve is an all-in-one solution covering challenges such as insufficient concrete cover between ducts, water ingress tracking, and the risk of damage to the cable during installation. Its space efficient design includes a conduit spacer to allow for high density conduit entry without compromising concrete coverage, puddle flange to mitigate water tracking and bell mouth to protect the cable during installation. It makes it easy to space and set conduits in a secure way. By pre-sealing, you prevent water ingress. Your site remains dry during the construction period – without any need for temporary sealing.

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“Now you do not need any cost-consuming water pumps to drain the vaults. The civil construction team can hand over a nice, clean, and dry site to the mechanical and electrical installers,” says Jim McElgunn.

Plate ready for knock-out

The Roxtec knock-out sleeve is developed to ensure protection until you are ready for service routing to and from the building, vault, or manhole. This tight pre-sealing solution is a simple way of adding spare capacity conduits for upgrades and expansion. Whenever additional services are to be installed, you simply knock out the plate of the spare capacity sleeve and insert the conduit and a Roxtec seal. The sleeve is an approved partner to the market-leading mechanical sealing solutions from Roxtec.

Maintain optimum conditions

You need to prevent water, humidity, and dust to maintain optimum operating conditions for sensitive electrical equipment such as switchgear. Uncontrolled conditions can lead to switchgear failure in the form of partial discharge activity or arc flash, and compromise life expectancy of critical operational assets. Jim McElgunn recommends you make sure you pre-seal and seal with reliable conduit entry solutions that withstand everyday standing water conditions as well as catastrophic weather events.

The KOS is available in 4, 5, 6 and 8 inch versions.

Perfect fit for Schedule 40 and 80

The Roxtec knock-out sleeve covers both Schedule 40 and 80 conduits. It has practical cut marks for easy reduction to the actual concrete wall thickness. It can also easily be extended to cover very thick walls just by the addition of a piece of Schedule 40 or 80 conduit. Furthermore, it is equipped with connection tabs which enable you to connect several Roxtec knock-out sleeves into a high-density cluster while ensuring minimum spacing between each conduit. In this way, you do not have to worry about the concrete coverage between the conduits. Jim McElgunn summarizes:

“The sleeve is perfect to include in your build plans. Not just for one project, but for all your projects.”

Learn more in our webinar

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