Climate-adaptive drainage with special grating cover

Due to construction, more and more surface is paved so that rainwater cannot infiltrate into the soil. This increases the pressure on sewer capacity.

During the realization of the climate adaptive district in Voorthuizen, it was a requirement of the municipality of Barneveld that rainwater had to be drained to wadis. To ensure that rainwater is collected from hard surfaces and directed to the wadis, the ACO ExoDrain line drainage channel with a special grid cover was chosen.

Function and design at the highest level

In a residential area it is important that line drainage systems drain water quickly and efficiently and that grating covers do not cause noise pollution. On the advice of Rieks Hulst, sales engineer at ACO, the monolithic ExoDrain with a unique grating cover was chosen. "My idea for the special grating cover originated in the summer of 2018," says Nick Lenderink, Landscape Designer at the Municipality of Barneveld. "In a ditch I saw a dry torn out bottom, I translated this into an abstract figuration in the grid cover Dry-Lend. Because Voorthuizen originated at a ford, a ford in the stream, similar bottom cracks arose there. The Dry-Lend grid refers to this situation and literally reproduces the dry sandy landscape in the corten steel ExoDrain

The perfect end result is in the details

Nigel Smit, designer at ACO, explains that creative ideas often produce unique results, but they have to be technically feasible. "A big challenge with this project was to make the pattern continue on the grates, inspection hatches, wadi sections and corner pieces of the 400mm wide system," he says. In addition, the challenge was to ensure that the six different patterns blended together.  

Easy placement

The municipality is pleased with the robust and easy to install self-supporting system. Thanks to integrated lifting straps, the contractor was able to place the grating gutters easily and quickly on the sufficiently paved and compacted surface. To make it even easier and shorten the processing time, ACO delivered the customized and numbered channels to the construction site according to an installation plan. 

Maintenance without obstacles

That the line drainage combines functionality and design at the highest level is demonstrated by the fact that management and maintenance can be carried out very efficiently. Thanks to the hinged inspection hatch, the gutters are quickly accessible and the gratings do not have to be unscrewed. With a special cleaning head, cleaning is done thoroughly and effectively and the environment and passersby are not bothered by splashing water. 

Practice shows: It works!

"The goal was to prevent flooding in the neighborhood," Nick explains. "ACO did a good and fast job of calculating the hydraulic calculations from the water structure plan. They even came up with a more economical solution than had been thought up in the rainwater plan. The fact that the calculations were correct was demonstrated by the heavy rainfall in June. There was no flooding in the neighborhood; the ACO ExoDrain was perfectly capable of storing the water in the adjacent wadis." 

"I am glad that we as a municipality chose ACO, because it is a professional party that knows all the ins and outs. Rieks was my beacon of knowledge in the preliminary process, everyone had the drive to get it done, and the interaction with the enthusiastic men from ACO I experienced as a lot of fun," said Nick Lenderink.