As most MDPE is required in large lengths they are stored and transported in coils- which is beneficial as it saves space on the lorry (meaning more products can be delivered,reducing CO2 emissions) and also saves you space when you receive it. However, these coils could have been wound up for weeks or months by the time they arrive on your property and that often means they quickly recoil as you try to lay them, which can be tricky to handle when you have 100m of it!
Here are some tips we’ve gathered for how to straighten your MDPE coil to make your life a little bit easier!
The most important thing to remember is that the pipe will have been extruded straight so eventually over time, it will return back to being straight.
The most important factors are heat and time .
It is likely that the coil of MDPE will have been coiled for a while and stored outside, when the warmth of the sun will have heated the pipes in the coils they were packaged in. To undo this the best thing to do would be to leave your coil unravelled outside somewhere where it will get a lot of sunlight, and over time this will take the coil back to its original state. It might also be helpful to tie the pipe onto a straight piece of timber or metal, just to speed up the process slightly. Although this can be a lengthy process, especially in a sun deprived Britain, it requires the least effort and lets the coil return to its natural shape slowly without any risk of breaking.
Another option is to run some hot water through the pipe whist its laid out flat which should reshape the pipe quicker. To do this efficiently you will need a connection on the end which you can hook up to tap which runs hot water. Then lay the pipe out as flat as you can and start pumping the hot water through it. This should straighten it out quickly, running some cold water at the end just to make sure it stays straight.
