Professionally Engineered Pipe Lining Products to Meet Every Demand

Petersen Products takes on pipe lining challenges and creates the products to solve them

Professionally Engineered Pipe Lining Products to Meet Every Demand

 Petersen Products was issued its first patent in 1916 and the company has been designing and manufacturing its own products for the drain cleaning industry ever since.

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It’s not every company that provides tools, accessories and fittings to industries ranging from plumbing to aerospace engineering. But Petersen Products Co. has been providing products and solutions for the plumbing and pipe lining industries for decades, as well as working on engineering solutions for NASA and a wide range of other industries.

The founder’s first patent was issued in 1916, and since then, the company has continuously improved its skill and capacity to provide a steady flow of new product and service solutions for its customers.

Cleaner recently spoke with Tom Muldoon, president of Petersen Products, about the company’s products and their applications, customizing solutions for customers, and what’s to come in the pipe lining industry.

Cleaner: Tell us a little about the history of Petersen Products.

Muldoon: Petersen Products is a generational family business started over 100 years ago. The Drain Flusher was its founding product and while the business has entered and exited several industries since, it has developed a deep knowledge base in engineering solutions for the pipe lining and plumbing industries.

Cleaner: What differentiates your pipe lining products from the competition?

Muldoon: Petersen Products holds a unique market position as the company that fulfills customers’ most demanding product and service requirements. We support product excellence with world-class customer care, quick delivery and complete solutions. Our solutions include industry firsts such as the High Pressure Inflatable Flow Stop, and midmarket plugging solutions, like the Multi-Flex inflatable plugs and a range of low-to-high pressure mechanical plugs.

Our patented and founding product lines, the Drain Flushers and Sewer Cleaning Tools, have stood the test of time. Not only has Petersen been manufacturing them since 1916, but each flusher is highly durable and long lasting.

Cleaner: What sort of needs do they address? Tell us about the plugs, packers, and flushers and what applications they best serve.

Muldoon: Our products were developed in response to customer demand over the years. We offer pipe plugs and packers for most size, pressure, chemical and temperature requirements. The Multi-Flex inflatable plugs work very well in high expansion applications: they are made from flexible, highly durable industrial material and have a small-deflated diameter so that they can navigate small openings. They conform to most pipe shapes and take up little storage space.

Petersen’s mechanical high-pressure test plugs are often applied to force and water mains, lift stations, nuclear cooling lines, fire protection lines and many other projects where isolation is required for testing and construction. These plugs may be manufactured for almost any pressure and for rectangular or other shaped openings. These plugs offer easy installation, replaceable seals, and positive seal, and are engineered to restrain rated pipeline pressure.

Our Multi-Flex Point & Sectional Repair Inflatable Packers are often used in air, water and steam lining applications. Customers like the light weight compared to molded rubber styles and the quick insertion possibilities with the product’s small-deflated diameter and high flexibility. Petersen packers conform to most pipe shares and bends. The ports on both ends of the inflatable packer allow steam condensate to discharge from either end. Lastly, our packers need little space for storage when not in use.

Petersen’s Drainjet and hydraulic sewer flushers are often used to open clogged drains and sewers with powerful jet action and a high flow rate. They offer a much greater flow rate than rubber bulb-type flushers that require much of the pressure just to expand the rubber. Our products put all the water flow and pressure to work and allow easy installation even around bends and elbows.

Cleaner: What are some recommendations for customers shopping for pipe lining products?

Muldoon: For customers shopping pipe lining products, our Multi-Flex Repair Inflatable Packers are definitely worth looking at. They can be manufactured to most size, chemical and temperature requirements, and configurations can be provided for most relining requirements.

Cleaner: You offer custom design/build solutions for customers. What sort of customization do you do?

Muldoon: Beyond our catalog of products, we also offer custom engineering and manufacturing for customers. We like to take on engineering challenges others haven’t been able to solve. Petersen creates standard and custom mechanical and inflatable solutions for industries including pipeline, power, chemical, oil and gas, refining, wastewater, municipal water, and aerospace. We have a deep engineering team for a small company and have provided solutions for large to small companies.

Specifically, our packers are custom built to the customer’s required diameter and length. If the job requires a 15-foot or 20-foot length of pipe to be rehabilitated, we can build a packer to that length. If the liner that customer prefers comes in 4 feet widths, we can build a packer to that contact length so that the inflation and deflation can be done quicker. We also offer the Steam Packer option for any of our packers, where the packer can be inflated with steam to speed up the cure time of the epoxy so that the pipeline may be returned to service more quickly. We also offer “T” packers at 90 and 45 degrees when it is required to rehabilitate a lateral to main joint in any size combination.

Cleaner: How do you see the pipe lining industry evolving?

Muldoon: With greater infrastructure spending expected the industry should do very well in 2021 and beyond.  There will continue to be innovative designs in the pipe lining market as certain aspects of the lining market are commoditized and competitive specialty areas will have growth. We are working with several of our customers on specialty design projects in areas of point repairs and delivery navigating difficult piping systems. Other innovative areas are in lining larger sections of pipe with innovative materials.

Cleaner: What’s new for Petersen Products in 2021? What can customers expect out of Petersen Products in the future?

Muldoon: Petersen continues to offer high-quality engineered solutions and will have a more robust e-commerce platform for an easier and more user-friendly web and account interface. Part of this is a strong solutions-based engineering team to help us respond quickly to customer requests for technical support. We are also working on several game-changing solutions utilizing our inflatable and mechanical technologies and will launch several new product series manufactured at our Fredonia, Wisconsin, facility. This increased product variety and quantity in inventory helps assure customers of our ability to respond quickly to their needs.

Cleaner: What do you want your customers to think of when they hear the name Petersen Products?

Muldoon: At Petersen Products Co., we provide the engineered plugging solutions that do what others can’t. We make the line stopping plugs that allow contractors to make pipeline repairs. From medical devices to mining tunnels to spacecraft, our engineered solutions can tackle challenging applications others can’t. Our reliable professional grade drain flushers provide the highest cleaning capabilities of any drain flusher and our inflatable line stops are recognized around the world. We also provide an online platform and the technical expertise to re-sell and distribute products for our partners.

We plug it. You fix it. 



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