 | James Hardie recognizes that the strength of a storm drain system will determine its performance. With this in mind, we've designed Hardie Pipe to focus on its strength to reduce the risk involved with the construction of the storm drain system. Within the construction industry, it's commonly recognized that strength can be achieved with either a flexible pipe or a rigid pipe. However, as a flexible pipe's strength is determined solely by the quality of the compacted soil during the installation process, it is difficult for even the best contractors to supply the owner with a consistent product. To do so correctly requires the contractor to take extra time to ensure that the soil is properly compacted, potentially negating any material savings that you've gained.
The engineers at James Hardie recognize the benefits of a rigid concrete pipe and designed Hardie Pipe to carry the same loads, class for class, as steel-reinforced RCP. However, as with all of our products, we didn't stop there! Recognizing that all concrete materials lose strength when saturated (including steel reinforced concrete pipe!), we make Hardie Pipe to have the same strength when fully saturated as traditional RCP has when dry - this means that during installation (when pipe is relatively dry) Hardie Pipe has a much greater strength than RCP! This additional strength provides you with an added protection against premature failure from the extreme loads that can occur during the construction phase - we like to term it our "construction overload capacity." | | 
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