Drilling Technology

[Klause]

So if you can bore a 48” line and have to dig a pit every km, traditional pipeline builders will be out with the horse and buggy and Ford vacuum pressure controls. I have a question for you klause. Say I have a body of water that is flooding my farm and I have a place to drain it but have a 30’ cut to make 3 furlongs. How would you bore into the body of water or do you bore up to it and put a pump on it to get it going and let natural siphoning take over. There’s enough downslope. I’ve priced out pump and hose rental which is atrocious and not a long term solution. Or do I buy a hoe and start digging?

Oh I've done a few of those. You drill up to it from the final exit. Then you pull in like a 8" HDPE pipe, that has weeping tile inside of it. Then you put tie the other end of weeping tile securely so it doesn't come with when you yank the HDPE out.

Presto. Tile drain installed without digging up anything.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Oh I've done a few of those. You drill up to it from the final exit. Then you pull in like a 8" HDPE pipe, that has weeping tile inside of it. Then you put tie the other end of weeping tile securely so it doesn't come with when you yank the HDPE out.

Presto. Tile drain installed without digging up anything.

So, if there is a glut of smaller size drills out there, are there any bargains to be had in hiring some drainage done by this method right now? And what is the slowest time of year to take advantage of?

[Taiga]

At $80/m (plus the cost of the 8” pipe?) how could that ever be affordable for a farmer to do though, cheaper to just live with the wet hole and work around it, no?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

At $80/m (plus the cost of the 8” pipe?) how could that ever be affordable for a farmer to do though, cheaper to just live with the wet hole and work around it, no?

Depends on the area. Around here, it will cost $3 to $4000 to buy a cultivated acre, assuming you can even find any for sale. Or I could put that same amount into improving existing but completely unproductive acres.

If we round up and call it $100 per acre with pipe, then for every acre of Slough, I could bore the drain pipe 40 meters. 3 acre slough would justify almost 400 feet of bore. And the black dirt in the slough will be the most productive on the farm once it is dry. The difference in gross profit per acre between the good crop and the drownouts this year is around. $800 per acre. Expenses the same for each.

[Taiga]

Fair enough, but to drain 1ac (60m x 60m), by installing 300m of drilled pipe, will cost $24,000 at the numbers given ($80/m x 300m). At the end of the day, that one acre is still only worth your original $3000-$4000 (your numbers) whether it is productive or not. But I hear you, sometimes those holes are a real pain to work around.

[WiltonRanch]

So if you have 80 acres of water when you traditionally had 40, and your corrals and yard are flooding, is it cheaper to relocate on high ground, pump which could cost $100000 which isn’t a permanent solution, dig a deep ditch, or bore?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Fair enough, but to drain 1ac (60m x 60m), by installing 300m of drilled pipe, will cost $24,000 at the numbers given ($80/m x 300m). At the end of the day, that one acre is still only worth your original $3000-$4000 (your numbers) whether it is productive or not. But I hear you, sometimes those holes are a real pain to work around.

I am assuming that the drill is only to get through the high ground to avoid a deep cut through the hill that is blocking the water. Draining within the wet area to get the water to the pipe entrance would be by landscaping, or just plowed in drain tile, or likely just a sump of drain tile to collect the water at the lowest point, then plow it until the ground cover gets too deep, bore from there.

Asking for a friend, could you do this at night, and drain you water under your neighbors property?
Kidding of course, don't have any issues with neighbors here, but I can imagine situations where it could happen.

I have a lot of respect for the operators, and the technology behind this. I can't even keep a drill bit lined up inside a broken off bolt 1/2" long, or drill from both sides of a wooden beam and hit the opposite hole when the bit isn't long enough.

[Klause]

So, if there is a glut of smaller size drills out there, are there any bargains to be had in hiring some drainage done by this method right now? And what is the slowest time of year to take advantage of?

Well, there's a lot of desperate companies out there. You can probably make some pretty good deals.

The key is to find a company with decent skills. We do a lot of 'rescue' jobs for other companies... that get in over their head.


This is simple work though, except it needs to be on-grade to make water flow. Depending on length a rig from a 36*50 to a JT100 would be able to do it.... meaning small footprint, small mess, and fast (1 day type of deal).


Rates should be substantially lower than what I was discussing above, as that's government/oilfield work...

Best time of the year is to call late spring/early summer. Work starts picking up in August or late July for civil work, and oilfield usually doesn't kick in till it freezes because of where a lot of the work is.


One of the more interesting shots was out in Cynthia, Ab. We drilled 800 meters through a paleontological zone... through some nasty mudstone formations... Beautiful country, sitting on rig mats on top of a muskeg/peat bog trying to put 220,000 lbs of force against the pipe. the whole matting dug into the swamp... every time I pulled it felt like being on a boat.

[Klause]

At $80/m (plus the cost of the 8” pipe?) how could that ever be affordable for a farmer to do though, cheaper to just live with the wet hole and work around it, no?

Well, often times don't have to pay for the HDPE since it comes with. Just pay for the 4" or 6" drain tile.

DR17 8" is about $25 a meter if you bought it. If you did 2 or 5 bores you'd just re-use it... In this case you could get away with DR26 or DR 32.5 which is quite a bit cheaper.

Get a drill crew with a guy with a fusing ticket, and they can assemble it all for you too.


We did some 10" work were we drilled and supplied pipe for $100 all in for the government.

[Klause]

So if you have 80 acres of water when you traditionally had 40, and your corrals and yard are flooding, is it cheaper to relocate on high ground, pump which could cost $100000 which isn’t a permanent solution, dig a deep ditch, or bore?

Drill through the hill and plow anything less than 2m.

[Klause]

I am assuming that the drill is only to get through the high ground to avoid a deep cut through the hill that is blocking the water. Draining within the wet area to get the water to the pipe entrance would be by landscaping, or just plowed in drain tile, or likely just a sump of drain tile to collect the water at the lowest point, then plow it until the ground cover gets too deep, bore from there.

Asking for a friend, could you do this at night, and drain you water under your neighbors property?
Kidding of course, don't have any issues with neighbors here, but I can imagine situations where it could happen.

I have a lot of respect for the operators, and the technology behind this. I can't even keep a drill bit lined up inside a broken off bolt 1/2" long, or drill from both sides of a wooden beam and hit the opposite hole when the bit isn't long enough.

We have different ways of steering... Walkover with an F5 falcon and manually calculating the pitch to maintain depth is common in smaller stuff. On big things we have access to high precision gyros.

The Brownline system (pics below)is accurate to +/- 0.01 degrees pitch (up/down) and 0.03 degrees Azymuth (right/left) and updates in real time.

The atomic gyro in this steering tool is so precise, the US military keeps track of them.






There's something about walking 600m away from the drill, putting a red paint dot on the ground, then punching through the ground with the drill head on that exact dot.

[Misterjade9]

20 years ago after we had sent all our truck divers home for the spring, I ended up having to haul water to a bore for a couple days. I found the job and technology fascinating then and can only imagine how much it has improved with new technology.