Today we are working in a commercial area in Humble. We are, once again, drilling to install conduit to later install fiber optic cable inside the conduit. This cable is delivered to the site on a roll via a reel trailer. It will later be pulled through the conduit once we have installed this.
As strange as it may seem, we work from the end drill point back to the beginning drill point. That is to say we begin to drill from the point where the installed cables are required to surface and we drill towards the location of the conduit reel that is waiting for the drill head to surface.
Once the drill head surfaces, a swivel is attached to the drill head. Then the conduit is attached to the swivel using a Chinese handcuff and pulled back through the drilled hole.
In the video you can see the locator step on the drill head as it enters the ground. This is to assist the drill head to get traction as it begins its dive. Once the drill is underground, the locator utilizes the location device to tell the operator how to adjust the depth or direction of the drill head
We have quite a long way to drill for this job and it has an interesting obstacle for us to maneuver around, but more of that in a minute!
At the start of this video you can see various colored markings indicating where existing Humble utilities are and which need to be avoided by the driller. You will also see a group standing around one specific point and that is where there is both an old and new gas line. That has to be managed very carefully and requires special attention.
To do this, an inspection hole is dug where we visibly identify gas line’s location and at what depth the line passes through where we want to install the new conduit. We intend to drill at least 12 inches above the gas line and we will be able to watch the drill head pass through this hole ensuring that we are in exactly the right place and depth.
The moment of truth! Here comes the drill head and we can see it pass over the gas line (the view of the gas line is obscured by the soil moved by the drill head). The locator can now follow the drill head as it moves on towards the point where it needs to come out of the ground to be connected to the conduit as mentioned above to be drawn back through the drilled hole as the drill pipes are recovered by the drill machine.
If you are wondering about the photo at the top of the page we will have another article explaining this work published in a few days so please look out for this as well as our next drilling job.