A horizontal directional drill is a relatively recent form of equipment when it comes to utility and pipe installation. Horizontal directional drill rods, enable a construction worker to have a significantly greater amount of flexibility in the placement of the drill, ensuring that they have a higher level of accuracy. When it comes to costly digging projects, many complications of pipe installation and traditional digging are alleviated, when one uses horizontal directional drills.
Let us take a look at a few benefits of using horizontal directional drill rods.
1. Strength
Horizontal directional drills have a longer life span, as they are composed of tougher materials than most traditional drills. Certain areas with a significant amount of moisture, like pipes that run under bridges, or rivers tend to expose the drills to the elements that contribute heavily to the drill rod’s wear and tear. This ends up shortening the lifespan of the pipes, by up to 50%. However, horizontal directional drilling enables a construction worker to install these pipes in a much easier and accurate fashion, thus improving their durability.
2. Lower Installation Time
In a traditional drilling setup, one often needs to dig all the way down and then across to make the space for a pipe. However, horizontal direct drilling means the process of digging down is eliminated entirely, enabling the job to get done in a much shorter span of time. There is a significantly lower amount of dirt that is displaced, which in turn means that there is less dirt to dispose of once the drill rods have done their job.
3. Costs
Horizontal directional drill rods are able to drill with a higher level of accuracy, which means that the entire drilling process takes lesser time, as compared to traditional drilling. Furthermore, when using HDD Tooling, there is a lower amount of equipment needed as the manpower required for operating such a drill is lower as compared to traditional drilling. This makes horizontal directional drilling, highly cost-effective as compared to open-cut drilling.
Lower Chance Of Disruption
With HDD Tooling, the primary disruption factors in most drilling projects are completely eliminated, which is, duration, and landscaping. A horizontal directional drill rod is designed to be more accurate, which means it displaces very little soil and doesn’t require digging down into the property, ensuring that any kind of landscaping is relatively untouched. This enables most individuals to get their drilling projects done and get back to business without having too many disruptions.
Lower Chance Of Contaminating The Soil
Unlike conventional traditional drilling, horizontal directional drilling is focused on displacing the soil to its side, rather than bringing it to the surface. This means that there is effectively a significantly lower chance that any soil contamination will be able to spread above ground during the drilling process. This also prevents contaminated soil from infiltrating the pipes and thereby putting their integrity at risk.