Bread and Butter Truck for Deeper Holes

Doing primarily geotechnical work around Ohio the past 45 years, Geotechnical Consultants runs three crews with a fleet predominantly comprised of conventional rigs. Running rigs around Ohio and the surrounding states with enough work to be in the field 365 days a year if they desired, they routinely drill more than 1,500 feet per week. They have a work backlog pushing nine to 10 weeks at times. As they picked up more drilling work, the drillers decided it was time for a change.

“The guys wanted a Geoprobe^®,” said Rob Brandum, who moved from driller to drilling manager in January 2023. “The 3100GT has been a good purchase.”

While three of their five conventional rigs are truck rigs, they found the 3100GT provides additional capability and safety.

“The rock coring capabilities are improved,” Brandum said. “The control panel being on the right side versus the left side is safer on the roadway, keeping operators away from traffic.”

Traditionally they ran solid augers, but found increased efficiency using hollow stem augers (HSA) with the 3100GT.

“Running HSA allows us to go deeper, faster than using solid flights, so we can complete work quicker,” Brandum said. “It’s exceeded our expectations by not taking as long on deeper holes with HSA compared to conventional rigs with solid stem augers.”

When they anticipate challenging in-hole soil conditions, they’ll send out the 3100GT.

“Some of our deeper 65- to 75-foot holes take so long doing with solid stems versus HSA, so for bigger jobs it’s great to have around. It’s also a faster truck, so we can get more drilling done,” Brandum said. “We can get so much more done in a day with it. We’re getting deeper holes done quicker, so we’re not spending as much time doing deeper holes.”

They now consider it their “bread and butter truck” for deeper holes. They’ve taken the rig out for borings on bridges as well as 100-plus housing development projects.

“Anything we need to do, we can take it out and run it,” Brandum said. “We know if something does happen, we can call Lee [Shaw, sales representative] or Jason [Lindenmuth, service rig specialist] and within an hour have the problem figured out. The customer service is fantastic.”