Building on Business Success: Direct Push vs Hollow Stem Auger

Progressing from helper to driller during his 27-year career with an engineering consulting firm, Eric Bjorn was lured away from the driller’s platform by an attractive benefits package as construction manager at a local university. However, he repeatedly found himself trading vacations for drilling.

“I was working for a great company where I liked the people,” Bjorn said. “So when I would receive phone calls from my previous employer asking for help to train a new driller or help with jobs, I would take vacation from one job to go drill. This went on for awhile, and my wife kept saying ‘we’re never taking vacations’.”

When he received the request from his former employer for a bridge project, he began considering an alternative career path.

“A company I hadn’t worked for in years wanted me to come get their drill rig, hire a helper, and stay overnight to complete a job,” Bjorn said. “That’s when I decided to go out on my own and drafted a letter to their board with an offer to buy their equipment — basically their entire drilling department — and become an independent operator, quoting all their work and taking on work for other clients.”

They agreed to his terms and Michigan Independent Drilling was born during 2021. Their work ranges from geotechnical for commercial foundation design, roadwork, and bridges; to environmental sampling and monitoring well installation. They also do some subsurface soil profiling for new water or sewer system design.

“We’ll drill along where the pipe work is proposed to help determine accurate construction costs, depending on whether we find rock or shallow groundwater,” Bjorn said.

Sometimes their subsurface profiling is for local road commissions looking to upgrade older sections of road where no pre-existing plans are available.

“We go in every 200 or 500 feet and drill a hole down 5 feet to assess the soil composition (asphalt, gravel, and sand thickness) along with identifying native types of soils to determine where the road embankment could be failing or in need of additional engineered fill. Thus the repair lasts longer than the patches they’ve been doing,” Bjorn said. “We may drill in an area where the road is in really bad shape and find organic-type native material at a shallow depth, which they can replace with an engineered fill prior to repaving. If they’re going to redo it, better to redo it right.”

Search for a New Rig

As his work took him further from the office, the older truck-mounted rig he’d purchased from his previous employer became a concern.

“It was stressful having an older rig and not wanting to let anyone down,” Bjorn said. “I didn’t want to break down and not be able to complete a job I’d agreed to do.”

He began researching online, watching YouTube videos, and gaining interest in the Geoprobe^® 3100GT truck-mounted drill rig.

"Ninety-five percent of work I do is accessible by a truck," Bjorn said.

As he was emailing with Lee Shaw, sales representative, he learned about and registered for the 2024 Geoprobe^® Open House. He confirmed that not just one, but two 3100GTs would be on site. While attending, he struck up a conversation with a Geoprobe^® assembly technician who disclosed another 3100GT was going through production, which didn’t yet have a name on it.

“When I came to the Open House, I wasn’t committed to buying a Geoprobe^®, but I got to meet the people and tour the facilities,” Bjorn said. “Before I left for Michigan, I sat down with Lee to discuss the process of purchasing a 3100GT. I told him ‘let’s put my name on it’ and wrote the deposit check. I think I took him by surprise. I tease him about being a silver-tongued salesman, but he wasn’t the least bit pushy and has been awesome to deal with.”

3100GT Features Simplify Fieldwork

Since receiving their 3100GT, they’ve come to appreciate several features:

• No deck engine: “one less engine to worry about years down the road.” 
• Easy maintenance: “hoses and cylinders are accessible without removing other components to make a repair. We could repair it in the field if necessary versus having to get back to the shop.” 
• Extendable mast: “adds a layer of safety when drilling utility projects in town with overhead lines.

The ease of positioning and leveling up the 3100GT has been an advantage on several of their projects. On one, they were drilling where people had been driving across a creek in order to provide geotechnical assessments toward constructing a recreational trail bridge.

“We backed the truck down the valley and parked it on an angle. We just raised the drill mast up, set the outriggers, and leveled up. The 3100GT easily positions using hydraulic jacks. My son Lenny, who drills for me, and I laughed because if we had been using our old rig, we wouldn’t have had enough wood blocking at the shop to level it up,” Bjorn said. “We were doing a highway job where the truck was leaning on the shoulder. With the oscillating mast, we could level up safely and easily.”

Direct Push vs Hollow Stem Auger

On another site, they knew from previous work they’d encounter soft clay. So they chose to use the direct push capabilities of the 3100GT to push casing, sample, and continue to depth. Direct push technology vs hollow stem auger has allowed them to become "immensely more efficient," depending on the site conditions.

“In the past with augering, we’d bring the augers out, and they were filthy. We’d peel the clay off, which meant our gloves were dirty. And the augers are still half dirty when you load the truck, so the truck is filthy. And then you have to fill the hole,” Bjorn said. “Doing the job with direct push is an amazing time saver and much cleaner with no clay on the surface anywhere. We’ll drill in clay all day long now using direct push.”

According to Bjorn, the 3100GT has exceeded their expectations on anything they’ve done.

“Everything about the rig exceeds what we were working with,” Bjorn said. “When we’ve needed technical support or had issues or concerns, everyone has been very helpful. I’ve been very happy with Geoprobe^®.”