Sonic System Includes Service and Tooling Support

With a primary focus on environmental drilling, M&W Drilling in Tennessee adapts to market fluctuations by supplementing with other service lines. Through the years, the 15-year-old company has completed work in oil/gas, geothermal, coal mine blasthole, mine vent holes, and municipal water wells. For the past four to five years, geotechnical drilling has accompanied their environmental work as they complete direct push, auger coring, air rotary, and sonic drilling. 

When they began in 2005, they would subcontract sonic work. As large projects came up for bid at facilities like Oakridge National Laboratory and Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, they decided to invest in sonic drilling technology.

“Lots of times these scopes specified sonic, which prompted us to purchase,” Joe Mathis, maintenance, said. 

Their experience with Geoprobe^® led them to choose Geoprobe^® sonic system, including rigs and tooling.

“We have a long-standing rapport with Geoprobe^®. They have been extremely good on support — both for service and product,” Mathis said. “They’ve always been a good company to deal with, so we decided to go with Geoprobe^®.”

They keep one 8150LS, two 8140LS, and one 8040DT busy.

“For casing advancement, you can’t beat the 8150LS,” Mathis said. “In unconsolidated soils that won’t stay open, it’s the quickest way to do it. The sonic wave energy liquifies the soil and lets you get through it.”

Mathis appreciates the remote diagnostic system for troubleshooting issues.

“The 8150LS has integrated ability for engineers to log in and watch it run from Kansas,” Mathis said. “There’s so much integration into the computers, if you do have an issue, they can access and change parameters to correct the situation until it can be serviced.”

He values a simple phone call can solve problems.

“They’re good to work with on the phone,” Mathis said. “They’re very adept at helping out on the phone and not having to take the rig to them or for them to come here.”

For Mathis, the 8150LS combined with the Geoprobe^® tooling can’t be beat if the ground formation requires sonic system.

“For the cost versus how it holds up, it is very good tooling. We looked into other tooling, but the cost was twice as much,” Mathis said. “Weighing everything, we went with Geoprobe® tooling because of cost and product knowledge. They make a good product all the way around.”

To him, engineering behind Geoprobe^® sonic system makes it worth the investment.

“Geoprobe^® puts a lot of effort into designing tooling,” Mathis said. “The bits are better because they listen to drillers and make modifications that actually help.”