Safety Just as Big on Small Drilling Jobs

In last month’s National Driller, we touched on geotechnical and environmental field work. This month, I discuss safety in a wrap-up to a three-part series on limited access drilling.

The most important aspect of any drilling job, whether limited or unlimited access, is safety. With a bigger rig and taller tower, it can be much more obvious when drilling near overhead power lines as to whether or not you are too close to them. With a smaller rig, it may not be so easy. Minimum distances from overhead electrical lines should be enforced by both the drill crew and the consultant. Also, any drillers should have the backbone to say no if they believe they aren’t at a safe working distance. No job is too important that it should be undertaken less than the minimum distance from overhead lines without specific safety precautions taken by the power company. That may include covering overhead lines with sheathing to prevent arcing or even shutting down power, if possible, to the lines closest to the work area.

In the vast majority of limited access situations that I encounter, there are no specific dangers beyond the usual ones found on any drilling site: trips and slips, cuts, overhead dangers and staying clear of the augers or cathead while they are rotating. But there are still many jobs out there with many dangers, so you shouldn’t let your guard down.

Working on or near railroad tracks is a good example. Track mounted rigs may cause damage to the rails, so smaller equipment that can be loaded onto a rail truck and driven out to the work area is a good option. Having flagmen working for the railroad supervising the work and letting workers know if there is a train approaching are mandatory on jobs like this for obvious reasons, and it goes without saying that the safety of the people is a much higher priority than saving a rig from destruction.

Working at the top of slopes is another example where extra precautions are necessary. This doesn’t just include making sure you don’t fall down the hill, but rather what is the reason you’re there, are there signs of imminent failure? Has the slope already failed? A few years back, I worked on a job where the residents in four or five houses on a street that backed on to a ravine woke up one morning to the sounds of their backyards sliding away down the hill. The slide was so severe that foundations were exposed right to the bottoms of footings. It seemed like a miracle that the houses themselves were still in place. The particular house that I worked behind had a concrete pad acting as a patio that had survived the slide, and that was our work area.

We ended up bringing both our track-mounted drill and a Big Beaver auger drill to the site. We were unable to get our track rig into the backyard and I’m VERY glad that we couldn’t. Although it wasn’t visible around the outside of the concrete pad, there was a void of several inches underneath. I have my doubts that it would have been able to support the 4,500 pounds of our track-mounted drill, as the slab itself was only a few inches thick. I don’t think I’d enjoy having bad dreams of the disastrous consequences if the concrete pad failed and the slope had given away. We ended up using the Beaver and drilling to 40 feet, installing a piezometer in one hole and then augering to 40 feet in another hole to install an inclinometer.

Have an Escape Plan

Confined spaces, now that’s really limited access drilling—inside closets, walk-in freezers and in the bottom of elevator shafts just to name a few. A lot of these rooms aren’t all that big. You’ve got two people in there, plus a drill of some sort. I worked on a job where one of the holes was in a small storage room, right in the door way. It was a small area, less than 12 feet by 12 feet. There was very little wooden framing as it was just in the back corner of a store, and it wasn’t needed as structural support. In the event of an emergency, my escape route was through the drywall. If I can easily punch through it, then it won’t do much to stop my 240 pounds from making a hole large enough to get through it.

I guess the point here is, like in many confined space situations you need to have an escape plan ready in case of an emergency. I’m not sure if going through the wall was a valid escape plan or not, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. If there hadn’t been buried lines under the floor, an obviously better option would have been to move the borehole a few feet further in or out of the room to keep the doorway clear, but unfortunately it was the only choice. Had I not had the option to break through the drywall in the event of an emergency, we would have opted out of drilling the monitoring well in there.

 

Innocent Bystanders

Safety of people not involved with the job is yet another priority that needs to be addressed. This is another issue that concerns both the limited and unlimited access driller. I’m sure we’ve all seen pedestrians walk right around safety barriers and under caution tape, ignore signs and walk right underneath a string of augers as they’re being pulled out of the ground to sample. The worst part is that a lot of these people seem to get mad at US because we’ve slightly inconvenienced them in the interests of trying to prevent them from walking through an unsafe area.

Here are two of my favorite, and by favorite, I mean least favorite, situations. The latter instance is the one where we were pulling augers out of the ground to sample. This was at a gas station, the place was very contaminated and the augers were dripping with wet clay and gasoline from below the surface. A not very bright individual decided that instead of taking an extra few steps around our pylons and caution tape, he would ignore them and walk right through the work area underneath the augers I was pulling out. I didn’t see him until the he was already too close to yell at. On the plus side, however, he didn’t seem to mind the bits of contaminated soil and groundwater that dripped on him. I hope he liked the smell of gas.

The other situation was even worse. I was working on a sidewalk that went underneath a bridge. The back of the rig was about five feet away from the edge of the bridge. On one side of the sidewalk was a four-foot tall railing with a drop of several feet down to the road below. On the other side of the rig was a grassy embankment. Underneath the bridge was the railing and a concrete wall. On the opposite end of the bridge from where we were working, blocking the sidewalk, was a sign stating that it was closed and advising pedestrians to use the sidewalk on the other side of the road and another one further up saying the same thing. Another genius, pushing a child in a stroller no less, moved the sign and walked under the bridge. He came out at the other side to the back end of the drill, a cloud of diesel exhaust and an embankment for him to climb with his stroller. That poor kid. The thing that angers me the most is that if something had happened and he or his child had been injured, I’m sure that we would have been held responsible, despite him blatantly ignoring the sign and putting himself and his child in danger.

Situations like this make me wonder how long it will be before we’ll need to erect construction fencing around work areas like these.

Utility Locates

I don’t know of any jurisdiction in North America where there aren’t laws requiring underground services to be marked before breaking ground using powered equipment. Having locates while drilling indoors is no exception. In my area, most utility companies will only mark their services up to the property line or demarcation point. However, they will inform you if there are any easements running underneath a building or across the property. After that, it’s up to a private locator to do the rest. I’ve worked on numerous jobs where I’ve refused to drill inside or on private property when there have been no private locates present. As-built and engineering drawings can help a private locator do their jobs better, but they are no substitute for having them come and clear any buried services. Gas lines for barbecues, and electrical lines for pool equipment and lights are just a few of the private utilities that might be found in a residential work site. Inside a factory or warehouse, there could be gas, water, electrical and drain lines all located below or encased in the concrete floor. These should be marked on the ground—just as with drilling done outside—if they pass close to the work area.

 To finish off, drilling in limited access areas can certainly be just as stimulating and challenging as working on the bigger rigs, both physically and mentally. You always have to come up with solutions to new problems, whether they’re as simple as bringing a few pieces of wood to bump your machine up and down a set of steps, or trying to figure out how to auger in monitoring wells in the basement of a multimillion dollar home while leaving no trace of your activities except for a few flushmounts. It takes the same amount of brains and hard work to finish the job with a satisfied client.