OUR CAPABILITIES AS DIRECTIONAL DRILLING SPECIALISTS

As Directional Drilling Specialists, Mole Group offer an alternative to trenching by installing services underground using an impact mole or directional drill. Many clients need to minimize surface disruption and have site preservation issues to consider which would render trenching inappropriate. The method we use, moling or drilling, depends on the elements of each specific job such as accessibility, ground conditions, human/vehicular traffic and distance to cover.

Vital utilities or services that underground installation can facilitate are: water, gas, electricity, drains and communication networks Mole Group is able to assist installers of wind turbines, outside lighting, CCTV and fibre optics in the provision of their services.

The design and size of our rigs allows us to access jobs that other larger drill companies cannot do. A lot of the work that we undertake is a niche market consisting of mid-sized, and/or awkward to access jobs. Clients have told us they we were the only company that could carry out the work due to our unique hybrid rigs, modified to require compact set up area and small entry and exit excavation. We also have our higher capability rig for larger projects.

Our directional drill rigs can cover distances of up to 250m in one drill and install ducts up to 250mm diameter. Suitable for many applications, they are steerable, precise to within 25mm. We have recently added the capability to cover 175m of 350mm diameter with our Astec rig.

Our impact moles cover a distance of up to 15m in one mole shot and install ducts up to 63mm.

We are also able to install new drains to manholes in the road by precisely drilling at a constant fall of 1:100 without excavating the ground around the property.

Our customers are diverse, from the owners of a race track wanting to install cameras, to construction contractors who require our precision drilling expertise; architects; installers of wind turbine/fibre optics; schools; utilities companies; councils; any business or organisation needing to expand services between locations. Some of our drill work comes from larger drill companies for situations where their own rigs are too large for the level of precision or operating space.

Mole teams work UK wide and often a job starts by looking at the location on Google Earth whilst discussing the contract requirements with the customer who will then request plans of underground services from the utilities.

Our rigs use air and water for lubrication not the commonly used bentonite (an absorbent aluminium phyllosilicate clay) which can seep into water courses.

• Less need for hot tarmac being mined, heated and delivered in trucks
• Little to no surplus to be removed in lorries to landfill sites
• Methods suit wind turbine, ground source heat pumps installation

Mole Utilities are CHAS registered and members of Constructionline and UKSTT. All operatives are CSCS and WIAPs certified.