Bothar Drilling | Directional Drilling

directional drilling ireland

What is HDD Drilling?

HDD drilling is used for the installation of underground pipes when you do not want to disturb or dig up the surrounding area. It is used extensively by Water companies to install underground pipes, Gas companies to install gas lines and Electrical companies to put cables and ducting underground.

Traditional methods were to dig up the road or surrounding area causing major disruption to traffic and damage to the environment. With this technology we can literally pull pipes through the ground without any visible scars or disruption to the road or traffic flows.

Pipe diameters vary but Bóthar Drilling can manage pipes of up to 800mm using the latest underground direction drilling techniques. We can steer the rig down into the ground from a single point and navigate bends and curves under roads, streams or other obstacles and back out the other end leaving you a clean site with no disruption to services.

Use Cases

Roads and Motorways

Train Lines and Platforms

Major Rivers and Streams

Environmentally Sensitive Areas

Where existing infrastructure is already in place

Why Use Directional drilling?

No disruption to local services such as roads and rail networks. We can bore under all types of infrastructure without effecting traffic or public access.

Speed is a huge cost saver with Directional Drilling because we do not have to excavate whole areas to lay pipes or cables. The trench-less system lets us navigate obstacles both above and underground with ease.

Because we can curve the pipes underground we can pretty much cover every type of requirement without impacting the environment or surrounding areas.

Work can be carried out during the day because we do not impact traffic or pedestrian areas while working.

How it works

Directional drilling works because of it’s simplicity. We dig a small hole at one end of the site and push a special cutting tool into the ground. One of our expert operators then steers this head to the other end of the site where a reamer and whatever type of pipe or conduit required is attached. This reamer and pipe is then pulled back through the original hole to the source area.

Because we can steer the system through the ground we can navigate any obstacles such as underground water, existing pipes and cables or huge rocks and boulders. Traditional methods used here would require major ground works to remove or even identify these obstacles before any work started.