No – Kodiak specializes in ultra-portable small drills for unconventional locations. We are the industry leaders in this field and keep very busy developing and implementing these methods. We therefore do not compete with the other drilling contractors, as our services are unique.

If your application is better suited for a conventional truck mounted drill, we’ll tell you so. We won’t try to convince you to use our methods when there may be a more cost or technically effective method. We would be happy to provide you with some names of companies who specialize in conventional truck mounted drill rigs.

As outlined in the descriptions of our ultra-portable drills, drilling indoors is one of the most common applications for our drills. We have the best drills that we are aware of for this purpose.

We stock 1″ and 2″ well pipe (though we can special order other sizes if required). 2″ pipe is the most common and is generally industry standard for environmental monitoring wells, while 1″ is common for geotechnical piezometers. As most of our installations are using our 4″solid stem augers, we usually will use the 2″ pipe, which is suitable for conventional Waterra tubing and valves, bailers, and water level or interface meters. We also use this pipe for installations using hollow stem augers.

For wells installed with the rapid percussion units (Pionjar, Rota-Hammer, PEP), we are boring a 2″ hole and therefore we use 1″ well pipe. With our small diameter hollow stem augers, we can use a 1″ or 2″ well pipe. Though the 1″ pipe is small, a conventional water level or interface meter will fit in the pipe. We can also supply a small diameter bailer or a small diameter waterra foot valve for well sampling.

Yes – we have several sets of hollow stem augers suitable for some of our drills: 2.75” ID (6” OD), 3.75” (8” OD), and 4.25” (8” OD). Though solid stem augers are much more popular because they have better penetration and are much faster for both soil sampling and monitoring well installations, some of our clients prefer to use hollow stems.

In certain circumstances, site conditions dictate that hollow stems are necessary. Depth penetration is generally not as good as with solid stem augers.

That’s a tough question, because each drill we use has strengths and weaknesses, and each drill can be the best for a particular application. A very general guideline is that the best drill for the job is the largest one you can fit to the borehole location. There are, however, too many exceptions to this rule to list here.

The Mini-Mole and the Geoprobe 6620 are the largest and most powerful for both environmental and geotechnical applications, while the MiniProbe is best for rapid environmental soil sampling at tighter locations or well installations where the larger machines can’t access. The Big Beaver, though lacking the higher power of the track machines, is the most versatile machine, accessing incredibly small and low overhead areas for both geotechnical and environmental sampling and is especially proficient in small indoor areas. The Geoprobe 420 is ideal for environmental soil sampling in very narrow and indoor areas where SPTs or monitoring wells are not required. The handheld rapid percussion machines are the best machines to use when you can’t fit anything larger to the borehole location.

Over the last 20 years we have drilled in the most incredibly diverse range of locations requiring small drills. Our philosophy is to consider each drill as a different tool in our toolbox. Based on this 20 year history of drilling in limited access areas, we reach for the best tool for the job.

Another very common question and another one with no short answer. Factors that affect speed include: inside/outside, depth, accessibility, distance between holes, continuous soil sampling requirement, soil type, subsurface obstructions, auger size, solid stem/hollow stem, well installations, well finishing or cleanup, consultant, light, temperature and a myriad of other more minor factors. We suggest calling us to tell us what you need to do and we will give you some estimates of how long it should take.

A few general rules of thumb:

• For depths of less than 10-15 feet, our units are usually comparable to conventional rig speed.
• Drilling indoors takes longer than outdoors, especially in areas of limited head clearance. This can be due to many factors such as the extra time required to move all our equipment inside, and setup of our extended hydraulic hose system to eliminate exhaust fumes. Drilling inside also usually means extra cleanup efforts to make sure the floors are all clean and extra time to move out cuttings etc. Flushmount casings must be put in extra carefully to make sure they are exactly flush with the floor so they are not a tripping hazard. Inside, floors must be cored with the concrete core machine, requiring more time. Working indoors usually means that we must be more cognisant and accommodating for processes and workers which may be active indoors at the time of drilling, which can sometimes cause obstacles or delays.
• Accessibility and distance between holes can obviously affect our production rate. It is much quicker to roll out the equipment from the truck and drill numerous holes all around a UST area beside where we are parked than it is to carry equipment hundreds of metres, up or down slopes or stairs, and move all our equipment all over a large industrial site from hole to hole.
• Drilling outside in the winter or rainy conditions will generally take longer.
• Intermittent sampling or semi-continuous split spoon sampling is much faster than continuous sampling – especially when you get to greater depths.

Yes. Though most of our work was traditionally for the environmental consulting industry, we have also added numerous geotechnical clients over the last several years. Both the Mini-Mole and the Big Beaver operate on the same concept as a conventional geotechnical rig, while the Geoprobe 6620 can be operated in geotechnical mode or in a direct push mode. When obtaining geotechnical samples, a 140lb safety hammer is raised and dropped 30inches onto AW rod attached to a 2″ diameter split spoon sampler. By counting the number of times that the hammer must be dropped to drive in the sampler, you can determine the “blow counts” needed for geotechnical studies. Though our other drills can collect split spoon samples and soil cores in plastic liners useful for grain size analysis or moisture content, they cannot be used to determine blow counts.

Common geotechnical applications include: inside buildings, landscaped areas, slopes, berms and back lots or yards accessible only by a narrow alley.

With small drills, our depth capability is much more dependent on the site specific geology than with larger, conventional drills. There is no easy answer for this question, because of the inherent variations in subsurface conditions and circumstances, particularly in southern Ontario where glaciation has provided a very wide diversity of soil conditions. With our equipment, it can range from 6-7 feet with the Pionjar in a very hard, dry, clay till material to over 60-80 feet with the larger machines.

With the Pionjar drill, the PEP, and the Rota-Hammer, you are generally restricted to depths of less than 15-20 feet. In very hard materials, you may reach refusal much sooner.

The Geoprobe 420 can access similar areas, but is much more powerful and capable of penetrating these harder formations to greater depths than the hand held units. Although both of these methods are suitable for environmental sampling, they are not capable of obtaining SPTs, commonly required when doing geotechnical drilling.

The MiniProbe, equipped with a very powerful 175 ft lb probe hammer on a small rubber track carrier, is a more powerful direct push probe method, capable of better penetration than the Geoprobe 420. This machine is commonly used to depths of approximately 20-30 feet for environmental sampling.

The Big Beaver is generally more suited to depths greater than 10 feet, because there is more equipment required and longer set up time to use it, but you greatly increase the penetration ability with this drill over the hand held percussion units and the Geoprobe 420. The Big Beaver uses a 140lb hammer to pound a 2″ split spoon connected with AW rods – this is the same process as a conventional geotechnical/environmental truck mounted drilling rig. Therefore the ability to penetrate soils with the split spon is identical to a regular rig. The Big Beaver though, does not have the weight (~700lbs) or engine power of a truck mounted rig for the augering process. The depth capability of the Big Beaver is highly dependent on the soil conditions, but it is most commonly used in areas where there is no choice but to use this drill due to the access limitations. It is most often used for 10-30ft holes, but has been used to advance over 60ft in ideal conditions.

While the MiniMole has approximately 5 times the weight and power of the Big Beaver, it still does not match the substantial power of the CME55 and CME75 truck mounted drills commonly used in Southern Ontario for areas without access restrictions. The penetration ability will also depend on the size of auger used and whether it is a solid stem or a hollow stem. Although 20-40ft holes are the most common, drilling to 60-80ft has been accomplished in specialized situations.

The Geoprobe 6620 is our largest and most powerful drill, and therefore has the greatest penetration capabilities. If depth and formation are challenges at the site, and you can fit this drill to the borehole location, it has your best chances to get to the greatest depth. Although not as heavy and powerful as the larger truck mounted drills, it is in the same league as many standard truck mounts in terms of depth capabilities.

Therefore, the short answer to the question of depth is: it depends!

Our general motto is that, if you cannot get a conventional truck mounted drill rig to your borehole location, you should call Kodiak. We do not attempt to compete with conventional drillers; truck mounted drills are great for most drilling applications. If you can’t get a truck to the hole location though, that is where we fit in to your plans.

In some situations, we can be more effective than a truck rig even if they can get there. The most common situations where this is the case is 1) shallow sampling and 2) drilling in areas where a truck would damage landscaped areas.

For landscaped areas (and other nice areas), a truck can cause lots of damage; our drills are small and tread lightly eliminating some headaches and damages.

For shallow sampling, it is often quicker to move a small drill from hole to hole than to move a large truck mounted unit around to so many locations in a short period of time.