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Posted By: gfretwell Directional bore? - 07/21/15 12:40 AM
What is the longest you have seen?
We have one going on here that looks like it will end up being more than 4 miles.
Posted By: Radar Re: Directional bore? - 07/21/15 01:18 AM
Wow - 4 miles. That's Awesome. What sort of terrain - not in the city I take it.
Gosh - seems like after a couple of miles or so, friction would start to become a problem.
Maybe not - I've not seen one that long. How long is this one taking to bore?
Posted By: gfretwell Re: Directional bore? - 07/21/15 02:06 AM
It is through a salt marsh, under the bay and out to a barrier island.

[Linked Image from gfretwell.com]
Posted By: gfretwell Re: Directional bore? - 07/21/15 02:16 AM
I started getting curious when I saw tractor trailers of drill pipe coming down my little dead end street. When I followed one down into the scrub, I came up on a drilling machine the size of a railroad car. I am still trying to fined out more about it but this is pretty interesting so far.
One of my buddies is the permit person for the state who owns all of that land. She will be able to get me more than I want to know about this. Her department signed off on all of the permitting.
Posted By: Radar Re: Directional bore? - 07/21/15 06:01 AM
That is an enormously long bore. What diameter pipe are we talking here?
Probably for fiber communications maybe?
Posted By: gfretwell Re: Directional bore? - 07/21/15 06:34 AM
It looks like a 6" bore pipe. I have a note into the DEP and I may actually get a copy of the permit application to see the plan. The bore operator said something about a "little island in the bay" so they might be going from both directions hoping to meet in the middle but that would be a bigger environmental concern and that would be the permit hangup. I was out on the bay yesterday and I did not see any activity out there yet. There was a barge anchored just off the picture at the bottom. They may be bringing that in there. The problem is the water is 2-5 feet there.
OTOH there is always a barge out there somewhere.
Posted By: gfretwell Re: Directional bore? - 07/22/15 03:27 AM
I just talked to my DEP buddy. This will actually be coming up in the rich guys yard where the line first comes on the island. It is unclear whether they are going to bore across the whole bay or dig and fill. I am still waiting for the answer for that. This is a 26kv 3p distribution line, replacing the one they have that went bad.
I am going to track down my FPL buddy and see what he says about it.
Posted By: HotLine1 Re: Directional bore? - 07/22/15 03:56 AM
Hmmm.
4 miles +/-, 26Kv, 3 phase, POCO feeder. Up here, it more than likely would be a 'customer billable' job, if it's only for 'the rich guy' on the island.

Posted By: gfretwell Re: Directional bore? - 07/22/15 08:45 AM
This is the feed to Fort Myers Beach and FPL is picking up the tab.
I was able to google up the pictures of the MV line where it comes down from the poles and goes underground in a rich guy's front yard (actually the ROW)
I would love to be there to see how big a hole they have to dig to intercept the bore pipe.

http://tinyurl.com/nle7olj
Posted By: gfretwell Re: Directional bore? - 07/22/15 05:18 PM
I just got an update. They are only using the directional bore for the parts on shore. Once they get into the bay it well be done with a water jet. That is still going to be about a mile on the East side
Posted By: gfretwell Re: Directional bore? - 08/02/15 07:41 AM
I was out there in my boat today. The directional bore seems to be about done and they have a barge out in the bay, right offshore from where the bore came out.
They are assembling the cable in 40' sections of black conduit that looks like some kind of flex PVC. and floating it out in the water.

By the height it is floating at, I assume it is stuffed with aluminum conductors.
I am waiting to see how much they float out there before they start jetting it into the bottom. My guess is they put a whole spool of wire in the pipe (x4). Then they splice in another spool and keep going.
The supply barge is not there so I guess they are loading up again.
I suppose the question is whether they are going to bisect that bay with a cable before they sink it. Someone in going to hit that. They already have close to a mile strung out across the water.
[Linked Image from gfretwell.com]
Posted By: gfretwell Re: Directional bore? - 08/07/15 08:22 AM
I got out there again and got some pictures of the equipment on both ends of the directional bore. They are out of the ground in the bay now and they will start jetting the raceway into the bottom soon. I want to see that process too.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/DIRECTIONAL%20BORE/

This is the FTP directory for some of the pictures.
They are assembling the raceway in the bay about a half mile at a time, with two going at a time.
They have a half mile of water pipe from a fire plug, going down to the boring machine. Lots of big equipment there. The boring rig, a mud mixer/reclaimer making the slurry and cleaning the junk out and a big pump shooting it into the bore.
Posted By: HotLine1 Re: Directional bore? - 08/07/15 02:36 PM
Greg:
Thanks for the update and the pics. Interesting.
Posted By: LarryC Re: Directional bore? - 08/07/15 07:13 PM
The picture of the bore going into the mud has an O2 bottle leaning up against a post resting on the cap of the bottle.
Posted By: gfretwell Re: Directional bore? - 09/06/15 06:18 AM
I cleaned up the raw pictures and made an HTML out of this

I hope to get the same kind of information on the jet process when it gets started.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/DIRECTIONAL%20BORE/Directional%20bore.html
Posted By: geoff in UK Re: Directional bore? - 09/06/15 09:00 AM
Some very interesting and expensive looking gear being used there, but I particularly like the operator's sun shade on the drilling rig.
Posted By: mbhydro Re: Directional bore? - 09/06/15 06:01 PM
I wonder what the frac out recovery plans were on a bore like that?

Here in Manitoba you have to be ready with Suction trucks or other means to recover immediately any drilling mud that escapes into a waterway from a boring fracture.

Last week by my place there was a contractor doing a bore under a river for a large water main and there were the suction tucks on each side of the river bank and a barge with containment booms standing by.
Posted By: gfretwell Re: Directional bore? - 09/06/15 06:35 PM
There are some big pumps on the black barge but I am not sure where they would be pumping to. They had mud boom out and that may have been all DEP wanted them to do. It would have been some phenomenal shooting if they hit that 16" black pipe.
There may be a larger receiver on the other end.

My guess, they punched through and quickly got the pipe down over the hole before anyone noticed.
Within a few hours, the bentonite will have settled out and just become a little extra mud on the bottom. The bottom is very silty mud there anyway. (virtually quicksand when you try to walk in it)
Posted By: gfretwell Re: Directional bore? - 09/21/15 08:35 AM
I have some pictures of the plow that will be burying this line and info on the conductors on the web page.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/DIRECTIONAL%20BORE/Directional%20bore.html
Posted By: HotLine1 Re: Directional bore? - 09/24/15 01:50 AM
Greg:
I like the water meter on the fire hydrant!!

That aside, this a great photo collection of an interesting project.

Posted By: mbhydro Re: Directional bore? - 09/24/15 03:35 AM
In our city unless your the fire department, a use permit that looks like an oversized gasket, city supplied water meter and a backflow preventer are mandatory if your any type of contractor hooking up to a fire hydrant.

Posted By: gfretwell Re: Directional bore? - 09/24/15 05:57 PM
Yup, that is the way it works. You need a water meter to hook up to a hydrant and they charge you for what you use.
My wife got in trouble for buying her own meter and hooking it up that way. The water company wants you to use their meter and they are not very fast at getting you one. They would not even start an account using that meter number.

I still have that "bootleg" meter.
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