had a directional boring sub come in for 1 road crossing, 2 creek crossings.....on one creek crossing, punched thru, i provided the 6" yellomine pipe. about 40' into the pull back, he started having problems, pretty good sized vermeer directional bore unit. with his anchor augers stuck ALL the way down, he still had us chain our excavator to his bore unit to keep it in place. i know nothing about boring, just knew something wasn't right. hooked it up, the main wouldn't pressure up. pressure tested lines both ways from bore...all's cool....the 200' of yellomine under creek was leaking. he hum hawed around about coming back to rebore it, so today, we stuck an excavator on each side of the creek,and hogged it in. bear in mind, this is a sand/clay, sand/clay/sand/clay in 6" increments strata that makes it very hard to dewater, that is why i hired him to do the bore...anyway....he says he won't charge me for that bore, but i feel he should pay for the 200' of yellomine still under the creek that has a break in it somewhere...at least part of it anyway..i think he didn't have a big enough reamer on or something, hellifino...my thoughts are...i hired a "pro"...to do this for me, he should have known there were problems, and restuck the hole, or something, tried again....thoughts? am i out of line thinking he should reimburse me for part of the cost of that pipe?
how would you handle this scenario?
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I think the guy who supplies the material takes the risk on the material, the guy who supplies the labor takes the risk on the labor. If you wanted him to take the risk on material he should have supplied it and bid it that way. You had him bid the labor to install your material.
i'm very confident, the failure had NOTHING to do with the quality of the material supplied...if you're not in underground work, you might not understand....we're not talking 2x4's here....this is a product made specifically for this purpose.
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Gene, can you hold the cost of materials out of his bid? Maybe he could replace the materials?
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My guess is if he is having you chain excavators on, the rigs big enough to pull the pipe and then some - I could be wrong. It seems strange to me that the anchors on the rig would give in before the full pull back of the rig in ideal soils.
However, I'm more in the vertical business, usually if we're hemming and hawing, it's because the earth's all screwed up and we haven't figured a way to get through it.
My bet - he got into a swelling clay and went to do the pull back and it said 'nope'. I've seen casing with 160,000lbs of hydraulic jacks stretch 6" at the slips just because the drive shoe at the end of the pipe was stuck 1' into a swelling clay.
However, I'm more in the vertical business, usually if we're hemming and hawing, it's because the earth's all screwed up and we haven't figured a way to get through it.
My bet - he got into a swelling clay and went to do the pull back and it said 'nope'. I've seen casing with 160,000lbs of hydraulic jacks stretch 6" at the slips just because the drive shoe at the end of the pipe was stuck 1' into a swelling clay.
I think pierce is onto the problem, rig was probably big enough but clay will grab the pipe causing lots of friction. Add to that the sand layers were probably caving in causing even more friction. That being said the driller should know if his hole is open or not, and IMO he owns that busted pipe.
the op didn't say that he didn't have aa big enough rig, but maybe not a big enough reamer. the correct reamer should alleviate the friction on the pipe. I myself would be quite frustrated having hired the pro and still not worked right. Heck i could have shoved a pipe under that wouldn't hold water.
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As to the question - he installed it, I would have to say he owned it at that point. Personally, I'd never take a job where the materials were supplied, unless I could still make the markup, too much risk, no reward.
As to the rig/reamer points. You can run a larger reamer to the limits of the torque in the head, but you still have to be able to hold the hole open with fluid chemistry. If he was running a 7-7/8" bit (creating an 8" hole) with the 6" pipe, there's 1" on each side of the pipe, assuming now swell/collapse and a clean hole....not a lot of room for error. If he's not controlling the hydraulic pressure in the formation, his drill fluids, mud cake, etc it'll all go down hill very fast in the wrong material. Sometimes we get into things and you try to force it to get the job done....sometimes it works, most often it doesn't.
As to the rig/reamer points. You can run a larger reamer to the limits of the torque in the head, but you still have to be able to hold the hole open with fluid chemistry. If he was running a 7-7/8" bit (creating an 8" hole) with the 6" pipe, there's 1" on each side of the pipe, assuming now swell/collapse and a clean hole....not a lot of room for error. If he's not controlling the hydraulic pressure in the formation, his drill fluids, mud cake, etc it'll all go down hill very fast in the wrong material. Sometimes we get into things and you try to force it to get the job done....sometimes it works, most often it doesn't.
I have to agree with this one here. The guy came back and bored it a 2nd time for free. He could have been a prick and charged you again. I think he realized that it was his fault and tried to right a wrong.
Will the price of the pipe bankrupt you ?? ....... i don't think so.
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It sounds like one of those jobs where you both are in it together. Meaning that the job sounds like a pain to begin with and thus you called the bore guy in to give it a shot. Due to the adverse conditions, the pull back became a chore. At that point, it sounds like they had to tug on it before they were really stuck. Can they control that?? Probably not if the soil is what it is. As others have stated, it sounds like the bore guy is willing to share the burden of failure by not charging for a bore gone bad. Your contribution is the lost pipe........could have been worse.
We have all had jobs where things didn't go as planned. We knew we were taking a risk, but proceeded due to our desire to complete a project. I say the boring contractor sounds like a guy that will work with you on things and I would'nt burn that bridge by backcharging him on pipe that he didn't get to supply or mark-up. There is always that chance that he runs a different manufacturer's pipe that will withstand the pressure he was pulling. His pipe may have held up and your's simply did not. Lots of variables, therefore I would leave it as is write it off on my taxes as a loss!!!:thumbsup:
We have all had jobs where things didn't go as planned. We knew we were taking a risk, but proceeded due to our desire to complete a project. I say the boring contractor sounds like a guy that will work with you on things and I would'nt burn that bridge by backcharging him on pipe that he didn't get to supply or mark-up. There is always that chance that he runs a different manufacturer's pipe that will withstand the pressure he was pulling. His pipe may have held up and your's simply did not. Lots of variables, therefore I would leave it as is write it off on my taxes as a loss!!!:thumbsup:
he didn't come back.....we hogged thru the creek ourselves with our excavators...he said he "might not be able to come back until after the first of the year....the dairy needs water NOW!!....he was stalling...that's why i refered to hem/hawing about the deal....had he came back in a timely fashion, rebored...i might have offered to split the cost of the new pipe with him right away....backhoe1...you're right about the lack of good boring contractors in the area...when you come get the op manual and thumb for the 690....i'll tell you who i used to bore. this has left a very sour taste in my mouth. i hired a pro to do a professional job for me, i expected more than his completed product, and his attitude about it.
where i disagree here is...he was asked if he could do the job, and what his fee would be to do this....he never once hesitated on saying he couldn't do the job, or that i would be "on my own", or have to wait should he not be able to perform the task he was hired to do.
Ditto. I do however think it's most likely the DD sub screwed up the pipe. But the burden of proof's on the material supplier.
All that being said, I'd be highly inclined to give him the choice of either paying for the pipe or paying for the support resources I provided for the failed bore operation.
that's what i think should happen
I don't understand why you guys think Day is responsible for the pipe. So what if he supplied it, if you supplied a carpenter with a pile of 2x10 to stick frame a roof and he cut them all wrong who would be resonsible? If you form a basement wall and your forms blow out will the GC be responsible for the concrete? Just because its underground doesn't make it much different. Like those trades the driller's trade is to keep his hole open. He should know how big his hole needs to be and what kind of drilling mud he has to mix to keep his hole open and get the pipe in the ground. His hole was caving in and he forced it anyway. Day didn't hire this guy to take a shot at it, he hired him to install a pipe, which he not only did not do, he damaged the materials in the process.
We have had lots of problems with stuff like this, in the future you contract should say the driller is responsible for everything until testing is complete. If your worried about burning your bridges maybe its a different story, but it sounds to me like the driller burned the bridge before you got across it.
We have had lots of problems with stuff like this, in the future you contract should say the driller is responsible for everything until testing is complete. If your worried about burning your bridges maybe its a different story, but it sounds to me like the driller burned the bridge before you got across it.
How much difference is there between the money you owe him for the bores he did complete correctly and the cost of the pipe you lost.
How valuable is the pipe? I know you had to work on small margins on this job so that could be affecting this situation in a negative way. This sounds like one of those jobs that everything has to go rite to preserve those margins.
How valuable is the pipe? I know you had to work on small margins on this job so that could be affecting this situation in a negative way. This sounds like one of those jobs that everything has to go rite to preserve those margins.
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