Blog – Page 7 – Subadra

12 April, 201712 April, 2017

Why You Should Be Using A Qualified Driller

Drilling has tradionally been pretty poorly regulated. Light cable percussion rigs (more commonly known as shell and auger rigs) still dominate the UK drilling market. They are crude, simple to operate and provide low quality samples but they live on because they are relatively cheap.

One reason they are cheap is that their operators are unqualified. Drilling has been seen as a job not a career. But lack of proper training has led to a woeful safety record; it is rare to see a 40-something shell and auger driller who still has all his fingers intact.

The British Drilling Association (BDA) has been working hard for some time now to encourage clients and consultants to require drillers working for them to hold a professional qualification – in this case an NVQ in Land Drilling. All our drillers hold this qualification. Our latest trainee, Alex, completed his NVQ this week.

If you’d like to know that your drilling requirement is going to be fulfilled safely and professionally then we’d be love to talk to you. Please contact Angus Gale (Tel: 07748 358304) for more information.

20 February, 20175 September, 2017

25th Year

It seems hard to believe that we started Subadra 24 years ago, but as we start our 25th year we can reflect on the last year providing our best financial results since the banking crisis of 2007. Turnover was up a whopping 26%, with every part of our business showing strong growth. We’re excited about the prospects for 2017, with our laboratory set to expand further (watch this space) and some innovative additions to our remediation capabailities in the pipeline. Meantime thanks to everyone who has supported us in the last 24 years – clients, suppliers and colleagues past and present.

4 January, 20174 January, 2017

Draining Away

The pressure to building new housing seems to be constantly in the news these days. Developers working to meet this demand are increasingly finding that they are required to find sustainable methods for disposing of the rainwater from roofs and paved areas. The days when this could just be discharged to the municipal sewer are long gone. Instead, wherever possible, the water must be disposed of into the ground via soakaways or other similar ‘infiltration features’.

Designing these requires careful measurement of soil permeability. We offer a comprehensive range of testing methods, from hand-dug percolation tests for Sustainable Drainage Systems (SUDS – NHBC Chapter 5.3) to machine-dug test pits for full scale soakaway tests (BRE 365). If site access is limited we can even carry out the requisite testing in boreholes drilled as part of our geotechnical/environmental investigation of the site.

For more information please contact Steven Partridge – 01296 739413

13 December, 2016

Have your cake and eat it?

We can’t comment on the latest Brexit negotiations, but here at Subadra we are definitely having our cake and eating it. The Great Subadra Bake Off is reaching its conclusion and we thought we’d share a photograph of one of the entries. We are sure that Mary and Paul would have been impressed at the topical use of Lego, even if we were a bit concerned that Greg, who baked the cake, confessed that he had all the figures already in his “collection”!

6 July, 2016

Sharing the Love….

…or, more accurately in this case, sharing the knowledge. For the past 18 months we’ve been providing expert advice to the Israel Environment Ministry regarding remediation works to clean up the Kishon River, near Haifa.

On our last visit we were asked to conduct a seminar on sampling techniques, sharing best practice with the project team. We certainly appreciated the opportunity to be out sampling in the field in 35 degree temperatures; a nice change from the rain-soaked June being enjoyed back home.

If you’d like to know more about the specialist training that we offer please contact Duncan Eastland

16 March, 201616 March, 2016

When is an SPT not an SPT?

SPT Calibration - 2 — SPT Hammer Calibration

The answer is when it’s not calibrated.

The Standard Penetration Test, or SPT, has been the mainstay of geotechnical site investigations in the UK for decades. The test is simple, quick and cheap and it’s particularly suited to the light cable percussion drill rigs that are so widely used in the UK.

What isn’t generally appreciated is that even a low tech test such as this requires proper calibration in order to yield consistent, reliable results. In fact Eurocode 7 requires the SPT hammer to be calibrated annually. Unfortunately very few drilling contractors bother to do this and, in our experience, few consultants know that they should be asking for it. Given that results from out of spec hammers can vary by as much as 50%, we think this is something that should be given more attention.

We’ve put our money where our mouth is and now all our SPT hammers are correctly calibrated and all our drill rigs come with up to date LEAA inspection certificates. If you’d like to know more about our drilling capabilities please contact Angus Gale – 01296 739433.

14 March, 2016

Bulldog Spirit?

We are accustomed to working for the big hitters of modern industry. However, today we were handed the opportunity of working around one of the big hitters from history. This WWII machine gun bunker holds listed status, and rightly so. It’s one of 18,000 built, around the coastal areas of the UK during Churchill’s defence against Operation Sea Lion.
Our plucky little rig was able to negotiate perimeter fencing, dense undergrowth, steep inclines, tank traps and machine gun bunkers just to get on site. It all sounds more “Band of Brothers” than “geotechnical site investigation”. In all 28m of dynamic windowless sampling with SPTs (and 2″installs) plus 80m of dynamic probing were effortless completed.

Now that’s the spirit…………..

17 February, 201617 February, 2016

When Horizontal Just Won’t Do

A prominent pipeline client came to us with a problem. A ‘positive’ problem that is. A section of their pipeline runs underground next to a railway line. The railway’s overhead high voltage power lines were causing an amplified positive electrode potential in the ground, which in turn was leading to increased corrosion of their pipeline. In these cases, cathodic protection is the usual solution.

A typical cathodic protection system would comprise a series of shallow earthing rods installed at regular intervals along the pipeline. However, this requires access for maintenance in the future to the entire pipeline. But these pipelines run for hundreds of miles through agricultural land, some of which is only accessible during certain periods of the year. The solution was to design a single anode string capable of achieving the required negative electrode potential in a vertical design. Thus saving on space, maintenance and cost

The client’s senior cathodic protection engineer approached us to see if we could drill a 75m deep borehole and undertake the (negative) anode installation. We took the challenge and set about devising a safe method for installing a multi core anode string weighing more than 300kg! The borehole was installed through 18m of gravel into underlying mudstone. Just to complicate matters further, our environmental appraisal identified a potential risk of penetrating into a sandstone aquifer beneath the mudstone. To mitigate these risks and achieve the required potential we had to install a vent pipe to the base of the borehole, a tonne of coke, gravel and a bentonite seal at the top of the mudstone to ensure the underlying aquifer was protected.

Exactly how we did all this is our secret but needless to say it involved a large rig, and unusually for us, a lot of “negativity” ………….But happy pipeline equals happy client – now that’s positive.

10 February, 2016

Subadra Score 96% in HSE Audit

We’re pleased to be able to report that we have recently scored 96% in a Health and Safety Audit conducted by one of our clients, a major oil company. The score recognises the significant investment – of both time and money – we have made to ensure that we aren’t just ‘good enough’ when it comes to the management of health and safety, but that we are the ‘best of the best’.

If you’d like to know more about how we manage health and safety, including our bespoke Prism.NET software solution, then please contact Duncan Eastland – Tel: 01296 739431

5 February, 2016

Earth, Wind and Fire…mostly Fire

It’s never good when your business premises are reduced to ash in a raging inferno. But this was just the scenario faced by one of our clients, when their car showr0om and repair workshop has burnt down overnight.

We were on hand the next day, working closely with both the fire brigade and the demolition crew. We were able to obtain the vital geotechnical data necessary to allow design for the new buildings to progress.
Here you can see our Terrier rig taking soil samples and completing in situ standard penetration tests and dynamic probes to depths of up to 15m.

Now the flames have died out, the demolition has been completed and the new structure has been designed. Our client is well on the way to be back in business.