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When You Need to Know Fast

Groundwater ProbingOur Geoprobe Drilling Systems offer something a little special when it comes to rapidly investigating a site. And when coupled with the fast turnaround from our UKAS and MCerts laboratory, our clients benefit from the best of all worlds.

We were asked to investigate a large industrial site that had a history of fuel contamination issues. The question was: how far had the contamination spread and was it migrating under the neighbouring properties. Our solution was to carry out a groundwater probing survey, comprising driving a re-useable probe into the ground to the underlying groundwater and then taking a sample of the groundwater for laboratory analysis.

We completed 54 probes in two days, accurately delineating the hydrocarbon plume. Forensic analysis of the samples by our laboratory then confirmed that there were three separate sources of the hydrocarbons, two of which were ongoing leaks, and not just the one known historic source.

We now know what the problems are, how far the contamination has spread and how to clean it up. Isn’t that better than endless phases of investigation last months and costing £££s.

Project value: £10-£15k

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Free Water Supply?

Water Well Drilling
Water Well Drilling

We’ve recently completed construction  of a water well to supply a popular car wash facility in the Swindon area.

Working closely with the main contractor, our careful pre-planning enabled us to install a 40m deep water well in challenging geological conditions, requiring 25m of retrievable casing to be used, all without affecting the site’s redevelopment programme.

On-going site contamination issues dictated that the borehole construction had to be professionally approved and tested before use. But the results of the post-development pump testing confirmed the well would supply a clean water yield in excess of the client’s requirements.

The savings in water supply costs for our client equates to a significant increase in their future profits. What difference would a free supply of 20,000 litres of water a day make to your business?

Contact: Angus Gale Tel: 01296 739471

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White Cliffs of Dover

White Cliffs of Dover
White Cliffs of Dover

We were commissioned to carry out a geotechnical investigation, including rock coring, at a site located just a stone’s throw from  the busy harbour of Dover.

Our Commachio 205 and drilling crew were able to produce high quality cores and gain SPT/CPT data from 4 boreholes, each drilled to a depth of 20m below ground level. All completed on time and on budget.

Voids were encountered at various depths fueling rumours of secret smuggling tunnels similar to those we found in Margate last year. Unfortunately the only treasure recovered were metres and metres of chalk. Better luck next time lads!

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Machu Pichu

alma roadOK so not exactly Peru, but a very steep, terraced site in the Chilterns.

The extremely tight access didn’t prevent our site team from getting in and completing a comprehensive geotechnical investigation, including soil sampling and dynamic probing to 10m depth. The work was completed on time and on budget, with dynamic probing data issued to the client on a ‘same day’ basis to assist with pile design.

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Tight Access for Investigation

TerrierWe have recently completed an incident response investigation of a domestic heating oil installation located at the centre of a residential accommodation block complex in southern England. The site overlies chalk and is located just 100m from a public drinking water supply borehole.

Following complaints of possible oil contamination issues from the residents we took samples of the underlying soils and audited the fuel installation. With only footpaths leading to the tank installation we used our Terrier drilling system – which can fit through a standard doorway – to install boreholes either side of the oil tank and take soil samples for rapid analysis in our UKAS laboratory. Fortunately no significant soil contamination had occurred and our recommended improvements to the installation are now underway. The entire project, from initial enquiry instruction to report issue, was completed in under 4 days.

Project value ~£2k. Client value £££

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Pile Probing Challenge

We do like a challenge, so when a client asked if we could probe 65 pile locations in a single day we said yes. Just to make it more of a challenge our client also wanted soil samples taken from each location and analysed for a range of potential contaminants.

The site was an office car park crammed with cars during the week, so the probing had to take place at the weekend. With noise restrictions preventing Sunday working and project deadlines meaning the work had to be completed in a single day, we knew we would have our work cut out. Each location required us to core the surface pavement, take a soil sample from the upper metre of soil profile and probe to 3.6m depth – a total of 234m of probing. But happily, using our Geoprobe Direct Push drill rig we were able to get everything completed in time to see the kick-off of the FA Cup.

The soil samples were dropped off at our own laboratory later the same day for ‘fast track’ analysis and the results provided to the client 3 days later.

 

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Could this be summer?

Sunny Day on Site

Sometimes it really just isn’t that bad to be on site! Could this be the start of a long, hot summer? We hope so.

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Property Portfolio Due Diligence

Subadra has just completed environmental investigations at a portfolio of 25 retail petrol filling station sites on behalf of a major oil company. The project was brought to completion on time and on budget, using a combination of our own drilling equipment, our in-house UKAS accredited laboratory and reported by our highly experienced consultants.

Contract Value: £100-200k

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Probing the Depths……

Pile Probing Rig

…of Central London in this case. Subadra has completed a week of pile probing at a cramped development site in Central London. Despite obstacles such as leaking water mains, piling rigs and deep excavations we successfully probed sixty locations to verify the presence of below ground obstacles that might impede the construction of the engineers’ piled foundation solution and contiguous boundary piles. The contractor used this information to target additional ground clearance the key areas of concern.
Contract value: <£5k

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Save Our Sprouts!

Allotment holders in Great Kingshill are rejoicing at the results of our recent soil testing that has confirmed the soil at the site is not contaminated as a result of fly-tipping and that they don’t have to pull up their winter brassica. The sprouts for Christmas dinner have been saved! For more details see Bucks Free Press.