Here is a job the Rock Buster’s team just did on the North Shore for Southwest Contracting.

As Vancouver grows, you see more and more deep excavations for high-rises. This one is going down about 80 feet into the ground and with the soil conditions here in Vancouver particularly north Van where we are there is some soil and some boulders typically you find dozens of boulders in an excavation like that if not hundreds.

Then, as you get more into West Vancouver, it’s more solid bedrock than boulders. On the other side of the river, it’s more soil and varies from area to area. You never know where you’re gonna hit boulders. Always in excavating, you will find rocks sometimes boulders two or three feet around that can be loaded straight into the truck, or sometimes they’re the size of a Volkswagen and need to be split down into more manageable sizes.

There are 3 different ways to do boulder splitting. One is expanding grout, or chemical rock breaking, another way is hydraulic wedge splitters and the last way is pneumatic wedge splitters. They all have their place.

For boulders up to 4’ pneumatic splitting is great. They are super lightweight and easy to pack in and out of the hole or site.

For boulders bigger than 4’ the hydraulic splitters are a great way to go. They have more power and split bigger pieces.

For huge boulders and bedrock expanding grout is the preferred method. With grout we can drill holes any depth and break rock of any size.

The Rock Buster’s team loves breaking rock and concrete of all kinds so this day was a great day for us!