When utility trenching or underground installation hits solid rock, the entire job site can come to a sudden halt. In dense residential or municipal corridors like Penticton Street, bringing in heavy hammer attachments or blasting equipment isn’t just slow—it risks damaging nearby buried utilities, pavement, and adjacent structures.
For this utility excavation on Penticton Street, the Rockbusters crew was called in for a surgical strike: clear the trench obstruction fast, safely, and with zero shockwaves.
Project Breakdown
- Location: Penticton Street, Metro Vancouver, BC
- Scope: Emergency boulder splitting and rock clearance within an active trench
- Timeline: Completed in 1 hour
- Crew: 2-man crew
- Equipment & Technique: Pneumatic rock drills and high-force pneumatic rock splitters
The Challenge & Solution
Working inside a narrow trench presents tight space constraints. Striking an embedded boulder with heavy mechanical breakers can cause micro-fractures in surrounding pipework or shake adjacent road foundations.
Our 2-man team executed a rapid, non-explosive trench clearance:
- Direct Access Drilling: Using compact pneumatic rock drills, the crew drilled precise insertion holes directly into the obstruction within the trench walls.
- Pneumatic Splitting: We inserted high-pressure pneumatic splitters to exert localized, outward force—cracking the dense rock along controlled stress lines in minutes, without seismic vibration.
- Immediate Extraction: The fractured pieces were cleared out immediately, allowing the underground trenching crew to resume pipe laying without losing a work day.
Total time on site? Just 1 hour. Another high-efficiency utility save by Rockbusters!
Trenching stalled by solid rock or buried boulders?