In August 2018, Berminghammer’s Louis Fritz, P.Eng was contacted by AH Beck’s Keith Anderson with a unique challenge. A bridge across the Llano river in Texas had been washed away in severe floods that plagued Texas in the summer of 2018. To prevent a washout ever happening again, the redesigned bridge was to have rock socketed 48 inch piles. Traditional wisdom suggests using a cluster drill with piles of this diameter. There was a very significant constraint on this project, the initial abutment only had 30 feet of headroom underneath power lines, and the remaining pier piles were unobstructed and would be drilled out from a barge on the river. This posed a unique challenge, to initially RC Drill with a low headroom constraint and then to convert to a larger stroke when performing barge work. The greatest challenge – to determine and deliver the required equipment in under two weeks.

Berminghammer was up to the task! After brainstorming some potential lead system solutions; collaboratively AH Beck and Berminghammer decided to instead mount an RC Swivel and drill string on AH Beck’s low headroom drill rig. The rig had never had an air swivel mounted on it but thanks to quick actions, Berminghammer was able to mount their rental air swivel to the rotary and delivery short 10 foot sections of drill string to accommodate the minimal stroke. Each section was capped with a quick disconnect so that the time spent adding drill string sections would be minimal.

The result was truly spectacular, less than 3 weeks after calling Berminghammer, AH Beck had completed the low headroom rock sockets. Immediately following the completion of the low headroom rock sockets, the drill rig mast was lengthened and set out on a barge to complete the pier piles. Keith Anderson COO of AH Beck had this to say: “It has been great working with Berminghammer on this project. Top notch people with top notch equipment.”