Traditional underground installation involves digging large, messy trenches and then backfilling them. Even if the trench is only a couple inches wide, it still has to be cut the entire way. Directional drilling can take care of the installation without having to dig a trench.
Potholes are annoying in roads but useful in directional drilling. Before an initial bore hole is started, a small pothole is dug from the surface to a defined depth in order to pinpoint the exact location of any buried utility.
Telecommunications and power cable installations don’t need as much space as other utilities, such as water or gas. For this reason, the drill pipe itself is used as a conduit instead of another pipe being installed. This is known as a “drill and leave” installation.
Underground installations on a wide open plot of empty dirt can be just as easy with trenches or directional drilling, but not everything’s that easy. When there are a lot of obstacles or in tricky situations, directional drilling is much easier.
To the layman ground looks like ground, but there’s a big difference between different ground formations. These differences can change the operation of drilling, which is why directional drilling specialists will have a variety of different drill heads to fit different situations.
There are a number of reasons why open cut methods can’t be used to install pipes or cables. They could be not permitted, they could cause environmental problems, or they could simply be impractical. Whatever the reason, directional drilling can be used instead.