Basketball and auger boring are two completely unrelated topics, unless Mike Boyd has a say in it. At the end of a lengthy career of coaching basketball, he knew he’d miss the excitement and strategy he left on the court. So he took that dedication and applied it to his new contracting company, Three Point Construction. Founded in 2004 and located in Mechanicsville, Maryland, Three Point Construction specializes in directional boring and trenching projects.
STEERING CLEAR Boyd recalls one project in particular when he had to bring his A-game. The town of La Plata, Maryland needed to install a 10-inch (25.4 cm) gravity sewer at the National Guard Armory. The 220-foot (67.1 m) bore needed to be approximately 20 feet deep. Boyd recalls that the ground conditions were ideal —southern Maryland red clay that was stiff and firm, perfect for a steerable bore.
Even with optimal ground conditions, a few project specifications made this bore especially challenging. The percent of grade was only .5 percent, and Charles County Public Works insists all installations must be perfectly on grade. There was also a telephone pole located in the middle of the bore path, which created a three-by-three-foot window on the receiving end they had to hit from over 200 feet (61 m) away.
The stringent grade requirements combined with the narrow receiving window made having a reliable and responsive steering apparatus extremely important. Since it was a 10-inch (25.4 cm) sewer, Boyd considered using a 36-inch (91.4 cm) casing, which would have given the crew a bit more room for the casing to go off-grade. Calling on the strategy skills from his coaching days, Boyd had a play he knew would save time and money on the project — the ON-Target auger boring steering system from McLaughlin. The ON-Target system allowed Boyd to reduce the casing size from 36 to 24 inches (91.4 to 61 cm). It also made it possible for the crew to reduce production time. Boyd had quoted two weeks to complete the project, and his crew completed it in five days. Boyd calls ON-Target the most cost-effective and productive system on the market.
“The days of pushing and praying that the casing goes to the right spot are over,” Boyd says. “The ‘just get close’ mentality doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s worth taking the extra precaution of using one of these steering heads to take all that out of the equation.”