Directional drilling sounds like something used strictly for commercial projects, and not exactly what you’d expect to hear coming from your plumber. However, directional drilling is the “laparoscopic surgery” of plumbing repairs. It is less invasive than traditional trenching, which is the equivalent to open-heart surgery. Like open-heart surgery, trenching leaves a large, visible opening from ground level, disrupting landscape, driveways, roads, and sidewalks. Directional drilling is rapidly growing in popularity for residential applications, so before you rent a trencher to start digging, you might want to consider the benefits of this option.
Benefit #1: Limited Disturbance
Let’s be real here: dealing with plumbing issues is not much fun, nor is it how anyone wants to be spending their weeknights and weekends. It’s even worse when you’ve got a busted pipe and you have to hire a plumber to come out and rip apart your gardens and destroy a chunk of your driveway all to get to that frustrating pipe. Directional drilling’s biggest advantage is that it’s not as invasive. Instead of tearing things apart, you can gain the same access through a subtler method.
Benefit #2: Saves Money
This “newer” and “fancy” technique might seem like it should be more expensive but in reality, it’ll actually save you money! When setting up a new line, a large part of the cost is created by having to dig up the ground and then putting back the excavated material. With a trench technique, you end up having to either re-seed the grass, redo the pavement in your driveway or sidewalk and if you’re a gardening enthusiast, you’ll have to deal with the trauma disrupting all the soil has caused your plants, and which can be expensive. Instead, take advantage of the cost-effective method of directional drilling to access the plumbing that needs repair.
Benefit #3: Provides Easy(ier) Access
Establishing new plumbing lines has always been expensive and time-consuming when you’ve had to deal with trench work. With the flexibility of directional drilling, you can get access to all preexisting lines that are either unreachable through other means or need to be moved, while hardly disturbing the ground.
Benefit #4: Saves You Time
The plumbing problems that require access to underground pipes are usually not minor. They generally involve something like a damaged pipeline or a clog causing a large backup of water. Needless to say, it’s not only a giant pain, but it’s also expensive. Aside from the cost, the worst part of a lengthy plumbing repair project is the inconvenience of having repairs that take several days to complete. With directional drilling, the process is much faster and there’s no replacement of soil needed afterward.
As this method of plumbing repair in Toronto gains popularity and is used increasingly for residential plumbing repairs, the benefits to you as the homeowner are plenty! Set aside the scalpel and get with the times by going trenchless for your plumbing repairs!
