In the past year, we’ve posted hundreds of stories to digdifferent.com, including everything from contractor profiles to online exclusives to tips from industry experts.
Here we highlight the 10 most popular articles of the year. If you missed any of these, now is your chance to catch up. And if you’ve already read them, well, just remember that many things are better the second time around.
Enjoy this look back at 2015.
10. Contractor Helping With Flood Recovery
Seth Church and other staff at C Company in North Dakota had been watching the news and reading about the massive flooding taking place in South Carolina when a storm dumped nearly 2 feet of rain in the central part of the state. Instead of just standing by and watching, the crews mobilized and made their way to South Carolina to help with flood recovery. One of their first jobs was to help clean out a flood-ravaged church.
9. Arizona Utility Locating Company Looks Deep Underground
Colission Wells, founder, owner and CEO of Pegasus Utility Locating Services, knows a lot about underground locating technology. He’s an expert in the field with more than 33 years of hands-on experience. He founded Pegasus, located in Phoenix, in 1994, with a goal to provide not just some services related to locating, but all of them. Now, with an arsenal of locating technology, the company has seen steady growth.
8. Hydroexcavators Expand Wisconsin Contractor’s Services
River View Construction, a central Wisconsin construction business, launched in the 1950s doing work at local electric utility job sites. That company grew into building landfill sites and now is doing utility locates as well for customers. River View is a company that got into hydroexcavation just as the industry in the U.S. was taking off in the early 2000s. The family-run business now has three hydroexcavators in its fleet staying busy year-round.
7. Hydroexcavator Operators in Greater Toronto Area Develop Alliance for Industry
Barry Wood, CEO of Ontario Excavac, saw a need to build an alliance of hydroexcavator operators and manufacturers to work to better the industry as the government of Ontario developed new laws that could have an effect on those companies that operate them and their customers. Wood, and others in the greater Toronto area, came together to create the HydroVac Alliance of Ontario in 2014. In February 2015 the group had 20 members, but has since grown to 40 by the end of the year and is turning into a strong lobbying force.
6. Georgia Directional Drill Contractor Gets Back to Work
Jim Davis had owned a directional drilling business from 1998 to 2010 until he made the difficult decision to close it down as the recession hit. In 2013, Jim’s son Matt saw a need for the services again in their area and launched the company again, this time as Davis Underground Solutions. The company now does directional drilling work throughout Georgia and into neighboring states. Jim is now helping his son with the business.
5. Excavation to Reach World’s Largest Tunneling Machine Complete
It was a story that kept showing up throughout the year — the status of Bertha, the huge tunnel-boring machine under Seattle working on the Seattle Tunnel Project. After the machine broke down in 2014, it took contractors months to dig a 120-foot pit to reach Bertha in an attempt to fix her and get her back to work again. Bertha has been repaired since this story, but now testing is underway to make sure it is ready to go. The machine is expected to start digging again in early January.
4. Giant Excavator Finds a Home in Texas
The bucket sits 20 feet high and holds 106 cubic yards. This massive excavator traveled through Texas in early 2015 as it made its way to Elgin, Texas, where the massive dragline bucket is now being used at a coal mine. It took seven hours to transport the bucket from Conroe, Texas, to Elgin (a 130-mile trip). The manufacturer of the bucket, VR Steel, plans to build more mining tools for the Texas area.
3. Davids Hydrovac Looks to Jack Doheny Company for Hydroexcavation Equipment It Needs To Succeed
Mike Morehouse started Davids Hydrovac in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, with nothing to his name except technical knowledge in hydroexcavation. Having worked for another hydroexcavation company previously, Morehouse knew what he wanted from his employees and equipment. To get the business off the ground though, he depended on Jack Doheny Company to rent the trucks from before he could purchase his first one. Five years later, Morehouse says he finally feels established: “We’re here to stay. We’ve got a good reputation, and that makes me want to work even harder. The guys and I all have something to prove.”
2. Hydroexcavator Operator Electrocuted on Job Site
Stories about safety and what can happen if safe practices aren’t followed were the top two stories of the year in Dig Different. In this story, a hydroexcavator operator in Ontario was killed when the boom from the truck he was operating came in contact with overhead powerlines and he was electrocuted. While it is safer for contractors to dig for utilities with hydroexcavators, they should still be aware of their surroundings.
1. Contractor Killed in Trench With No Cave-In Protection
Another leading cause of accidents on a job site, or even deaths, is the improper use or no use of cave-in protection. In November, a contractor working in northeastern Wisconsin was killed when a 10-foot deep trench he was working in caved in and no shoring was used. Emergency responders pronounced him dead at the scene. The man’s company, which he owned, was installing a sewer line between new storage unit locations and an existing commercial business in Kaukauna, Wisconsin.
