Rock Excavation – The Hard Part of Site Work!
Of all the land clearing tasks that excavation services perform, the most challenging and dangerous is the task of rock excavation.
Excavation companies deal with at least some rock during most typical land clearing jobs; however, there are times when the removal of rock can be more extreme, such as when clearing large boulders or excavating through rocky formations.
This difficult work must be handled correctly by trained rock excavation contractors to ensure safety and actually get the job done!
Rock Is An Issue At Many Excavation Sites
No matter how smooth the ground may look on the surface, excavation companies usually find that beyond the first few feet of topsoil there is rock.
Boulders and layers of bedrock are common and the more of it there is in the ground, the more difficult the site preparation job can be for excavation services digging in those areas.
The amount of rock present on the ground and how deep it is in a specific location can affect many things, from the price of the land to the cost of the clearing.
So when preparing the site for a building project, contractors must remove any rock that is in the way so the construction site can be properly prepared.
How Is Rock Excavation Done?
Rock excavation contractors extract rock from the ground using two methods, mechanical and blasting excavation, to break up and remove it from the ground so it can be removed and discarded:
Mechanical Rock Excavation
Rock ripping involves pulling boulders and smaller rocks out of the earth using large, hooked ripper attachments on heavy excavation equipment to rip the rock from the earth.
This is the preferred and safest method when it can be used by excavation services, but it is only useful when the available equipment is strong enough to dig the hooks in far enough to pull out the boulders.
Ripping can sometimes be done with heavy-duty toothed loader buckets as well.
Another method used by excavation contractors is rock trenching, which involves a toothed trencher that cuts large rocks into smaller pieces or rock breaking with heavy-duty hydraulic jackhammers that break up boulders and large rocks.
In both cases, the rock is broken into pieces small enough that it can be gathered and loaded, then carried away from the worksite.
Rock Blasting
Blasting is a more dangerous but sometimes necessary rock excavation method that uses explosives to blast large rock formations into smaller pieces so they can then be manually loaded and taken away from the excavation site.
It may only be performed by excavation companies with blasting expertise and even then, it is not permitted in many locations due to the possibility of damage and safety concerns.
Leave Rock Excavation Services To The Experts!
Coming across large amounts of rock during construction site preparation requires bringing in excavation services that are equipped to deal with it.
Whether the rock is comprised of buried boulders or deep shelves of bedrock, excavation contractors must analyze every situation individually and decide which is the best way to proceed.
Using specialty equipment like rock trenchers, hydraulic jackhammers, rippers, and infrequently with blasting, excavation companies can be sure to get the job done!