Rocklift, part of the Murphy group of companies, has enjoyed a period of recent expansion.

The company, which was established in 1984 as a specialist drill and blasting contractor in the quarrying and civil engineering industries, has since developed into other aspects of ground engineering such as rock anchoring, soil nailing and rock netting.

Under the management of Alan Brocket and his team, Rocklift expanded into drilling for geothermal heat pumps and water well drilling, investing in specialist equipment designed for this purpose and now have the capability of drilling bore holes up to depths of 300 meters.

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Recently, the company were chosen as the preferred contractor to install five number 200m deep boreholes for a ground source heat pump system for a new community primary school in Breich, West Calder.

Due to the ground conditions encountered, variable beds of hard to soft rock, with occasional voids and significant water ingress, drilling conditions were difficult for the team, meaning they needed to use specialised tools.

Mr Brocket took the decision to remove the initial choice of hammer and replace it with the Atlas Copco QLX 40.

He explained that "the difficulties we were experiencing with the previous hammer, due to the back pressure from the severe water ingress, meant that we were taking 12 – 15 minutes to drill a 3m tube at depths of 130m.

"The slow penetration rates meant that we were incurring considerable costs on the anticipated borehole completion time. A solution had to be found and the QLX40 solved the problem for us."

(JP/CD)