Courtesy of Vermeer Manufacturing Company

Why lease telecommunication lines when you can install your own? That's the question Wells Fargo officials asked themselves when they contemplated connecting their home mortgage office with their 176-acre office campus under construction four miles away in West Des Moines. When they decided it was more feasible to install their own telecommunication lines, they turned to Baker Electric Inc.

Baker Electric has been a familiar name in the Des Moines area for more than 40 years but had its beginnings in 1935 when Gene Baker began working for Furlong Electric repairing and making neon tubing for signs. In 1948, Baker negotiated a buy-sell agreement with the then ill Joe Furlong and the company's name was changed to Furlong and Baker Electric. Shortly thereafter, Furlong died and Baker became sole owner of the company.

Since then, the company has grown considerably and now employs more than 450 people in several divisions. Baker Electric does everything from commercial, industrial and residential wiring to installing traffic signals and telecommunication lines. The company's Underground Division was established just seven years ago as the horizontal directional drilling (HDD) market took off.

Britt Baker, son of Gene Baker and now CEO of Baker Electric, said branching off into providing HDD was a natural progression. "A fair amount of our HDD work has come from our customer base," he said. "We have customers who have a need for HDD, or we often have jobs where HDD becomes a part of the project."

Each year, the company's revenue from HDD work continues to grow. In 2004, the Underground Division grossed $3 million of the company's total $70 million in revenue. After starting out with only one HDD machine, the division now has three HDD units and a staff of nearly 30 employees.

Baker Electric's Underground Division focuses on installing voice and data telecommunication lines, as well as higher voltage electrical services. This, and the fact that the company has had a longtime relationship with Wells Fargo, is why it was chosen for the recent $500,000 HDD project, Baker said.

Wells Fargo commissioned Baker Electric to install two four-mile stretches of fiber optic lines from their current home mortgage office to their office campus. The telecommunication lines would provide a vital line of shared data between the two offices. Because of this, Wells Fargo officials asked that Baker Electric install two separate lines with two separate drill routes so that if one line became damaged they could switch to the backup line and communication between the campus and home mortgage office could continue uninterrupted.

For Baker Electric, the eight-mile project was one of its largest HDD jobs. Lee Rose, Underground Division field supervisor, said they started by hiring a civil engineer to help map out the most efficient and cost-effective drill plan for the two routes. Instead of mapping out a route along the city's major thoroughfares, Baker Electric was forced to drill along both commercial and residential property.

"The city wanted us to go into some of the residential areas so that we wouldn't fill up their parking easements along the major streets," Rose said. "They wanted to leave their bigger easements open for future utilities and if they happened to widen the street."

Drilling through residential areas takes longer to complete because there is a greater number of utilities to cross and much more communication is needed to inform residents about the work being done. Before Baker Electric Underground crews even began work along a residential street, Rose said, they placed doorhangers on each home telling residents what they would be doing and when the work would take place.

"It's a lot more upfront communication so that residents are aware of what you're going to do, when you're going to do it, and what it's going to look like when you're done," said Baker.

Also before crews could begin drilling, they had to locate the dozens and dozens of utilities along the residential streets. Along commercial property there are typically only a few major utility lines feeding several businesses on the street, whereas on a residential street, each home has its own set of electric, phone, cable TV, gas, sewer, and water lines.

"There's a big difference in going down a commercial parking easement as opposed to going down a residential area," Rose said. "For one bore, we had to do 36 locates just to install 500 feet of pipe. It can probably take you two days of preparation before you can do a half-day of boring."

Once the drill path was planned, the residents were notified and the utilities were located, Baker Electric Underground crews got to work. For most of the eight miles, they used the company's largest HDD unit — a Vermeer® NAVIGATOR® D24x40a outfitted with a 4-1/2-inch duckbill drill head with carbide cutters.

When mapping out the drill path, the plan called for crews to run the telecommunication lines north along a street that overpasses Interstate Highway 80 in West Des Moines. Rose said he knew this would be his crews' biggest challenge. In order to cross the interstate, they would have to successfully complete a 1,472-foot bore, the longest bore they had ever attempted with the Vermeer D24x40a HDD machine. And within those 1,472 feet, crews would need to drill 60 feet deep to go under the interstate and then back up another 60 feet to come out on the other side of the overpass.

Starting out, workers encountered their first obstacle when trying to locate the drill head underneath the interstate ramps. As the bore approached a depth of about 30 feet, Rose said the locator readings started to get fuzzy because the system had to transmit through all the concrete and rebar used to construct the ramps.

The second obstacle came just as Baker Electric crews were about to complete the nearly 1,500-foot bore. They had begun to pull back the product when a carrot-puller let loose. "The carrot-puller just wore out," Rose said.

Because the crews were inside Department of Transportation property where digging isn't allowed, they couldn't dig up and retrieve the carrot-puller. In a situation like this, Baker said all they could do was start the bore all over again.

The second time around, the 1,472-foot bore didn't pose any problems for the crews. After completing the second drill path under the interstate, they used a Vermeer 6-inch fluted backreamer, which they modified by welding on cutting teeth to pulverize the dirt so the drilling fluid and pipe could flow through easier. Rose said they modified the backreamer especially for this long bore, but they have also been successful in using it for other projects.

On a long bore such as this, Rose said it is extremely important to have an experienced operator who understands the theory behind the pullback.

"The whole key to a successful backream is to not get ahead of yourself and not outrun your fluids," he said. "If you start pulling a little dry and you're not having flow on your backream, you're going to start locking up the pipe."

Baker Electric crews were able to successfully pull back the pipe containing two 2-inch conduits using Tru-Bore® drilling fluid with detergent. No prereams were needed.

The Wells Fargo project is just one example of how the Baker Electric Underground Division has grown over the years to take on larger jobs. To tackle larger jobs, the company has had to grow its fleet of HDD machines, starting out with a Vermeer D10x15 in 1998, then adding a Vermeer D16x20a and the D24x40a. Rose said they wouldn't have been able to complete the nine-month long Wells Fargo project and overcome the obstacles they encountered without their largest HDD unit and the service they received from Vermeer.

"We've had good experience with Vermeer," Rose said. "It's their service. They'll have someone here right away to fix our machine or deliver a part, and then we're up and going again."