Hydraulic Rock Diggers Slash Work Time

Appalachian Power recently acquired two trailer-mounted hydraulic rock-digging drills, specialized machines engineered to break and remove hard rock during pole installations and trenching. Designed to handle the region's mountainous terrain, these units will help line crews complete reliability upgrades and outage restorations faster and with fewer delays, improving service for customers across the system.

The drills replace labor-intensive methods, multiple pieces of equipment and often outside contractors. That can reduce work times from hours to minutes.

They also improve crew safety by limiting manual work near unstable rock faces.

"You're looking at a day or two to get a hole down [in solid rock] by drilling and chipping," said Glenn Edwards, distribution system manager. "This will do a hole in 30 minutes, so customers can expect faster restoration work when rock excavation is a factor."

"A lot of our areas have a lot of rock," Edwards said. "Sometimes you can dig around and look for a soft spot for an auger to go into the ground. Sometimes you can't. Sometimes there's only one place that pole can go."

The additional equipment is part of Appalachian Power's ongoing investment in reliability and grid enhancement. About 30 lineworkers have been trained to use the new equipment.