WorldWide Drilling Resource

75 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® DECEMBER 2013 Down Hole Camera Owners Shouldn’t Have Tunnel Vision by Ray Roerick Sales Manager, Well-Vu, Inc. Wo r l dWi de Dr i l l i ng Re s our c e ® welcomes Ray Roerick as a contribut- ing writer. During a span of over 25 years, Ray owned and operated a well drilling and pump installation company, and was a representative for several well supply companies. He always wanted to see a reasonably priced, high-quality, user- friendly down hole video camera the average drilling contractor could afford and was simple to use. Teaming up with the inventor of AquaVu fishing cameras, Jeff Zernov, with over a million under- water cameras in service, turned out to be the perfect marriage, bringing the latest technology to include site GPS location, the side and down view Fish Eye Lens, and several more. Here is Ray’s first article: Think about this on slow days. Most municipalities have curbs and gutters. Gutters drain into storm sewers, storm sewers fill with street refuse and garbage, the garbage plugs - or at least settles in, and starts to plug the storm drains. This turns into a major cost outlay for cleaning...WHEN they know what and where the problem lies. Down hole cameras provide the answer, a visual video inspection. Yes, some municipalities have their own, the tethered cameras manufacturers get many thousands to hundreds of thou- sands of dollars for, making it impossi- ble to own for smaller communities. Many water well contractors have capitalized on this opportunity to offer a value-added service to their communi- ties, plus pick up some nice projects to supplement their income and further justify the ownership of the camera that spends a lot of time on the storage rack. The remarkable ingenuity of our industry has turned the down hole camera into a horizontal push camera. It’s really rather easy, design a skid plate to mount the camera to, or buy a centralizer. A skid plate can be as simple as a “ski” or “toboggan” for the camera to rest on, via a clamp. The curled up nose on the plate will allow it to be pushed over the debris in the storm sewer via a push rod. Push rods can be as simple as a flat metal sewer tape available at most plumbing suppliers. These sewer tapes have a fitting on the end that allows for attachment of several different tools and easily adapts to the skid plate or cen- tralizer. Another option is fiberglass rods, available at local building centers and generally used for chimney cleaning and electrical wire pulling. Solid rods can be purchased in various lengths and trans- ported and stored in PVC sewer pipe. Or, there are several companies man- ufacturing a continuous coil in various lengths to over 300 feet (approximate distance between storm sewer manholes). Roerick cont’d on page 84.