Drill Rig Mobility

Upgrading the capability of rigs off improved roads to the well site.

By Mike Price

Tighter jobsites, steep grading and soil conditions, and inclement weather can make mobilizing a drilling rig to the well site stressful.

The industry has long attempted to solve getting around the issue through the decades: Everything from contractors laying sheets of plywood or plastic mats to putting chains on tires to building rocked roads to simply waiting until the weather improves to other means necessary. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

But with accessing sites seemingly becoming more difficult, rig and heavy equipment manufacturers have responded. Here’s just three examples of ways they’ve sought to improve rig mobility:

• DRILLMAX® revealed at Groundwater Week 2025 that its DM450 now offers a proven hydraulic drive assist front axle: the same 6 × 6 all-wheel drive technology used in fire trucks, dump trucks, cranes, and utility digger devices. The feature was also on display at the South Atlantic Jubilee 2026.
• Versa-Drill offers TIREBOSS® 2 Tire Pressure Control as a drill rig accessory equipment option. The central tire inflation system lowers tire pressure from the cab while moving, which creates a larger tire footprint reducing ground pressure, preventing deep ruts, and stopping heavy trucks from compacting delicate agricultural or soft field soil. It has been showcased at select state association conventions in 2025 and 2026 and was featured in the February 2026 Water Well Journal Q&A. (Read more on the system later in the article).
• Heavy-duty (machine placed) mating systems and custom rubber track conversions are giving contractors another option to consider for their rigs.

Site Condition Impacts

Well site conditions are even having a costly ripple effect on customers.

In one of the Washington State counties Pierce Kiltoff’s company serves, customers are now required to obtain a grading permit before drilling a well. This process adds six to twelve months to the timeline and $2000 to $10,000 in permit fees.

“Finding a way to complete this work without triggering the grading permit requirement would provide substantial value,” says Kiltoff, president of JKA Well Drilling & Pumps in Monroe, Washington.

Kiltoff has considered the topic of rig mobility for several years, especially as it becomes increasingly vital for his residential business. Here’s how his company is adapting or looking to adapt:

–Municipal work: Investing in technology like AirBurst Technology® to limit the company’s site footprint on rehabilitation jobs. This reduces the need to set up cable tool rigs in awkward positions over well houses.

–Mud rotary options: Kiltoff has been following the new DRILLMAX DM250 rigs with the Mudslayer Mfg. package, which helps shrink the mud rotary footprint.

“While our local conditions are not ideal for mud rotary and the regulations are limiting—requiring surface seals from the top of the aquifer to the surface, compared to the standard 18-foot seal for driven or dual rotary wells—it could still be viable,” he says. “Moving from a standard 6-inch well to a 4-inch well could allow us to use a smaller footprint and stay competitive.”

–Tracked dual rotary rigs: Kiltoff has researched Nordic Drill’s tracked rig dual rotary package for domestic wells. However, he’d prefer a longer tower to accommodate
20-foot pipe lengths.

“Even with tracks, the steep, heavily forested, and swampy terrain in our region means trees remain a major roadblock regardless of the equipment used,” he says.

–Long-term industry outlook: Between unpredictable weather and increasing regulatory burdens, Kiltoff suspects it may eventually be regulated out of using large rotary equipment altogether.

“If local building limitations reduce overall volume, we could see a return to cable tool rigs,” he says. “In
areas with low regulatory burdens and easy geology, high competition keeps costs down.

“However, where high regulatory burdens make building unaffordable for most, the well driller effectively
becomes an artisan, completing a low volume of wells at a very high margin. In that scenario, running a cable tool rig equipped with modern features to ease operation while maintaining a low footprint becomes a very practical approach.”

Tight Sites and Lake Lots Demand Smaller Footprint

Travis Flint in Cadillac, Michigan, added to his fleet by purchasing Mudslayer’s Odin 200 track drill rig at the close of 2024 that has eased working on tight sites and lake lots.

The one-man-operation Odin 200 drill has 6-ton radio-controlled rubber tracks for mobility, a telescopic mast (25- foot reach), and a 500-gallon Mudslayer M500 mud system with three 5-inch desanding cones and a shaker deck.

“Fortunately for us, tight sites are primarily lake lots due to the cabin being torn down and new ‘cabin’ being built, which tend to take up most of the lot,” says Flint, president of Thomas Flint & Son Inc. “Other times it allows us to get into the trees where people do not want to cut down.

“Its small footprint track system for getting into and out of tight sites, mud cleaning system, and now onboard grouter has really helped us complete wells in those sites faster and cleaner.”

The Odin 200’s Mudslayer M500 mud system has also continued to allow Flint to drill the company’s larger commercial wells (6-inch to 12-inch) in conjunction with his larger rotary drill. He says it cleans up the mud well and greatly reduces the sand content, a key component in development and gaining water flow from the formation you are looking to utilize.

“The extending mast [on the Odin 200] has been a plus with tight sites and being able to back in and then tower up and then extend up has helped us to be able to get into tight spots in wooded lots,” Flint shares.

The ability to pull the Odin 200 with his Ram 5500 on a trailer has been a plus for Flint. He has built a smaller water truck with an air compressor as a rig tender.

“So as far as ‘heavy’ trucks needed to do those jobs, it has been a bonus,” he says.

Flint has drilled mostly 60-foot to 80-foot wells but has efficiently handled 180 feet with the Odin 200.

“The drill has allowed us to take off some of the burden on our main rotary drill and keep that one on the deeper holes and larger projects,” Flint says. “Also, it has allowed us to offer either 4-inch cable tool or 4-inch or 5-inch rotary wells for the shallow well sites. The drill has given us the ability to react to more of the emergency out-of-water wells also.

“Overall, we are very happy with that purchase, and the Odin 200 has been a great added asset to our fleet and has helped open up more opportunities with its small footprint and compact features.”

Game-Changer for Mobilization

Locally known as blow sand, which is loose, wind-blown sand deposits in the region, Marshall Well Drilling Corp. in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, opted to try the TIREBOSS 2 Tire Pressure Control on its 2003 Schramm T450WS drill rig to help with mobility.

TIREBOSS exceeded its expectations in April 2025 that three months later it purchased the system for its 2003 Freightliner FLD112 2100-gallon 6 × 4 flatbed water truck.

“They’ve completely changed the way that we get around on site,” says Josh Johnson of Marshall Well Drilling. “Our business pretty rarely takes the mats [plastic 4 × 8 and 2 × 8] at this point.

“The only time they take them now is honestly, say we’re getting a ditch that’s fairly deep, we’ll take them to stack them in the ditch to drive on to get rid of the ditch, so the jacks and stuff don’t hit. As far as needing them to get around the jobsite it’s pretty far, few, and between.”

One of the selling features for Marshall Well Drilling was TIREBOSS eliminating weird tire wear on its trucks, especially when loaded and unloaded. With the water truck’s air ride system, TIREBOSS uses an extra sensor that will adjust tire pressure in the rear according to load, deflating according to its program setting and reinflating once the sensor senses an increase in load so tires wear flat instead of unevenly.

TIREBOSS programs it after the setup. On Marshall Well Drilling’s rig, the eight back tires are kept at the same pressure [110 psi for both rig and water truck] all the time.

“It’s always monitoring where they’re at,” Johnson says. “The guys don’t have to do that weekly check of tire inflation other than the front two tires to make sure you’re not excessively wearing tires. It’s a pretty good chunk of money all the time to have to put eight tires in the back of your truck. That’s a really big plus.

“It has that screen to mount right inside the cab that displays existing tire pressure, and when you get to the jobsite, it’ll give you options for how much you want to deflate. It gives you options to say right down to 35 pounds to max deflation for traction, or if you’re not on too bad of a site, to go a little bit less, hit the button, and it starts purging air out of the system. It takes a few minutes to do it.”

TIREBOSS has different deflation setting options, and Marshall Well Drilling typically deflates to its lowest emergency setting of 35 psi to back into the site. It typically starts dumping air while backing in off the road. As the driver walks to check the site, the rig’s tires are deflating, and once back to the rig, the tires are deflated and the rig is ready to be positioned on the site. The reduced tire pressure creates extremely low ground pressure and improves mobility.

“Normally if we deflate, we deflate. We really don’t go in between,” Johnson explains. “We just go for all of it and just back in and go about the day. Primarily that’s what we do. Don’t do 75 [psi] and try. Just 35 [psi] and back in.”

It’s the same order when leaving the jobsite: Pull back out onto the driveway and reinflate the tires while ensuring the load is properly secured, and by the time that’s done, the tires are reinflated and the rig or water truck is ready to return to the shop.

Johnson recalls the first time the system made an impression on him on a jobsite:

—The driveway was fairly short with the house up on a hill.

—There was a 4-foot elevation change in sand. No gravel, just sand, which was primarily backfilled-type
sand.

—The rig had to get up on a 4-foot elevation change and drive forward, turn the rig a little bit, and then back up next to the house.

“A little bit of a wide turn on top of this,” Johnson says. “I’m like, ‘Oh man, this is really going to show
us what’s going on here,’ and we deflated tires, and I was absolutely shocked. We pulled up in there, drove
forward, turned the tires.

“Trying to back up and turn your front-end tires, they become plows and they start plowing dirt or sand
or whatever they’re in, and it started doing that, and the rig continued to pull backwards and dragging those front tires through the stuff.

“We got back to where the well location was and it was pulling us through enough, and the driver side of
the rig was a little bit downhill grade on that side of the rig was actually starting to fall into the sand because it was fresh backfilled sand, and it just kept pulling us. I was absolutely shocked it got us back to the flags. We set up and drilled. It was very impressive for the first real time that we used it. One hundred percent worth the money.”

Marshall Well Drilling worked with TIREBOSS on where the screen works best in the cab for both the drill rig and water truck, and the air line system install on each vehicle was tidy with nothing hanging, dragging, or rubbing. Johnson has also been satisfied with customer service after the install.

Marshall Well Drilling regularly uses TIREBOSS weekly, and depending on the area it covers, sometimes two or three times a week.

“We’ve even used them in some areas where if the yard is a little bit nicer, we’ve even actually deflated tires to kind of widen the track just to give up not leaving such a rut in the guys’ yard on the in and out type thing,” Johnson says. “It seems to help a little bit with even that.”

TIREBOSS has resulted in time savings, sometimes several hours per job. In addition, it has reduced injuries from the handling of mats, especially in the winter with frozen mud.

“In the past we’ve really fought sites, and man, if we would’ve had this years ago, it would’ve made the labor end easier and wouldn’t wear your guys out,” Johnson says. “When you get to the jobsite and spend a couple hours matting in, that kind of starts your day rough. It’s a huge labor saver.”

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Mike Price is the senior editor of Water Well Journal. In addition to his WWJ responsibilities, Price contributes to the Association’s scientific publications. He can be reached at mprice@ngwa.org, or at (800) 551-7379, ext. 1541.