Don’t Leave Your Bundled Bore Bumper System to Chance

 

Bundled directional drills are complex. They’re expensive. And they carry long-term consequences if something goes wrong.  So here’s a simple Public Service Announcement:

If your company does not have a thoughtfully written specification for bumpers on bundled bores, you are taking a serious risk with your pipeline.

When multiple 20" and 30" pipelines are bundled together and dragged thousands of feet through a bore, pipe-on-pipe contact isn’t a possibility — it’s a certainty. The real question is whether you’ve engineered protection into the project or left it up to chance.

Our BBS (Bundled Bumper System) was designed specifically to address these risks. It isn’t improvised. It isn’t pieced together on-site. It’s engineered for the application.

Here’s what that means:

• Two-part epoxy bonding agent applied directly to the factory-applied coating — with no abrasion required

• Bumper material backed by decades of bore experience

• Leader strip protection on the front end of the bundle

• A proven durometer rating engineered to handle the load

Most importantly:

The system is guaranteed to stay in place
The system is guaranteed to maintain the spacing you specify

Spacing isn’t cosmetic. It’s protection. Lose spacing, and you lose coating integrity. Lose coating integrity, and corrosion becomes part of your future maintenance plan.

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What Happens Without a Specification?

Let’s talk about what I’ve actually seen, including as recently as this morning.

If you don’t clearly write a bumper specification into the project, the decision doesn’t disappear. It simply shifts downstream.

And when cost pressure takes over, here’s what that “system” often becomes:

• A 1-inch rope

• Wrapped with a couple laps of cold-applied tape

• The kind with mesh backing and soft mastic

On a multi-million-dollar pipeline project.

Heavy 20" and 30" coated steel being dragged through the ground — relying on about $0.50 worth of rope and $2 worth of tape.

I’m confident even the tape manufacturer would tell you:
That is not a bundled bore solution.

Improvised bumper systems don’t usually fail immediately in a dramatic way.

They fail gradually.

• Tape shifts and/or rolls

• Rope slides or is pulled off

• Spacing disappears

• Coatings abrade

• Problems begin

And now you’re living with coating damage that will follow the asset for decades.

That’s not a small oversight. That’s a lifecycle decision.

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Write the Specification. Control the Outcome.

Bundled bores are the place to clearly define:

• Bumper material

• Durometer requirements

• Bonding method

• Spacing requirements

Because when you leave it unspecified, you’re not saving money.

You’re gambling with a buried asset that you can’t easily inspect or repair.

And that’s not going to help anyone sleep at night.

Multi-Pipe Pull Throughs

 

Managing Multiple Pipelines in a Single Bore: Why Spacing Matters

Pulling multiple pipelines through the same bore hole introduces a unique set of challenges for any construction crew. Once those lines are in motion, the question becomes: how do you keep one pipeline from abrading another? How do you prevent collisions as the pipes shift, flex, and—at times—behave more like spaghetti noodles than rigid steel?

These concerns become even more critical at the girth welds. The weld profile naturally creates a high point on the pipe, making it especially vulnerable to damage if adjacent lines come into contact during installation or over the life of the pipeline.

That’s where our BBS (Bundled Bumper System) comes into play.

The BBS system creates a one-inch bumper around the pipeline, effectively spacing lines apart as they are pulled through the bore. While larger spacers can be manufactured, more than a decade of field experience has shown that a one-inch separation is more than sufficient for the vast majority of applications.

By maintaining consistent separation, BBS prevents pipelines from abrading, bumping, or damaging one another—both during installation and after the lines are in place. Just as importantly, once the pipelines reach their final resting position, the spacing created by BBS allows soil to settle naturally between the lines. This ensures your cathodic protection (CP) system has unobstructed access to 360 degrees of each pipeline, helping maintain long-term corrosion protection.

When multiple lines share a single bore, proper spacing isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s essential. And with the right system in place, it’s one less thing your crew has to worry about.