Water Well Journal

February 2021

Water Well Journal

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Preventative Maintenance for the Next Generation Avoid drill rig downtime by cultivating a mindset towards maintaining equipment. By Mike Price Keen on maximizing efficiency, David Baker created a checklist recently to help teach his younger drilling crews how to maintain their equipment. The maintenance checklist, implemented a few months ago, covers equipment to monitor on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. An area is devoted to tracking service truck miles, rig miles and hours, as well as welder hours to know when an oil change is needed. The goal is to not let any main- tenance task fall by the wayside. "It's kind of brought about them (drilling crews) thinking of other things, recognizing other things, and having a mind- set towards maintaining their equipment," says Baker, owner of Apex Drilling LLC in Burley, Idaho, "and that's the most important thing—having that mindset towards maintenance." Baker, president of the Idaho Ground Water Association, worked as a maintenance mechanic for nearly nine years at a potato processing plant before entering the water well indus- try. He worked at the plant under the supervision of a 20-year Air Force veteran who previously was a maintenance manager of intercontinental ballistic missile sites in the Midwest. Baker credits those years for helping him get keyed in on being pro- active with equipment maintenance. facebook.com/WaterWellJournal WWJ February 2021 n 21 NEXT GEN PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE continues on page 22 The maintenance program created by Apex Drilling LLC in Burley, Idaho, is helping its drilling crews find the more forgotten checked/maintained items—tires being one of them. In the drilling industry, tires have problems long before they're worn out. The age of the tire is a greater factor than the wear. Having tires at the proper air pressure is critical for longer life/service. Photo courtesy David Baker, Apex Drilling. (COVER STORY)

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