20–32 t — utility class
Cable, water service, driveway and short road crossings. Trailer or small crawler. The entry point for utility contractors adding directional drilling.
On a horizontal directional drilling rig, pullback force sets the class — and the price. But pullback alone does not tell you what a machine can do. Torque, mud pump flow and rod handling decide whether the rig finishes the bore or stalls halfway through it. Here is how the tiers differ and where the budget actually goes.
Pullback force is the headline number, but each tier is defined by what it can finish, not by what it can start.
Cable, water service, driveway and short road crossings. Trailer or small crawler. The entry point for utility contractors adding directional drilling.
Gas, water and sewer crossings up to roughly 300 m. The class most HDD contractors own, because it covers the work that actually comes in.
River, highway and railway crossings. Large rod, high torque, big mud volume. Priced for specialist contractors with a pipeline of long bores.
A rig with high pullback and low torque will stall the moment the hole opens up. Ask for all four before comparing prices.
Reamers, swivels, drill rods, sonde housings and the mud mixing system are not included in the rig price, and they should not be — the right set depends entirely on your ground. A rock reamer for hard ground, a fly cutter reamer for mixed face and a blade reamer for soft soil are three different tools for three different jobs.
Budget the set that matches your first ten jobs rather than the whole catalogue. Most contractors over-buy tooling at the start and then discover the ground they actually meet needs one reamer they did not order.
The same applies to consumables: drilling tools and mud additives are a running cost, not a capital one, and pricing them separately keeps the rig comparison honest. If you are adding HDD to an existing fleet, our small HDD rigs and medium HDD rigs pages show which classes cover which crossing lengths.
Two rigs of the same class can be quoted differently because the job is different, not because the supplier is inconsistent. Crossing length decides rod string and mud volume. Soil type decides whether you need a rock reamer and a bigger pump. Product pipe diameter decides the final ream and the pullback margin. Entry and exit pit conditions decide whether the rig needs a walking system or a crane.
If you send the crossing length, the soil type and the product pipe diameter through the contact page, the quotation comes back configured rather than indicative. For reference on the equipment itself, the full horizontal directional drilling rigs range lists pullback class per model.
Used HDD machines are common and can be good value — directional drilling wears the rod and the mud system, not the frame. The three questions that separate a bargain from a project: hours on the hydraulic system, whether the rod string is included, and whether the manufacturer still stocks the pump and swivel seals. If two of those three answers are poor, a new entry-class rig is usually the cheaper decision over five years.
What contractors ask before specifying an HDD class.
It follows the pullback class and the configuration. A 20–32 t utility rig and a 100 t crossing rig are different orders of magnitude, and within one class the torque rating, mud pump and rod handling swing the figure further. Send the crossing length, soil type and product pipe diameter and we will confirm the class and the band within 24 hours.
If your ground has any cobble, gravel or rock, yes. Soft-soil reamers will not open a hole in mixed face, and forcing them damages the swivel and the rod. The practical test is your last five crossings: if any of them needed a hammer or a different method, budget the rock reamer from the start.
A 40–60 t machine usually can, which is why it is the volume class. Below 32 t you will turn down longer municipal crossings; above 100 t you are paying for capacity you may not use for months at a time. Most contractors doing both end up with one 40–60 t rig and one small unit rather than a single large machine.
Tooling, mud mixing equipment, sonde and tracking system, transport, and operator training beyond the standard handover. We itemise these separately so you can see what the rig alone costs — ask the contact page for the full configuration list for the class you are considering.
Crossing length, soil type and product pipe diameter — three lines is enough for us to size the rig and price the tooling that goes with it.
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