Advanced Drilling LLC

We hired Advanced Drilling to dig a well for our new home based on a referral. We regret it, and wish we had read the negative reviews first. Read on, and learn why you shouldn’t touch this company with a 100-foot drill pipe! UNRELIABLE EQUIPMENT Pam and Rob own a single decades-old drilling rig. If that rig goes down, there’s no backup option. Finding parts for this aging piece of equipment was apparently getting hard even before the pandemic, and they hadn’t planned for problems by keeping a stock of key replacement parts. This delayed our drilling project by over a month. Their failure to invest in backups could spell disaster for you, if you have a deadline like we did. POOR/NONEXISTENT COMMUNICATION Pam’s inability or unwillingness to answer phones or respond to messages seemed pathological, or suggestive of literacy issues. We would go weeks without a reply or update, even as our project deadline approached, and their hunt for machine parts continued. In any project, communication is important. When there is uncertainty or a time crunch, clear and timely communication is crucial. Pam’s poor communication skills made a tough situation much more stressful. She is not cut out for customer relations, and shouldn’t be in this line of work. If you go with Advanced Drilling, expect sporadic communication, a slim chance of making contact by phone, no explanation of what to expect or how the process will work, and a general tone of indifference from Pam and Rob. Which leads to . . . LACK OF CONCERN OR EMPATHY FOR CLIENTS It’s a harsh thing to say, but it really seems true. Examples follow. Our well needed county approval by May 18 to avoid a price hike of almost $40,000 by the home builder. We signed our drilling contract on January 24, leaving about 3 months to do the job. We missed our deadline. Pam knew about the looming price hike. Once it became clear that a major delay was happening, one might expect some regular updates from the business owners. Perhaps some words of reassurance that they were doing everything they could and were sorry for the extra trouble. Some expression of concern or empathy as part of basic customer relations. Instead, when I actually got any replies, Pam left my questions unanswered. Weeks went by without an email response or answered phone. When I finally sent a message politely asking for weekly updates, Pam ignored that request entirely. Indifference. Another example from Rob: Drilling started on Thursday, four days before our target date. Work went as follows. *Day 1* About 2 hours of drilling. Rob stops to go fill a tank truck up with water because he “didn’t bring enough out.” No more work that day. *Day 2* Drilling done in 4-5 hours. Rob leaves with a promise to “come back tomorrow” to finish up. *Day 3* The rig sits. No sign of Rob. At noon, I call the company. Two voicemail boxes are full (as usual), and there’s no answer at the other number (as usual). I send an email, asking if Rob will be coming that day. In desperation, I drive to their home office. Pam tells me that “Rob didn’t realize it was a Saturday. He’ll be back on Monday.” When reminded of our target date and price hike deadline, she seems entirely unconcerned—even irritated that I would presume to expect Rob to show up as planned. *Day 4* The rig sits. *Day 5* Rob moseys in at 10 and by 10:30 gives me a well log. By then, he has put in about 7 hours on-site over 3 work days. Today took only a half hour. Why couldn’t he have done this Friday, or during a quick drop-in on Saturday? He only lives about 20 minutes away…. In the end, we got our county approval exactly 3 days late. I had told Pam earlier that with this tight schedule, even one day’s delay could make the difference. I just wish she and Rob had taken that to heart and at least showed some concern. But I guess that’s not how they roll. BOTTOM LINE Read the other negative reviews. For quick jobs & simple fixes, reviews lean positive. For anything else, steer clear! There’s nothing “advanced” about this company.