From "Impossible" to Done by Lunch: Finishing Jobs in Hours, not WeeksA construction firm in Sparta, NJ had reached its third week of what should have been a straightforward job: Open cut a 84'L x 2'W x 4'D trench for a 6" HDPE pipe installation. The challenge: breaking through 36 feet of stubborn limestone bedrock in front of the local high school, with live gas mains nearby. Their mid-size excavator hammer managed only 1 foot of limestone in 4 hours. Their rock trencher moved faster, but restricted night-only work windows meant that after a late 8-hour shift, progress totaled 8 feet and about 275 broken teeth at $20 each. With limited operating hours, slow production with current tools, and a pipeline of other jobs waiting on this trench, costs kept climbing. Contractors run into this scenario routinely – knowing well that bedrock in utility construction and reinforced concrete in building demos always hit the bottom line.
But when Petram brought its High-Power Electrical Pulse (HPEP) rock-breaking system to the site, the crew fractured the entire 36-foot shelf in under 3 hours. With a simple workflow of drilling-HPEP-excavator, work that would’ve taken a week of pounding and overhead wrapped up before lunch. Even the utility representative on-site left impressed, observing the effective breakage with no detectable vibrations that could threaten nearby utilities.
All-Electric Fracturing: No Explosives, No Chemicals, Just Results
Petram's HPEP System delivers an all-electric, chemical-free method for breaking rock and reinforced concrete using only electricity and water to generate a precision plasma shock wave. The shockwave exceeds the material’s tensile strength, producing controlled fractures without explosives, without chemicals, and with minimal vibration and dust. HPEP shines where conventional methods struggle: tight urban corridors, bridge decks, basements, utilities, and anywhere noise restrictions, dust limits, or vibration concerns that bottleneck production.
"The secret is that the pressure wave fractures rock, yet deflects around metal or plastic," says Frank Magnotti, Petram's Vice President of Product Management & Programs. "That makes our HPEP System ideal for work near live utilities and a standout method for compromising reinforced concrete structures with our tool, some water, and a simple drill."
Petram demonstrated their capabilities at the latest NDA 2025 show, and field results back it up. In many applications, HPEP delivers up to 20x the production of jackhammers and performance comparable to an excavator hammer alone. When contractors pair HPEP for rapid fracturing with an excavator hammer for cleanout, throughput jumps dramatically - turning "problem cuts" into predictable, high-yield work windows.
HPEP Allows Firms to Outbid & Outperform
Deployment is straightforward. Petram’s HPEP System fits within a compact, palletized unit.
It’s transportable by truck and can operate off a standard 8 kW generator. Crews get up to speed in under 2 days of training: Drill a hole, add water, insert our proprietary probe, and the rugged cable and probe deliver the energy pulse directly into the rock. The control interface keeps it simple: Charge, Fire, and Stop, so crews move fast. QR-linked manuals, direct technical support, and swap-ready consumable probes round out a fleet-friendly package built for jobsite realities: short windows, mixed crews, and zero appetite for trial-and-error.
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Our HPEP tears apart rock and concrete from the inside-out, making it ideal for utility work and the best method for breaking reinforced concrete structures using just our tool, some water, and a simple drill
HPEP's quiet operation, virtually dust-free fracture, and low vibration let you work near occupied buildings and sensitive utilities while staying within environmental guidelines and avoiding permitting delays, neighborhood complaints, and stop-work friction that derail schedules.
HPEP tames the unpredictable, high-friction rock & piling timelines that consume labor hours, burn through rentals, and trigger delays that cascade across your schedule. By cutting these segments to hours, not days, HPEP compresses direct labor and supervision time, shortens equipment rental periods, and reduces costs for crews and machines waiting on trenching. Your cost per cubic yard drops as productive volume per shift climbs while labor and equipment spend shrinks.
Risk and variability fall, too. Because HPEP uses no blasting or chemicals, you don’t require special permits, premium insurance, complex mobilization, and neighborhood diplomacy that often accompany blasting. Minimal vibration lowers the likelihood of damage claims, utility strikes, and rework near fragile assets. Quieter operation and less dust cut ancillary spend on water trucks, mitigation gear, and after-hour premiums. Experienced contractors know that these problems the HPEP solves aren’t edge cases; on most jobs, they can distort a job from profitable to marginal.
From a capital perspective, HPEP functions as a utilization asset. It unlocks jobs you might otherwise pass on, accelerates backlog conversion, and protects margin on fixed-price work by turning the worst-case trench segments into predictable, schedulable tasks. In short, HPEP does more than make crews faster; it makes project schedules more certain.
Stop Letting Bedrock & Reinforced Concrete Eat Your Margin
HPEP does more than break rock - it's the smarter, faster way to ensure bedrock & reinforced-concrete breaking stops eating your margin.
▶️ Contact a representative to spec your first HPEP System at petramtechnologies.com
