Who are you as a business? How many employees do you have?
We are a small design and manufacturing company in southeastern West Virginia, Greenbrier County, currently producing the Micro-Blaster line of rock and concrete breaking systems. We currently have three full-time employees and three part-time employees and are supported by a number of independent representatives and dealers. Major components for our systems are produced by independent vendors.
When did you start your business and why?
Ezebreak is two years old and was created to develop and market the Micro-Blaster line of products and accessories.
What products do you have and what services do you offer?
Our products consist of Micro-Blaster Systems and accessories. Our services include consulting for small-scale demolition on sensitive or difficult projects.
Can you describe the Micro-Blaster and how it works?
The Micro-Blaster II is a compact demolition system for the breaking of hard rock and concrete. Using proprietary gas-producing cartridges to generate pressures up to 100,000 psi, materials are cracked from within without the need for special licenses. A 5/16-inch diameter by 10-inch- to 16-inch-deep hole is all that's needed to place cartridges — greatly reducing hole-drilling requirements over traditional techniques. Triggered remotely by a pulse of 100 psi air or CO2, the system can be configured to initiate up to six simultaneous shots, allowing masses of up to several tons to be cracked in one shot. Fly rock is virtually eliminated, greatly enhancing the safety of the system and allowing use in almost any environment. Our most popular system is the Micro-Blaster IIx3 Kit, which allows users to employ one, two or three cracking heads, yielding a very scalable system capable of breaking material from a couple of hundred pounds to several tons. Ezebreak also manufacturers a single head system, the Micro-Blaster I, which is triggered remotely by a 25-foot lanyard. This unit has become very popular with farmers and rural land owners for removing the tops of rocks in fields and farm roads, eliminating the necessity for removing the entire rock by excavating and leaving a hole that then needs to be filled.
What is your service area? Do you have multiple offices, etc.?
We distribute through a dealer network primarily in the U.S. and Canada with growing interest in other countries.
What do you do in the way of safety, green, etc.?
All our products have been designed to be as safe as possible. We have sold over 130,000 Micro-Blaster cartridges with no incidents of injury reported. Our systems have the smallest "carbon footprint" of any available demolition system both in materials required for use and materials consumed in use. Cartridges are biodegradable.
What new products or processes have you been using?
Proprietary gas-producing cartridges developed by Ezebreak.
What is the best job you have ever done?
I was in San Diego this spring doing demo's of our systems and visited an 8-foot-diameter underground water pipeline project next to an Interstate which had come to a stop when a section of granite outcrop was encountered at the bottom of the 12-foot-wide by 20-foot-deep trench. Traditional blasting was prohibited because of the proximity of the interstate, and the "Hoe-Rams" that were brought in to break the rock were making very slow progress. We pre-cracked the granite with a Micro-Blaster IIx3 system — greatly increasing the effectiveness of the available equipment from slowly making gravel to removing large chunks.
Why do you think that people should use your services rather than those of others?
Our product is used by contractors, excavators, geologists, trail builders, and farmers. The system will save users countless hours of difficult labor and greatly enhance the use of hydraulic or jack hammers in demolition projects by pre-cracking hard materials. Our technology will save users both time and money and is fun to use — often paying for itself on the first use.
