Who We Are….Where We Came From

Big Iron Drilling was founded by Ray Field and his father George Field (1906-2003), both of whom have been directly involved in the water supply industry since 1957.

The business started in 1957, in the basement of the family home, where a simple manual water softener was designed and assembled for distribution to farmers who did not have running water.  Many hundreds of these units were sold to Alberta farmers in the late 1950’s.

Ray is still fully active in the Company as is his wife, Elaine and their son George.  Ray and Elaine’s daughters Susan and Jane have been raised in the business all their life and have both been fully active for years. However, raising seven children between them (five boys and 2 girls, age 4 to 22), has taken them temporarily from working full time in the business.

Ray and Elaine have always attributed Big Iron’s success to the high caliber of people working for the Company.

“That, combined with a stubborn determination to be more creative and sensibly divergent than our competitors, has been the secret to our success. The future of the domestic water treatment and water well drilling industries lies in new and innovative technology”, says Ray.

"The marketplace is shouting for new innovative products to facilitate solutions to problems that have not been addressed in the joint industries of water treatment and water well drilling for  over 60 years". 

From the late 1950’s until 1968, the primary business of the company was the installation of running water to farmers in north central Alberta (within 100 miles of Edmonton) in all directions.  Thousands of pressure systems were installed and running water was supplied into farmers' homes.

The company owned seven Case 530 Tractor Mounted backhoes and a crew of 20 to 30 men in the field.  It was a great life. George Field Sr. often commented, "nothing was more satisfying and invigorating than to see the tears of joy from farmers when a tap was turned on in their home for the very first time.  It was really remarkable.'

Ray says, “that experience hooked us on the water business for good.  We knew that nothing else could ever beat it”. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, that farmers would eventually get watered up, the company diversified into the water well drilling business in September 1963.

A Bucyrus Erie 22W Cable Tool rig was purchased and the name Big Iron Drilling came into use.  Because of the attractiveness of the name, the original company name was changed to Big Iron Drilling and the rest is history.

The installation of running water to farmers ended in 1968 and the backhoes were sold. Since then, the company stayed actively involved in water well drilling, pump installation and the manufacture and marketing of water treating equipment in Canada and subsequently the U.S.A.

Ray firmly believes that the strength of Big Iron Drilling and its various operations is the result of what he calls “onlyness”.  We are the “only” company of our kind anywhere in the world that has developed the high number and quality of products we sell. Nobody else has anything to compare with the voluminous amount of unique, high quality inventions that we have.

Also, the National Research Council of Canada has been of major assistance, both financially and scientifically in the development of many of our products.

This small Canadian Company has successful operations in both Canada and the U.S.A. with its International profile growing as well.