Preparing to do some trenching

[kert]

I'm getting ready to do some trenching to get electricity and water to my barn. I will require 2 ~100' trenches. While I have the trencher, I'm considering a 3rd trench for a drain tile from one of my downspouts. This will require another 100' or so and I'm wondering if this is too much to do in one weekend. The ground is pretty hard in places, the electric and drainage trenches will cross the gravel driveway, and I have a couple trees to go around. The ground isn't too rocky (except for the drive). What do you think, is this a reasonable weekend project maybe spilling into the next week to backfill?

 

[HoseB]

Depends on the trencher, the ground and the depth. Fire that sucker up and start digging. You'll know pretty quickly how it's going to go. I've done jobs before where it took longer to pick up/deliver the trencher than it did to do the job itself.

 

[kert]

Depends on the trencher, the ground and the depth. Fire that sucker up and start digging. You'll know pretty quickly how it's going to go. I've done jobs before where it took longer to pick up/deliver the trencher than it did to do the job itself.

yeah, the problem is if I'm going to do the tile, I'd like to have a load of crushed stone on hand and it's hard to find a gravel pit that is open on Saturday. I guess I can either just plan to find other uses if I don't use it, it's not that expensive and I can always find uses, or wait till Monday to backfill the tile trench.

 

[REPO]

I would just get the trenches dug and return the machine, then fill in at your leisure.

 

[ForceFed70]

What I found when digging a 2' trench is that the hardness of the soil didn't really slow down the trencher too badly. But rocks and roots were another matter. Depending on the trencher, a rock the size of a softball or larger will cause you some greif. A Rock the size of a football will often need to be dug out by hand.

I did a section with few rocks but was hard clay and 50' only took about 15 minutes. Whereas another section with alot of rock took 2hrs to go the same distance.

 

[71blackcheyenne]

I did a 350' long, 3' deep trench with my bobcat in mostly hard clay, it took about 1.5 hours to do it, 15 minutes to lay the 4/0 x 3 cable, and about 45 minutes of backfilling/cleanup

 

[skyking]

Sounds nearly identical to what I have to do next week. 200' , 100 in dirt and 100 in kind of rocky stuff. I hope it goes ok. I have procrastinated too long.I need gas and elec run.Dont know much about either but have good neighbors to guide me. Trying to beat the cold .I am calling for the free underground marking next week so I wont tear things up.

 

[Cougar]

If you don't have many rocks it shouldn't be a problem.
Why two trenches.

I dug one trench, ran a fuel run, 2 conduits and a water line.

Rented a ditch witch for mine, about 150'. Should have had it done in a few hours.
Problem is we have lots of rocks, plus I hit a few boulders.
Finally gave up and called in a backhoe.

 

[KEH]

Re: rocks in trench. Sometimes I have that problem with postholes. I have a large steel bar, 5 feet long, over an inch in diameter, flattened and sharpened on one end and a large flat surface on the other end. Sold at Lowes, etc. Good for breaking up or more often dislodging rocks. If you hit a big rock that you can't dig around you will have to change the route.

KEH

 

[Cougar]

Re: rocks in trench. Sometimes I have that problem with postholes. I have a large steel bar, 5 feet long, over an inch in diameter, flattened and sharpened on one end and a large flat surface on the other end. Sold at Lowes, etc. Good for breaking up or more often dislodging rocks. If you hit a big rock that you can't dig around you will have to change the route.

KEH

I made something like that.
When I built the deck, dug 21 holes, hit rocks in most of them. That was a PIA.

 

[kert]

If you don't have many rocks it shouldn't be a problem.
Why two trenches.

I dug one trench, ran a fuel run, 2 conduits and a water line.

Rented a ditch witch for mine, about 150'. Should have had it done in a few hours.
Problem is we have lots of rocks, plus I hit a few boulders.
Finally gave up and called in a backhoe.

The water line is already at the back of the barn, and the electric needs to be in the front. I really prefer having the water separate anyway; makes it less dangerous if I ever have to dig it up.