Trenching and plowing

[fourteen/two]

Looking at a job to install a 120v receptacle by a outdoor sitting area for low volt lights. The receptacle will be located 250' from the house.

The lawn is sodded and nicely taken cared of, so I'm not looking to turn the job into a landscaping project.

A vibrating plow looks like it would be a good fit for the job. But I have no experience with them.

Would the plow work for installing UF cable or conduit?

Or should I dig a proper ditch and tell the owner I'm not responsible for repair the sod and getting the lawn back to orginal condition?

I'm open to any other suggestions or similar experiences you made of had.

 

[hardworkingstiff]

I'm open to any other suggestions .....

Maybe ask the owner if he takes care of the yard or has someone help him? If someone helps him, maybe you can get him to provide the trenching, backfilling, and restoration?

 

[LarryFine]

There's also horizontal boring, which doesn't affect the surface except at starting and ending points (plus intermediate points over a certain distance.)

 

[BryanMD]

thats a long way and a lot of work for just a single 120v receptacle...
upsell. the cost for more/heavier wire and some more hdwr will be negligible.

maybe there is a three point route rather than a straightline to sell him on?
with a drop at the mid way spot (shed building down along the fence?)
then turn into the yard from the side to get power to the sitting area
and not tear up as much sod right in the middle of the lawn

 

[bpk]

A past contractor I worked for had a small Vibratory plow. It was much better and faster than trenching. As long as the ground wasnt really soft it left very little evidence of burying wire. At some rental centers around here you can rent them for about 260$ a day, but they are well worth it. In average soil conditions you could plow 250 feet in a morning.

 

[480sparky]

But how far down can a $260/day vib-plow go? Most I've seen (at least the 'pedestrian' types) are mainly for irrigation / CATV / telephone systems and only go 6" or so. Something that can pull a 10/2 UF at least 24" down would have to be driven by something bigger than a lawn-mower engine with wheels.

 

[iMuse97]

We had a knife next to the chain trencher on the ditch witch that would give you the 24" depth every time (Big DitchWitch). We used it to install a lot of UF. In this area there is a lot of clay soil and the vibrating plows I'm thinking of are used to install irrigation/sprinkler systems, and it seems that they can't go very deep in the clay.

 

[Cavie]

We had a knife next to the chain trencher on the ditch witch that would give you the 24" depth every time (Big DitchWitch). We used it to install a lot of UF. In this area there is a lot of clay soil and the vibrating plows I'm thinking of are used to install irrigation/sprinkler systems, and it seems that they can't go very deep in the clay.

We install 2" HDPT conduit 3' deep with a plow attached to a ditch which

 

[bpk]

Ours was a Vermeer LM25 I believe. It was a walk beside vibratory plow and would bury cable 36" down when the chute was all the way down. It had a 25 horsepower deutz diesel engine. The ones I have seen at rental places around here have been DitchWitch SX plows. The chute was too small for conduit but you could plow 4/0 URD ok. Just my personal opinion but on any underground over 100' they are far superior than renting a walk behind trencher, and they are pretty easy to operate.

 

[Sierrasparky]

Ours was a Vermeer LM25 I believe. It was a walk beside vibratory plow and would bury cable 36" down when the chute was all the way down. It had a 25 horsepower deutz diesel engine. The ones I have seen at rental places around here have been DitchWitch SX plows. The chute was too small for conduit but you could plow 4/0 URD ok. Just my personal opinion but on any underground over 100' they are far superior than renting a walk behind trencher, and they are pretty easy to operate.

Sounds like the way to go!

 

[220/221]

A properly backfilled trench will look like new in about a month or two.

I have installed shallow LV wire with a tool designed for planter edging. It's a simple square flat blade on a T handle that you simply push into the ground about 8" with your foot and wiggle back and forth to open up the soil. When you tamp it back in place it returns to normal after a good watering.

If the soil conditions were right, I bet you could open up a big enough slot to get 12" depth for your PVC using this method and a modified tool. 250' is a helluva long way but, in the right conditions, it's nothing a laborer couldn't do in a day.

 

[LarryFine]

I gather nobody liked my suggestion in post 3?

 

[hurk27]

I gather nobody liked my suggestion in post 3?

We have a land scaper who will bore up to 2" PVC in the ground for us, but it's about $3.00 a foot, with a minimum of $400.00 before he will bring his equipment out. it kind of stops us from using him unless there is no-way to get there with one of our trenchers or plows.

We had a boring machine but a few years ago, the guy who ran it, bored right through a 16" large sewer line, 8" gas main, and the primaries, feeding the whole downtown, all in one stroke. cost us over $30k. end of the boring, the machine was sold very soon after that.

even had locates, just the spoter lost the end and didn't tell him to stop.:roll:

 

[LarryFine]

We have a land scaper who will bore up to 2" PVC in the ground for us, but it's about $3.00 a foot, with a minimum of $400.00 before he will bring his equipment out. it kind of stops us from using him unless there is no-way to get there with one of our trenchers or plows.

If the customer wants the yard undisturbed, them's the costs.

We had a boring machine but a few years ago, the guy who ran it, bored right through a 16" large sewer line, 8" gas main, and the primaries, feeding the whole downtown, all in one stroke. cost us over $30k. end of the boring, the machine was sold very soon after that.

even had locates, just the spoter lost the end and didn't tell him to stop.:roll:

AKA operator error.

 

[aline]

We have a land scaper who will bore up to 2" PVC in the ground for us, but it's about $3.00 a foot, with a minimum of $400.00 before he will bring his equipment out. it kind of stops us from using him unless there is no-way to get there with one of our trenchers or plows.

So it would be $750 to bore 250 feet?
This sounds cheap to me.

 

[satcom]

So it would be $750 to bore 250 feet?
This sounds cheap to me.

That is a good deal, we never made decent money on jobs with trenching until we sent the work out, and marked-it up, and it allowed us to grow faster. we found the more work we sent out the job profits were better, but you have to remember, some guys are so down in the dirt with their pricing that nothing will help them increase their business or profits

 

[Ohmy]

Man this boring is sounding better every minute.

 

[Doug S.]

We had a boring machine but a few years ago, the guy who ran it, bored right through a 16" large sewer line, 8" gas main, and the primaries, feeding the whole downtown, all in one stroke. cost us over $30k. end of the boring, the machine was sold very soon after that.

even had locates, just the spoter lost the end and didn't tell him to stop.:roll:

Man this boring is sounding better every minute.

 

[220/221]

the guy who ran it, bored right through a 16" large sewer line, 8" gas main, and the primaries, feeding the whole downtown, all in one stroke. cost us over $30k

That's not boring

 

[hurk27]

That's not boring

Your right, it got kind of exciting, but not the kind of excitement I want to be around.:roll: