mkgrady
Senior Member
- Location
- Massachusetts
I'll be pricing a job at a condominium where they have about 55 post lights. The posts and lights are 22 years old. Posts are cedar with no concrete, just dirt. About 15 of them are 10 feet above grade along a road. The rest are in courtyards off the road and closer to the buildings. All are being replaced.
It's a tough tome of year to price this work because of all the snow but they want to get started on a budget before the snow melts and the ground thaws. I'm told the post lights are fed with UF cable direct buried from 4-5 buildings.
So I'm picturing, when I dig up a post I will mostly find two UF cables running up the inside of each post. I hope they left a little slack at the bottom. I will need to remove the UF and send it up a new post. The new posts are going to be vinyl. The taller ones will have a galvy pipe in the center and will need to be backfilled with concrete. The shorter ones can be backfilled with just dirt. In both cases the new post will be an inch or two wider than the existing which are all 4-1/2 inches wide.
My question is about labor and ideas. Can anybody help with manhours per post? The area has a lot of rock so the digging will likely be difficult at times. I will take exception to having to cut into any ledge (don't know if there is any) but I expect to find some rocks in the backfill. Any ideas that could make the job easier? One idea I had was to protect the old UF with a pvc sleeve while the digging is going on but that can't happen until I get the old post out of the way.
Thanks in advance, Mike
It's a tough tome of year to price this work because of all the snow but they want to get started on a budget before the snow melts and the ground thaws. I'm told the post lights are fed with UF cable direct buried from 4-5 buildings.
So I'm picturing, when I dig up a post I will mostly find two UF cables running up the inside of each post. I hope they left a little slack at the bottom. I will need to remove the UF and send it up a new post. The new posts are going to be vinyl. The taller ones will have a galvy pipe in the center and will need to be backfilled with concrete. The shorter ones can be backfilled with just dirt. In both cases the new post will be an inch or two wider than the existing which are all 4-1/2 inches wide.
My question is about labor and ideas. Can anybody help with manhours per post? The area has a lot of rock so the digging will likely be difficult at times. I will take exception to having to cut into any ledge (don't know if there is any) but I expect to find some rocks in the backfill. Any ideas that could make the job easier? One idea I had was to protect the old UF with a pvc sleeve while the digging is going on but that can't happen until I get the old post out of the way.
Thanks in advance, Mike