trenching cost

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I did this very same job once. It was to allow additional wires for telephone and cable service to be brought to the home I was renting. It took me about 4 hours. I did not charge myself for the work. ;)

(Sorry. Couldn't resist. :happyno: )
 
took me about 4 hours

You must be in one of the rare areas here without big rocks, eh?
Dug a 170 foot long 2ft deep 18" wide trench last year on Kent east hill for a PSE service, took 4 hours with a bobcat backhoe!
 
pulsar69 said:
how much to charge to hand dig a trench 80feet by 18 inches in standard grass/dirt
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Standard grass/dirt is not descriptive enough to determine how difficult this task may be, even with certain power equipment doing the digging.

If I didn't have the equipment though I would consider either subcontracting that or going to a rental place to get the equipment to do it. If soil is easy digging I may consider hand digging but 80 feet is about the longest distance I would hand dig. At some point your labor will be more then renting equipment.
 
pulsar69 said:
how much to charge to hand dig a trench 80feet by 18 inches in standard grass/dirt
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"standard" dirt around here is something called caleche,
it's a cross between adobe, and stainless steel, but harder
and stickier. the kind where the teeth from a backhoe
bucket leave blue black shiny marks in it.

you "dig" it with a clay spade on a jackhammer.
or a backhoe.

if i had to do that with a little hilti demo hammer with
a clay spade on it, about $500.

$100 for the home depot parking lot technician,
and $400 for me providing the jackhammer, and lunch.
 
a few years back I had a gas line run out to the garage to replace the one that sprung a leak.

the plumbers hired a temp to do the trench digging. they said they had to pay a minimum of 4 hours for him even if he were able to dig the trench faster than four hours.

i installed some UF and a telephone cable in pvc conduit in the same trench. probably not deep enough for code and I never actually hooked the telephone wires up to anything.

filling the trench back in was not all that hard. :)
 
One time out at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center they needed a 14' diameter 30' deep hole dug vertically in a dirt embankment, and lined with steel sections.
The 14 dimension in the request for bids was based on the largest boring machine available locally.
Winning bid was six hippies with hand tools:
Two guys at the bottom, one with pick and one with shovel.
One guy at the top with rope and bucket, one guy to keep people from falling in the hole.
The sixth guy was the boss. :)

Tapatalk!
 
Fulthrotl said:
"standard" dirt around here is something called caleche,
it's a cross between adobe, and stainless steel, but harder
and stickier. the kind where the teeth from a backhoe
bucket leave blue black shiny marks in it.

you "dig" it with a clay spade on a jackhammer.
or a backhoe.

if i had to do that with a little hilti demo hammer with
a clay spade on it, about $500.

$100 for the home depot parking lot technician,
and $400 for me providing the jackhammer, and lunch.
Click to expand...

We come across that out here quite often when we're running power to irrigation pivots for crop circles. One job we were on the farmer was running a good sized trackhoe and hit a shelf of that stuff underground. Just one spot about 100' long in one of his ditches. He couldn't punch through it with the teeth on the bucket, so he had to rent a jackhammer attachment.

I cringe anytime I know I have to drive rods in an area with that stuff!:rant:
 
Winning bid was six hippies with hand tools: Tapatalk![/QUOTE said:
We were never hippies, but when we built out first house back in the early '70's, DW and I hand dug a 36" dia, 18 ft deep well for our water supply - could not afford to hire a well driller.

Digging bar, posthole digger, bucket. I'd dig, vacuum cleaner on blower to supply breathing air, pull bucket up to DW who would send down and empty and then empty the full, repeat.

After a few hours would pull myself out of the hole with the rope. Recall it took a number of days to finish

If I tried that now, would likely get stuck n the hole and need to call 911 to pull me out <G>
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