Trenching and plowing

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About ten years ago, a local boring company unknowingly severed a gas line about a mile from our shop. About an hour later the gas found it's way underground into a nearby empty building and an ignition source. The old brick building was absolutely leveled.

The fire department was standing by on site in case there was an incident but apparently no one smelled the gas from the closed up building.

 

[peter d]

This is interesting. Here in New England our soil type consists of rocks, rocks and more rocks. A mini excavator is the only really viable way to do this job. I have heard of people attempting to use the plows and trenchers here but they usually give them up pretty quickly after hitting so many rocks.

 

[hurk27]

This is interesting. Here in New England our soil type consists of rocks, rocks and more rocks. A mini excavator is the only really viable way to do this job. I have heard of people attempting to use the plows and trenchers here but they usually give them up pretty quickly after hitting so many rocks.

We have had the owners of a property or a CG tell us that there was nothing ever buried there, but after breaking a trencher chain, we get a small excavator, and dig up concrete chunks, bricks, metal, rebars, you name it, and can clearly be seen it was from the recent remodel

 

[iwire]

This is interesting. Here in New England our soil type consists of rocks, rocks and more rocks. A mini excavator is the only really viable way to do this job. I have heard of people attempting to use the plows and trenchers here but they usually give them up pretty quickly after hitting so many rocks.

I agree.

A few years ago they installed fiber optic lines in the medians and sides of the local highways and they did a lot of this work with vibratory plows that looked like they went down 4'. However the equipment was huge, probably several hundred horsepower, 50,000 lb machines with monster truck tires and at times they where dragging those with a large bulldozer. They also had to stop a lot and resort to traditional excavators.

 

[don_resqcapt19]

About ten years ago, a local boring company unknowingly severed a gas line about a mile from our shop. About an hour later the gas found it's way underground into a nearby empty building and an ignition source. The old brick building was absolutely leveled.

The fire department was standing by on site in case there was an incident but apparently no one smelled the gas from the closed up building.

That is why, in Illinois, you have to expose all located utilities along the bore route before you bore the hole. Most times they use a vacuum excavator truck to expose the utilities.

 

[infinity]

How does one inspect the burial depth of a bored hole?

 

[Cavie]

How does one inspect the burial depth of a bored hole?

Direct bore machine will tell you how deep it is while drillinig. A $1500.00 tracer will tell you how deep it is after you install the wire.