Trench through gravel driveway?

   / Trench through gravel driveway? #1  

DirtyHandsCleanSoul

New member
Joined
Feb 21, 2012
Messages
9
Location
SW Ontario
Tractor
JD
I want to run About 300' of electrical service through my farmyard to a new barn. The kicker is that its straight through the gravel yard. The yard thats been getting compacted by a 40t feedtruck twice a week for 15 years.

Is that something a trencher can do or will I need to hire a backhoe? I really don't know what trenchers are capable of.

There's a Ventrac attachment for trenches in my local classifieds, says 40" deep, 4.5" wide. Would that do they job?
 
   / Trench through gravel driveway? #2  
A good size ride on trencher will goe right through a gravel driveway. You may want to have a pile of fresh of fresh gravel to backfill the whole trench with though. If you backfill with the spoils you will see the trench line for quite a while ( years). That may be a good thing as you will always know where your trench is.
I have never used a tractor mounted trencher so I don't know how strong they are, stay away from the small walk behind ones. You need weight to keep that stinger down. We used two types of chains on the trenchers, some had cupped teeth that made a nice clean trench in clay type soil. The other was a frost chain with carbide teeth, great for frost, rocky soil, etc.
 
   / Trench through gravel driveway? #3  
I have never had any problems with a good trencher crossing hard packed driveways. I do reommend that you scrape up the gravel first in two piles, a clean pile to top dress with and the dirty gravel to put back as base.
 
   / Trench through gravel driveway? #4  
I have cut through solid rock with a similar sized trencher on a toro dingo I rented. It took awhile but chipped through it so I think your driveway will be no problem.
 
 
 
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