What is good for digging Small Trenches

[SOS]

I need a 3pt hitch tool for digging some small trenches. It has to be cheap as my financial advisor (wife) is already at her limit with the cost of the tractor.

Here is what I want to do:

• Bury plastic drain pipes from the house's gutters (about 6 to 8 inches) I need to run the drains about 30 to 40 feet away
• Trench water away from paths to drain into the woods
• Run some power cables to a few telephone poles for outside lights around the house (about 50 to 100 feet)

What do you all use besides a shovel and you back?

 

[johnk]

I used a middle buster to dig my trenches to bury 4" corragated drain. Worked ok.

 

[chrisjbell]

Rent a trencher.

I've used my mid buster for trenches and it does work OK. I saw a thread on here where someone rigged up a pipe and ran it down the back of the mid buster to lay direct burial wire (or maybe it was flexible water line?). I also have a backhoe, which is better except it is slow and makes a fairly wide trench.

With a small trencher you can move pretty quick. The ride on size is even better and you can dig lots of feet of trench in a day. My soil is pretty rocky and the trencher just hauled through it.

 

[SOS]

I guess mine are only 4 inches. How much soil do you need on the top of the pipe to let grass grow? My question is how deap do you have to dig the ditch?

 

[john_bud]

I guess mine are only 4 inches. How much soil do you need on the top of the pipe to let grass grow? My question is how deap do you have to dig the ditch?

Deeper than your deepest implement will reach (lol!).

Grass will grow with 4" of soil, but will be happy with 12".

jb

 

[LarryD]

I found my roof drains when I laid waterlines to the pastures, didn't even slow the trencher down.

They were only about 6" under ground and when I went to make repairs, I found they were crushed more than a foot beyond my trench. With all the roots inside them and the ground showing no depressions from the trencher, I can only conclude they were probably crushed before I bought the house. I did make a temporary repair but they will be set to a greater depth this summer, at least 18" for me.

As for trenching, I would layout (paint lines with marking paint) everything I wanted to put in the ground and rent a trencher. I was able to dig 700' of waterline in one day in my very rocky soil. I think the rental was less than $200 for the ride on one and it was faster and cleaner than a backhoe.

 

[RalphVa]

Renting a trencher is probably your best choice, unless you want to use a trenching shovel, which is about a 4" wide shovel with about a 30 degree angle to it.

People with a Gravely rotary plow have used them to dig trenches. They really ought to make this available as a 3 ph device. Having it on the 3 pt would make keeping it in place a lot easier for when you hit a rock with it; wouldn't try to rip your shoulders off then. They could easily just change the rotating end of a PHD to a rotary plow rig.

Ralph

 

[Tom_H]

I bought a sub-soiler/middlebuster (1 frame/2 interchangable bits) combo (a bit over $100) from N.H. Northern. You could use the sub-soiler bit for the trenching and the middlebuster bit for the small swale. A rear blade or box blade could be used for the finish work, or using the underneath edge of a FEL while driving backwards could be used for finish work.

You might also look into renting a trencher.

 

[schmism]

id say drag type (middle buster whatever) are only good for a depth up to about a 8-12"

if you want anything deeper than that rent a trencher or backhoe.

 

[Tom_H]

id say drag type (middle buster whatever) are only good for a depth up to about a 8-12"

if you want anything deeper than that rent a trencher or backhoe.

I completely agree. He seems to have in mind very shallow trenches for the irrigation pipes, but he didn't say how deep he wanted the open drainage. For open drainage that's deep and/or has steep sides, the backhoe is probably needed. For a swale, you could rip with any type plow, then grade it out with a good box blade. To be efficient, top and tilt would be good, but here we're talking $$$.