Borrow a TLB, or rent a trencher?

[aczlan]

So, I have some ditching coming in my life soon.
We need to put in a 4" drain line from the 3 horse stalls out to daylight (down the hill a little ways) and another one (4" or 6") down along a low spot to in or near the pond.

50-75 feet for the stalls and 300-400 feet for the low spot.

Dad has a Deere 755 TLB that I could use, but I would need to find a trailer as the one I have isnt heavy enough to handle it.
A local rental yard has a trencher that goes on a Dingo which would probably work for the stalls, but I dont think it would be big enough if we were to get 6" line to go in the low spot.

Would the convenience of the trencher be worth the extra $$ for the rental? I am leaning towards that for the stalls and using it to add a couple of tiles for low spots in the fields.
Is a 4" rated trencher going to make a big enough trench to put in a piece of 4" corrugated drain pipe?

Thanks in advance

Aaron Z

 

[Raspy]

I've done a lot of trenches on my place and always used my tractor and backhoe. Rental keeps going and if you need a break you can spend a day on something else with your Dad's tractor and not incur more costs. Are there rocks in your area? The trencher might have trouble if there is. I know the trailer is a hassle, but if you need the tractor for more than a day you can return the rental trailer and keep working on the project around your schedule. Plus, there will be no question that the trench will be wide enough.

I'd use the backhoe.

 

[BeezFun]

Is a 4" rated trencher going to make a big enough trench to put in a piece of 4" corrugated drain pipe?

Just to be clear, you're talking about perforated corrugated pipe, the kind that picks up water along it's length and carries it away, right? If it were me I'd use solid PVC that has holes in the bottom instead. If it plugs up with roots you can run a rod up there to clean it out, also easier to make sure you get the right pitch on it.

Anyway in either case the trencher's not big enough, you need to put gravel and landscape cloth around the pipe to keep roots and dirt out, and to allow pipe to pickup water from the soil. That means the trench needs to be wide enough so you can get some gravel on each side of the pipe. At first I thought you were talking about putting solid drain pipe in to connect to a drain in the stalls, which would be fine for a 4" trencher. But if you're talking perforated pipe, that size trencher won't work. I really prefer trenchers for this kind of thing, they're faster and make a cleaner cut, easier to backfill, less damage to the area because they're smaller and lighter. It takes awhile to get good enough with a backhoe to get a nice even pitch on the bottom of a trench. So if you can find a bigger trencher, I'd rent it.

 

[ray66v]

See if you can find a 6" trencher, and rent it.

If you can do it with a trencher, your better off using a trencher.

Sure, you can use the backhoe, you can also use a shovel, or a teaspoon.

I own a TLB. But, I also have enough sense to know when it's better to spend the money, and rent a trencher.

 

[aczlan]

There is a rental place that may have a 6" trencher. Have to call them and ask (and see what it costs). The benefit to the Dingo would be to get in the stalls (small enough to fit) and dig inside whereas the TLB would have to go in from the outside.
Will have to look at the PVC. Looks like it would be $75.5/100' vs $60/100' (If I am reading the descriptions properly)
The upside to the black corrugated stuff is that the previous owner left most of a roll under the barn...
Either way, the stuff in the horse stalls will need to be the the PVC as the black stuff that is in there has been crushed over time.

Aaron Z

 

[brokenot]

Virtually every major trencher manufacturer offers spacers kits for their trencher chains. Widening from a 4" to a 6" or 8" trench is simply a matter of removing some bolts and installing some spacers for the teeth.

Look at the bottom of this page under "accessories>>>chain widening kits":

Toro | High Torque (22473)

We rent out Dingos here too, but FWIW, I'd use a simple mechanical-drive walk behind trencher....not a hydraulically-driven one. They're faster and are much more efficient at transferring engine power into digging power. With a hydraulic "attachment-style" one, you can do things like reverse the chain direction if you lodge a rock in it or something, but they just don't have the same amount of digging "oomph". Not only that, but you'll be renting the Dingo AND an attachment. It will likely be more $$ than renting a dedicated trencher by itself.

Backhoes dig trenches too, but even a first-time trencher user will run circles around a skilled backhoe operator when it comes time to dig a simple trench...

 

[flusher]

So, I have some ditching coming in my life soon.
We need to put in a 4" drain line from the 3 horse stalls out to daylight (down the hill a little ways) and another one (4" or 6") down along a low spot to in or near the pond.

50-75 feet for the stalls and 300-400 feet for the low spot.

Dad has a Deere 755 TLB that I could use, but I would need to find a trailer as the one I have isnt heavy enough to handle it.
A local rental yard has a trencher that goes on a Dingo which would probably work for the stalls, but I dont think it would be big enough if we were to get 6" line to go in the low spot.

Would the convenience of the trencher be worth the extra $$ for the rental? I am leaning towards that for the stalls and using it to add a couple of tiles for low spots in the fields.
Is a 4" rated trencher going to make a big enough trench to put in a piece of 4" corrugated drain pipe?

Thanks in advance

Aaron Z

I assume you're talking about running non-perforated corrugated drain pipe to daylight in those trenches. That's really not much trench length. So I'd rent a walk behind trencher with 6" wide cut.

When I put in electric, water and gas service to my place in 2005, I rented a Ditch Witch 1330 at Home Depot for about $130/day. Dug about 1100 ft of trench 18-30" deep in about 8 hours. That trencher has a 12hp Honda engine. Only problem I had was the rope breaking on the recoil starter--20 minute repair job.

Good luck.

 

[Fixemall]

So, I have some ditching coming in my life soon.
We need to put in a 4" drain line from the 3 horse stalls out to daylight (down the hill a little ways) and another one (4" or 6") down along a low spot to in or near the pond.

50-75 feet for the stalls and 300-400 feet for the low spot.

Is a 4" rated trencher going to make a big enough trench to put in a piece of 4" corrugated drain pipe?

Thanks in advance

Aaron Z

Where you at in NY? There is a desperate landscaper with a big Trencher for sale cheap up the road from me, if I didn't already have one I'd buy it to make money on it the spring. You could probably buy it and use it all you wanted and then cash out ahead of the game.

 

[tractchores]

Having done something similar youll find a trencher works fine if the soil isnt too rocky, lots of rocks and its a nightmare. I ended up using a mini excavator with a very small bucket. The tlb would be very nice because the issue quickly becomes backfilling and or moving away dirt if you backfill or bed in gravel. The loader would be realky nice to hace for that. I didnt have my current tractor then but wish i did.

 

[radioman]

hmm, if you have the time, you "could" dig a trench with the L or BX FEL if you have no other implements. If you have a middle buster and like driving the tractor back and forth till trench is deep enough, its doable as you probably will not be going too deep.

The trenching machine is faster then TLB but nothing beats free and less worries about returning someone else's equipment. My BX BH could dig your trench in a day, but I would need a helper to keep things at correct slope at 10 degrees down by using a 8 ft 2X4 and level. When I had to dig a 12 ft hole in the city at rental property to find the sewer pipes, it took me all day since I had to dig a ramp doing down so my BH can dig deeper then 4-6 ft. I ended up burying it all as the sewer lines were sunk too far and it has to be above it around 4 ft.