Dig a new trench or bury pipe/conduit in the ditch?

[moparrob]

Our little ranch is 4.7 acres, 910' long by 225' wide. The driveway goes from the street along the south side of the lot, up a 16% grade about 800' to our home building site. Along the north side of the road is a rocky ditch, about 2' wide by about 1' deep, a steep embankment that varies from 3' to 5' tall, then fence and cow pasture.

I need to run a water pipe and phone/cable tv conduit from the well (about 100' from the street and about 5' north of the driveway) another 700' up the hill to our homesite.

Should i dig a dedicated trench inside the pasture parallel to the driveway, or can i just dig the ditch deeper and bury the pipe and conduit with rock and gravel?

Our soil consists of grapefruit sized rock held together with talcum powder dirt, and with the steep grade, oaks and manzanitas all over (and cows wandering about), digging a trench in the pasture sounds challenging at best.

Any suggestions or thoughts?

 

[sixdogs]

I'd go for the ditch and make sure I got it deep enough. Also, if others are reading this where frost is a big issue, I have seen rocks backfilled that wound up breaking pipes during the freeze/thaw process. Softer dirt or gravel is better against the pipe.

 

[s219]

Is there a reason it would be easier to dig a trench in the ditch versus pasture? Soil the same either way, right? And required depth will be the same too. Not dealing with electrical code for the phone/tv cable so that can be fairly shallow if in conduit, but certainly you want the water line to be at a certain depth to protect it (probably not a freeze issue where you are, but just for damage protection you want it down a bit). If the soil is as rocky as described, you really should bring in clean sand/fill to backfill the trench. Filling with rocky soil is a challenge, not to mention risks damage to the buried lines/pipes.

Me, I'd prefer a clean trench that isn't in a ditch that is intended to collect and channel water. It just seems smarter to me. I'd pick the pasture.

 

[Utopia Texas]

I'd go with pasture. In the future if the ditch needs to be further excavated for drainage the utility lines couLd cause someone a huge headache.

 

[amaxwell]

Our little ranch is 4.7 acres, 910' long by 225' wide. The driveway goes from the street along the south side of the lot, up a 16% grade about 800' to our home building site. Along the north side of the road is a rocky ditch, about 2' wide by about 1' deep, a steep embankment that varies from 3' to 5' tall, then fence and cow pasture.

I need to run a water pipe and phone/cable tv conduit from the well (about 100' from the street and about 5' north of the driveway) another 700' up the hill to our homesite.

Should i dig a dedicated trench inside the pasture parallel to the driveway, or can i just dig the ditch deeper and bury the pipe and conduit with rock and gravel?

Our soil consists of grapefruit sized rock held together with talcum powder dirt, and with the steep grade, oaks and manzanitas all over (and cows wandering about), digging a trench in the pasture sounds challenging at best.

Any suggestions or thoughts?

When my water line was installed 20+ years ago in rocky soil, we couldn't get as deep as we wanted in a few places so we slipped a 3" pipe over the 1" water line in those places to protect the water line from being damaged, and also help to prevent from freeze damage. If your pasture is higher than the ditch top I would go for the pasture for more depth. Would there be a danger of soil washing the ditch bottom deeper resulting in the pipes being partially exposed in the future?

 

[SPIKER]

Pasture not in ditch...

fill with soil out of hole as long as rocks in bottom and fill are removed if they are of any real size or put them in very top of fill.

M

 

[woodlandfarms]

If you choose not to run the phone / cable with the water (why you would not I do not know) make sure you run a trace wire along the pipe.

 

[leonz]

Our little ranch is 4.7 acres, 910' long by 225' wide. The driveway goes from the street along the south side of the lot, up a 16% grade about 800' to our home building site. Along the north side of the road is a rocky ditch, about 2' wide by about 1' deep, a steep embankment that varies from 3' to 5' tall, then fence and cow pasture.

I need to run a water pipe and phone/cable tv conduit from the well (about 100' from the street and about 5' north of the driveway) another 700' up the hill to our homesite.

Should i dig a dedicated trench inside the pasture parallel to the driveway, or can i just dig the ditch deeper and bury the pipe and conduit with rock and gravel?

Our soil consists of grapefruit sized rock held together with talcum powder dirt, and with the steep grade, oaks and manzanitas all over (and cows wandering about), digging a trench in the pasture sounds challenging at best.

Any suggestions or thoughts?

============================================================================


I feel your pain,

Bad News is the trench needs to go in the pasture below frost depth being 36-48 inches.

NOW

1.you need to invest in a measuring wheel and I will explain why:

2. you need to purchase a 1,000 foot spool of plastic water pipe rather than small rolls as you do not want to use
8-10 couplers and hose clamps with direct contact to the earth. It will cost you less per foot too

3. about your TV cable and phone needs I would invest in 2 more reels of the heavy thickness poly water pipe for it.

The electrician will use a pipe pig by attaching a nylon twine to the pig and blasting it from the road side to the
opening at the house end with compressed air and then pull the cables through the plastic pipes for you using a
wire cable winch and cable lube.

You need to/you should bed the pipe with sand to protect it and prevent it from being punctured by rocks.

You can then use heavy black tie wraps to bundle the poly pipe together on the surface if the ground and then bury it.

A little tip here- be sure to have the cable and phone lines pulled through the pipe before you lay everything in the trench.

It would be worth your time to also have an extra run of pipe in the bundle for another use or as a spare conduit run.

 

[SPIKER]

Forgot to add that when covering the trench that having the lines pressurized will help them live when a large pile of dirt drops onto them. an empty line (no water or air pressure) has to totally handle all the stress & forces by means of pure physical ability of the material it is made from. If you lay all the lines in the trench fill them with water and cap both ends that reinforces them a great deal during the back filling process. Hard lines are less susceptible to back fill damage but can still happen.

M

 

[BKBoiss]

What those last couple guys said is all good. I would like to give you an idea that the electrician who was just putting in the services for our new shop gave us. This guy has been doing this for 25+ years and he had us dig the trench, lay in a bed of sand, lay in the electrical and other lines, lay more sand a few inches thick, lay pressure treated 2x4, a layer of backfill on that and then the warning tape and the rest of the back fill. He said he has done this for years and if you ever need to dig up a section you dig till you get to the warning tape then you gently dig along the top of the 2x4 and the rest is sand and easy to dig with a shovel.