Digging Trench with Pressure Washer

[bruceha2000]

It did make a nice narrow trench but wouldn't work here. My trench would be substantially wider. I can't dig anywhere without hitting rocks. I had to dig up rocks to put in a T post for the end of a cordwood stack. I tried about an 12" diameter around my chosen location. Nope, rocks.

 

[Fuddy1952]

Years ago my farmer neighbor showed me what I thought was an easy way to dig a trench. We took a scrap metal bar, about 1/2"X3" about 4ft long, drilled two holes in it to bolt to back of my tractor. Then a post hole dug about 2ft. down, put bar into it and bolted to tractor. Then I just drove it along.

 

[Mace Canute]

He did dig to 18". Not sure what type of wire used or if conduit was also used. I do like the idea of how you can cross other pipes or wires with no damage.

If you aren't careful you can damage the insulation on cables especially if you are using a high pressure high volume pressure washer. Once you are close to the buried cable it's prudent to reduce the line pressure quite a bit (as long as it still chews away the dirt) and after the cable is visible keep the water stream off the cable as much as possible. Just a little bit of advice from an old experienced power Lineman; we used to make extensive use of hydrovacing to expose all sorts of buried services.

 

[Gary Fowler]

There is a professional company called "Hydro-Trench" that we used in Canada a lot for trenching where we knew that there was underground pipelines. They use high pressure water jets to dig and a vacuum truck to remove the water and mud. There is no danger of breaking a pipe or electrical line using this equipment.