Digging with one stabilizer

[zoltanthegypsy]

I like the diagonal idea

Another way to go if your soil is very hard to dig: face the wall with stabilizers down and scratch it in as far as you can reach side-to-side. Don't move the spoils and keep the bucket as vertical as you can. Keep it skinny. Then go back at it parallel to the wall w/one leg down and do the actual digging and loading.

That's making it way too complicated...

Z.

 

[dougtrr2]

Just curious as to how deep and close you are going. Will the trench have any effect on the stability of the footings or poles?

Doug in SW IA

 

[PA452]

Thanks guys. To be honest I wasn't getting email notifications of replies and kind of assumed this thread just went nowhere. :laughing: I should have known better.

I haven't had a chance to get into this project yet, but I'm leaning toward the idea of just backing in at an angle and trying to use both stabilizers while digging with the boom to the side. I've done this before when trenching out for a french drain in a very wet area so I wouldn't get stuck. The difference there was that I was able to swing the backhoe back to the center of the machine (other side of the trench) to dump the discard. In this case, I wouldn't be able to do that since I'm digging next to the building. Still, leaning toward that method, I think i can make it work.

As far as how deep and how close, I'm not sure yet. I believe it's mostly surface runoff that I'm getting, so I don't need to go real deep. On the uphill side I may go as shallow as a foot where I can. I expect though as I try to keep a downhill flow around the building I'll probably end up 2'+ down. How close, I'm not yet there either, but I'm guessing maybe 2-3' distance from the building at most. I'd like to grade the ground right by the building so that it has some downward slope to the drain.