ditchwitch or excavator?

[dirtworksequip]

If you can find a Vermeer ride on trencher they are far superior to any other brand out there. I have used every other brand out there and the Vermeer is by far the best. It will make your job go a lot easier.

 

[NorthwestBlue]

Highbeam,

In your earlier post you mentioned the shallow freeze depth in your area. I'm pretty close to you and was wondering what the normal burial depth for water and irrigation lines is around here. I'm guessing about 2 feet but you might know otherwise.

Thanks,

NorthwestBlue

 

[bigballer]

I'm just east of Seattle and my well pump contractor told me 18" is fine. If wire is anything like rocks it could work it's way up towards the surface so I think that's the consideration, not really the frost line. I suppose I could also bind the power to the water line with electrical tape to keep it down but not sure that follows any sort of code. Since I am outside any city limits, most everything is "suggested", not specific. I am at 500ft elevation and last winter we had night temps in the 20's and of course the garden hose I use to water the horses froze but by 10am was thawed out. I suppose the deeper the better but I would go at least 18" to be safe.

btw, I can't find any rental yards (united, sunbelt, hertz) that have anything bigger than a 24" trencher. The other option is to have a contractor do the work but that's big bucks compared to a couple hundred for a day rental of the equipment. I may just go with the 24" and plan on 18" minimum, hand dig where required.

cheers,
bigballer

 

[Highbeam]

Highbeam,

In your earlier post you mentioned the shallow freeze depth in your area. I'm pretty close to you and was wondering what the normal burial depth for water and irrigation lines is around here. I'm guessing about 2 feet but you might know otherwise.

Thanks,

NorthwestBlue

I've lived here and Bremerton (also by the puget sound) for the last 30 years and we have had some good freezes. I have dug in the frozen dirt and mud over the years and the deepest freeze I have ever witnessed was 6" and then plain dirt below that. The garden hose will freeze up for sure. For burying a line that will always be pressurized I see no need to go below 18". Bury the lateral sprinkler lines at 6" or so just so that the grass will grow well and the aerator machines won't mess them up. You will have low point drains and winter blow out for sprinkler laterals so it is not a worry. I must admit though that if I had a trencher that could dig deep I would go as deep as possible with the main house feed line mainly for protection from future digging projects.

I ran irrigation lines at my small lot home with 48 little heads and even though I set it up to be blowoutable I never have done it in the last 4 years and the PVC schedule 40 pipes have never burst.

Our climate is very mild. Graham is sure growing fast, I have some coworkers that live out there and want to move farther out to avoid sprawl. Kind of funny sprawling to get away from sprawl.

I would definitely tie the wires to the water line all the way down the well too. The wires will act like a tracer wire to allow you to locate the buried water line in the future. Plus keep everything nice and neat in the trench.

 

[3RRL]

Joe,
You are like a "ditch expert" or something man.

 

[flusher]

I am going to dig a trench for water and power (to wellhead) and it needs to be no less than 4" wide and 24" inches deep and it will be 350' long through open area. There are rocks anywhere from golfball to soccerball size in my land. My choices of tools are a 13hp 24" ditchwith or a 5000lb mini-excavator with a 10" bucket. Both cost about the same per day, the difference is delivery/pickup of the mini...

which one would I be happier with?? which will do a better job? btw, I have not used either of these before.

cheers,
bigballer

In May05 I rented a Ditch Witch 1330 trencher from Home Depot for $125/day. Dug nearly 1100 feet of trench in about 8 hours, including nearly 350 feet of 4"W x 24"D trench for my 200 amp electrical service.

The 1330 is a walk-behind (actually a walk backward in the direction of motion) unit that weighs nearly 1000 lbs. It's hard to get it aligned at the start of a trench line because it's steering is so primitive. You really have to muscle the thing to get it lined up.

Other than that, it worked OK. The only glitch was a broken rope on the pull starter that happened about 6 hours into the job. Took about 30 minutes to fix that problem.

 

[bigballer]

well i needed to get it done and decided to go with the ditchwitch 1330 based on availability. the cost was 140/day and i needed it. 450' of trenching with several breaks to backfeed the chain and also hand dig out rocks, it really was miserable and i swore alot but it's done and the trench is 18" in most places, some deeper. I discoverd a frenchdrain and another perferorated drain line that runs paralell to the house. A bit annoying but not a big deal as I had a length long enough to make the repair.

So I have the water line in, the power run, all the plumbing in place and all the pump/controllers for the new well. As of yesterday at 2pm I had water running from the new well through the new tank and out a garden hose. This was a major accomplishment. Today I tied the water line into the main house line splicing into the old well line (keeping as a backup for now) and all tests were good, ran 2 faucets wide open, the shower, the sprinkler and flushed the toilet without noticing any drop in pressure as each one came on. The best part of all of this is I no longer have to haul water during the dry months.

The real highlight though was finding out well is actually producing more than 25gpm which is 2 1/2 times more than the drillers rated it (they used an air rotarty rig to drill and the only way for them to test it is to blow air down the hole and determine how much water comes out -sorta kooky, but ok). So I asked my pump contractor to do a flow test with his pump and they ran it at 25gpm for several hours and when they backed off to 20gpm the pressure came up. What a blessing!

I took a ton of pictures of the whole process and will post them as a seperate thread once I get a chance. I did attach one of a shot of the trench from the wellhead, the pump house is up there in the shade, you can almost make it out. The other is of the pressure reading as I flipped the switch and started pumping. It was a beautiful thing.

Thanks to all of you for your replies to this thread and for sharing your experiences.

cheers,
bigballer

 

[NorthwestBlue]

Thanks for the info bigballer, and good job on the line. I wish I had half of your flow rate.

Highbeam, thanks for the reply. Now I have a better idea about what to expect with temps in the future, and can plan irrigation accordingly. You aren't kidding about the growth in Graham. Been here almost a year and I'm already starting to get that "closed in" feeling with all the new developments nearby.