Electrical Trenching

[sodamo]

That is good news!!!

David Sent from my iPad using TractorByNet

 

[cletus99]

How about some dynamite on your next big rock that gives you problems. :laughing:

 

[JerryK]

Since you are getting so good at trenching.... maybe you should consider filling that trench in and starting a new one 10' or so beside it.....

 

[econometrics]

Goodness gracious, those are some big rocks! You are really working for those 256 feet!

I trenched in about 1000' of 2" conduit, 36" down for mainline power service this past year (plus 1" for cable service around 24" down). Two pad-mounted transformers.

And I thought I had it bad sitting on a Ditch Witch RT45 for 12 hours one day going through nothing but mostly red dirt... your project puts it into perspective for me! I didn't hit one single rock. Good job! :thumbsup:

 

[tractchores]

dexpan and a hammerdrill will take care of those large rock issues

I thought of trying that. The problem I have found is drilling the holes. A feather and wedge should work equally well, but I'm finding that drilling the hole takes a huge amount of time (hammer drill and carbide tip drill). I did it on the big rock earlier in the thread and found that when I banged in the wedges that the rock split, but just the top layers around the hole. My theory is a deeper hole was needed, so I got a diamond hole saw, which I heard may be faster. I'll try that on the next one after I get the right drill adapter for it. It sure would be easier!

Goodness gracious, those are some big rocks! You are really working for those 256 feet!

I trenched in about 1000' of 2" conduit, 36" down for mainline power service this past year (plus 1" for cable service around 24" down). Two pad-mounted transformers.

And I thought I had it bad sitting on a Ditch Witch RT45 for 12 hours one day going through nothing but mostly red dirt... your project puts it into perspective for me! I didn't hit one single rock. Good job! :thumbsup:

View attachment 338729 View attachment 338731

I envy your soil! Any project I have that requires any amount of digging ends up with these huge boulders. I've been VERY lucky so far on this project. At any point I could easily encounter a boulder that is far bigger than the tractor and impossible to move. I actually found one in my lawn last year and couldn't even get it to wiggle after excavating it. I figure it weighed 20k lbs. The one I moved last night was probably 8 - 9,000 lbs.

 

[tractchores]

Here is the final resting place of yesterday's rock. It's tough to see because it was dark out when I finished (the work lights on the B2920 work pretty good, the last hour was in darkness). I ended up standing it on it's edge and off to the side so the new trench path will miss it by a small amount. To give some perspective on size the hole it is in is probably 5' deep.



While digging this out I did make an interesting discovery. Down about 5' deep the soil changes and is much more sandy clay soil with virtually no rocks. Not sure why, but found it interesting that there is such a dramatic change in soil types. Very easy digging if you can get to it!

I had to fill in all of my holes and that part of the trench to secure the rock and get things back on track. This weekend I will retrench the area next to the rock and continue the last 100' at a depth of either 24" or 18" VS the 30 I had been doing. Hopefully I'm out of the rockiest part now.

 

[econometrics]

Man, that is one monster rock! Nice work! :thumbsup:

 

[dstig1]

Aerial means running the cable above ground on poles, like the electric company does. As many trees as you have you almost wouldn't notice it. There's pros and cons to each, aerial is subject to ice and falling trees, but it's easy to get at and fix. Buried isn't vulnerable to much except backhoes and post hole diggers, but it's tough to get at and replace.

:laughing: I was sure you meant aerial bombardment! :laughing: But poles would work too!

 

[deathtoblackberries]

Here is the final resting place of yesterday's rock. It's tough to see because it was dark out when I finished (the work lights on the B2920 work pretty good, the last hour was in darkness). I ended up standing it on it's edge and off to the side so the new trench path will miss it by a small amount. To give some perspective on size the hole it is in is probably 5' deep.

View attachment 338817

While digging this out I did make an interesting discovery. Down about 5' deep the soil changes and is much more sandy clay soil with virtually no rocks. Not sure why, but found it interesting that there is such a dramatic change in soil types. Very easy digging if you can get to it!

I had to fill in all of my holes and that part of the trench to secure the rock and get things back on track. This weekend I will retrench the area next to the rock and continue the last 100' at a depth of either 24" or 18" VS the 30 I had been doing. Hopefully I'm out of the rockiest part now.

Now that you have it positioned for blasting post video of you launching it out of the trench!

 

[tractchores]

I finished the trenching on Saturday. I'm happy to say that the last 100 feet was MUCH easier. There were sizable rocks, but nothing that took more than 5 minutes to deal with. The digging surface was also level, which is a huge help in terms of positioning the tractor and not pivoting or sliding when doing the work.

The next phase is to backfill a few inches of sand, install conduit and then cover with 12" of sand and caution tape" then I'll pull the wires.

Here are some pics of the final 100' and some of the rocks encountered.

Finally done! The last bit looks nice and uniform since there were so few big rocks, lower down the rocks required wider holes to be dug and backfilled.


A typical rock. At the beginning these took a lot more work to get out. Now they're a minute or two. I've discovered that by clearing off the soil and then using the bucket curl you can often pop them out and then either drag them out or pick them up with the thumb. Using the curl helps reduce the force on the tractor since the ground is the lever, otherwise the tractor is light enough that pulling on a rock like this that's embedded with the whole boom just drags you around.


the last rocky section. All the brown rocks were clustered together in a 5' section and had to be removed one by one.


This is about the max size that can be easily lifted by the BH65. Luckily it's narrow so I can grab it. Obviously bigger rocks can be moved, but they usually can't be fully lifted up and swung like this one.


Another near max size rock


Yet another. It's impressive how much a small BH can move around.


This size rock was everywhere. I probably hit one of these about every 3rd or 4th scoop. Most of them I just tossed and rolled into piles down the slope. Eventually i'll collect them all again and build something. I must have 50+ of these!