Wasteful method by phone company

[MossRoad]

I work for American Augers Inc. we build many large machines and a large part of the business is Directional Drilling, you can park one of our machines by the box and drill under the roads and rivers and come up next to the house and pull in the wire, gas line ect all easy...
too bad the phone companies higher guys with trenchers 99 % of the time to do the work where they have to plan a overland rout.


Mark

Not knocking it or anything. I find the technology fascinating. We just had some work done at our office that way so they didn't have to tear up the street. However, wouldn't your machine cost a LOT more than a trencher and be completely uneconomical for residential single wire telephone wire pulls?

 

[kthompson]

Our phone company normally uses a little vibrating plow (subsoiler shank) to buy such. Very quick and leaves very little foot print. For lines side of road, not sure what they use now but not long away same vibrating plow.

 

[SPIKER]

Mossroad:

we build all sizes of them, even mini ones (a different division builds them now) there are also several competitors in the mini market so costs are very tight on them.

I had a new line put in a couple yrs back that was done with the vibrating plow method and worked Ok until he got to the trees so the wire in that location is only inches below ground.
It was done by contractors NOT the phone company so they pay them.
mark

 

[jimmyj]

They came yesterday and shot a line under the road and then used a trencher to get to the house. I must admit they did a nice job. All the little flags are still in the lawn showing where the other buried lines are so I'm going to take pictures of them for future reference.

 

[LBrown59]

Our phone company normally uses a little vibrating plow (subsoiler shank) to bury such. Very quick and leaves very little foot print.

What bothers me about this is If the phone company used this on my place they would cut my new 15'' plastic drive way culvert in two.

 

[LBrown59]

Not knocking it or anything. I find the technology fascinating. We just had some work done at our office that way so they didn't have to tear up the street. However, wouldn't your machine cost a LOT more than a trencher and be completely uneconomical for residential single wire telephone wire pulls?

The only way the phone Co can repair or replace their line on my place is to bury under My culvert to run their line under it.
Any other method will damage or destory the Culvert .

 

[MossRoad]

The only way the phone Co can repair or replace their line on my place is to bury under My culvert to run their line under it.
Any other method will damage or destory the Culvert .

I'd imagine they could bury a new phone line anywhere on either side of your culvert by hand and vibrate the rest in way cheaper than they could bring in a directional drilling machine.

Does anyone know the cost difference between a vibratory plow and a directional drilling machine?

Does anyone know the total cost to operate a vibratory plow VS a directional drilling machine?

Better yet, does anyone here on TBN do this kind of work with both types of machines and can they provide the pros/cons of making money with these machines? Where is the break even price?