Water line bid

[_RaT_]

Hey Eddie,

The $3600 includes the 2" gates ($190 each with flange kits). The trenching is the issue; the property is almost solid rock, so they'll use a "rock trencher" (the county permit man tells me it cost the contractor about $100k). The bid includes 10 days of trenching = $10k. They acknowledge that it should take less and they've provided a worst case estimate. Then there's $3k worth of trencher teeth too!

That certainly explains it. There is some rock that even trenchers have issues with. I had wanted to take some pictures of a pair of trenchers up my way they used for sewer line, power and other utilities when cutting through lava cap. They were beasts. Each trencher looked like it could cut a path about 40" wide and about 20' deep. They were the size of a D9 doubled.

 

[JRobyn]

Hey RaT,

I'll try to post some pics of their trencher, assuming that I decide to have them run the line. They tell me it cuts a 8" trench up to 42" deep. We'll only need to bury my line 24". To my surprise, they mentioned that SOFTER rock is often more difficult to cut! That makes me nervous, because our rock is "shale rock"; it's quite hard, but is very "flakey". I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the trenching is way less than 10 days so that the price drops!

 

[dmccarty]

Hey Eddie,

The $3600 includes the 2" gates ($190 each with flange kits). The trenching is the issue; the property is almost solid rock, so they'll use a "rock trencher" (the county permit man tells me it cost the contractor about $100k). The bid includes 10 days of trenching = $10k. They acknowledge that it should take less and they've provided a worst case estimate. Then there's $3k worth of trencher teeth too!

So you have roughly $4K in materials and $10K for the trencher. Where is the other $15K?

We are on a hill and our neighbors are downhill from us. The nearest house has over 30 GPM. That well had water flowing out of the pipe for weeks after it was drilled. Our well is 15 GPM and we are a good 2000 feet from the 30 GPM well. There is another well withing 300 feet of the 30 GPM well and I think they are around 5 GPM. These wells are on the east side of the road. On my side the nearest well is about 1500 feet away and roughly in line with ours but he is another 5 GPM. I figured we would be lucky to get 5 GPM but we got 15. I think the well are all go to 200 to 300 feet.

The point I am trying to make is that its a roll of the dice as to what you get even if the wells are real close. My understanding is that in my area its very unusual to get a dry hole.

Have you talked to the county office that permits well drilling to see what they say about hitting water? How many people have problems hitting water or getting enough water?

Later,
Dan

 

[Harleymsn]

Jackie Houston did our well, we never discussed a gaurantee, he just said, he had drilled a lot of wells in my area and knew that we would hit. We hit water at 125ft and he went to 200' but the flow rate is only about 1-2 gpm, so I had him go to 300 ft (an additional $800) we did not hit any more water at that depth, but we now have about a 200 gallon storage.

As for the trenching issue, I did the trenching for all my water, sewer and electric lines myself. I rented a walk behind trencher from RSC ($350 for a week) and did over 500' of 36" trenches in between other jobs here that week. Actual trenching time about 20 hours. I would check with the RSC in Cookeville to see what they have available, I know the one in Crossville has the ride on type that go for about $300 a day but the weekly rate is under $1000. We have 3 other places here that rent large equipment and I'm sure there are even more in the Cookeville area.

 

[_RaT_]

Jackie Houston did our well, we never discussed a gaurantee, he just said, he had drilled a lot of wells in my area and knew that we would hit. We hit water at 125ft and he went to 200' but the flow rate is only about 1-2 gpm, so I had him go to 300 ft (an additional $800) we did not hit any more water at that depth, but we now have about a 200 gallon storage.

As for the trenching issue, I did the trenching for all my water, sewer and electric lines myself. I rented a walk behind trencher from RSC ($350 for a week) and did over 500' of 36" trenches in between other jobs here that week. Actual trenching time about 20 hours. I would check with the RSC in Cookeville to see what they have available, I know the one in Crossville has the ride on type that go for about $300 a day but the weekly rate is under $1000. We have 3 other places here that rent large equipment and I'm sure there are even more in the Cookeville area.

The problem is, none of those trenchers will go through rock. When you hit rock, the price will skyrocket. I've seen large excavators with hydraulic hoes unable to get through rock. It needed to be fractured first.

 

[Harleymsn]

Hey RaT,

I'll try to post some pics of their trencher, assuming that I decide to have them run the line. They tell me it cuts a 8" trench up to 42" deep. We'll only need to bury my line 24". To my surprise, they mentioned that SOFTER rock is often more difficult to cut! That makes me nervous, because our rock is "shale rock"; it's quite hard, but is very "flakey". I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the trenching is way less than 10 days so that the price drops!

I take it from what you are posting that you are NOT from the area, and I fear that this contractor knows that. I can't speak for Gainesboro myself, but most of the rock in this area is not shale. In any event, I have a friend that is in the rock business here (he digs out and sells rock or stone for building, as we have some of the best in the country here) he has been working a lot in the Livingston area for the past year and does it ALL with a Case 40XT skid steer with a 4' smooth bucket. When I first bought my land here, I was told all the horror stories about the rock here ..... soil top is only 18", you'll have to blast through the rock for everything ... septic, foundations, trenching etc.
When they did my well, they did not hit any rock until they were down 12'.
I did all that trenching here and didn't hit anything larger than maybe a 2' diameter rock, and there were very few of them.
Before I signed on the dotted line, I would talk to a few people in the area, stop at a couple of equipment rental outfits and question them, they may have more intel for you that the contractors want you to have.

 

[JRobyn]

Dan,

Here's the rough breakdown (both waterline/trench and road grade/gravel):

$4k - piping and mat'ls
$10k - 10 days trencher @ 10hr/d
$4k - 10 days bulldozer @ 5 hr/d
$3k - 10 days backhoe @ 5 hr/d
$3k - 10 changes of trencher teeth
$2k - 10 days misc labor
$3k - 20 loads creek gravel

We have discussed the local well situation with every resident that has one around the entire perimeter of our property. This includes about 6 or 8 wells within 1/2 mile or less. All of them are relatively low-flow. One has recently stopped producing entirely. That's the neighbor that had another one drilled on that propery, plus a second new DRY one on another parcel he recently bought. Typical water depth is about 75-100ft below the surface depending on the specific elevation, so I assume that they are all in a "related" aquifer. Drilling below about 150-200 ft can reportedly result in very sulfurous water. So we're fairly well (pun intended) aquainted with the local conditions.

Joe,

RaT is right about the rock.... and there's no question about how much of it there is or where it is since the existing road bed is essentially all solid rock. We have between a few inches to maybe a few feet of soil over most of our ridgetops and the road runs right on the crest for the most part. BIL just blasted for his basement and septic on property about 1/4 mi away and had the same geology. He had at most a few feet of topsoil and LOTS of rock to move after the blasting; something on the order of 1000 yds3. I'd offer it to your friend, but unfortunately, it's not much use for building because after it gets exposed to water and freezes a few times it begins to crumble. That's why I characterize it as shale. It is definitely not any type of igneous rock.

 

[Harleymsn]

One thing I will say, according to your breakdown, the price of the creek gravel is pretty low. (provided those are tandem loads) I get mostly limestone gravel here and it runs me $235 for a 22 ton load delivered. Creek gravel is a little bit higher here because it has to be hauled in from further away.

 

[dmccarty]

JRobyn,

Dang. That stinketh about the wells. The numbers for the equipment seem in the ballpark for the per hour charge. I don't know what creek gravel is but that is cheap if you are getting 15ish tons per load.

So the only way the bid would be out of whack is the number of hours it takes to do the job. Given the rock they have to go through and the risk that brings to a project.....

Me thinks you are between a rock and hard place.

Later,
Dan

 

[JRobyn]

Maybe between some rock and a wet place (oh, that sounds bad!)

 

[rutwad]

Rent a large trencher for a day and see what you run into. You're already talking about 30k, so what's another $300-400 if it may be able to save you lots, if you do it all yourself.

 

[_RaT_]

Rent a large trencher for a day and see what you run into. You're already talking about 30k, so what's another $300-400 if it may be able to save you lots, if you do it all yourself.

Interesting, I was thinking along those same lines. At the very least, it would indicate where the problem areas are. Trench as deep as you can to.

 

[JRobyn]

Rent a large trencher for a day and see what you run into. You're already talking about 30k, so what's another $300-400 if it may be able to save you lots, if you do it all yourself.

Ah, too late; I approved the contractor's bid and he'll start next week after the pipe and valves are delivered.

There's also the issue of the time I'd have to take off to get up there from GA and then rent/haul/run a trencher that I'm convinced would get hurt by the rock.

 

[_RaT_]

Ah, too late; I approved the contractor's bid and he'll start next week after the pipe and valves are delivered.

There's also the issue of the time I'd have to take off to get up there from GA and then rent/haul/run a trencher that I'm convinced would get hurt by the rock.

Your probably a better judge too of the rock you have. If you find rock, the rented trencher will indeed be useless.

 

[JRobyn]

There is absolutely no doubt that rock will be the order of the day. There are long stretches of the road where the waterline trench will be cut, that are solid (well sorta shaley) rock. I have attempted to "work" some of it before, particularly where there's a shelf in it that's rough to drive over. It tends to break off in layers that vary from an inch or so to several inches thick, with pieces that vary from book size to Volkswagen size. I fear that a "regular" trencher would tend to catch and break off big chunks, resulting in the trencher soon being in big chunks. This is one I'll gladly leave to the pros with the right (very expensive) tools!

 

[Harleymsn]

Ah, too late; I approved the contractor's bid and he'll start next week after the pipe and valves are delivered.

There's also the issue of the time I'd have to take off to get up there from GA and then rent/haul/run a trencher that I'm convinced would get hurt by the rock.

Well I would certainly want to be there when they do the trenching to insure that there was not extensive padding to the 'time'.

 

[Harleymsn]

Your probably a better judge too of the rock you have. If you find rock, the rented trencher will indeed be useless.

RaT, the rental outfits generally stock equipment based on the local conditions. Being that this area is 'rock, rock everywhere' the equipment is suited for that, which is why I had suggested checking with the rental comapnies in Cookeville (18 miles away).

 

[gemini5362]

I am curious about one or two of the itemized charges. Why are you going to need a bulldozer for 50 hours. If you are useing it to cover the line that seems like an excessive amount of time for that. When I have seen people cover water lines they usually just use the FEL on the backhoe. It also seems to me that you are figureing on haveing the trencher work 10 hours a day and the backhoe 5 seems like that is a lot of use of the backhoe. I figure it is for cleaning out big pieces that the trencher digs up but my experience with trenchers are that they pretty well make a ditch. I will admit to haveing the experience of watching this done and not know anything about the procedure. I am just curious and was wondering if anyone could enlighten me. I also am curious about the size of pipes and calculations. The lane I live on is about the same length as they are talking about installing water lines. Our water line is a 4 inch line and it feeds 6 full time residences without any water problem that I have seen. Why would you need a 2 inch line for two residences.

 

[JRobyn]

I am curious about one or two of the itemized charges. Why are you going to need a bulldozer for 50 hours. If you are useing it to cover the line that seems like an excessive amount of time for that. When I have seen people cover water lines they usually just use the FEL on the backhoe. It also seems to me that you are figureing on haveing the trencher work 10 hours a day and the backhoe 5 seems like that is a lot of use of the backhoe. I figure it is for cleaning out big pieces that the trencher digs up but my experience with trenchers are that they pretty well make a ditch. I will admit to haveing the experience of watching this done and not know anything about the procedure. I am just curious and was wondering if anyone could enlighten me. I also am curious about the size of pipes and calculations. The lane I live on is about the same length as they are talking about installing water lines. Our water line is a 4 inch line and it feeds 6 full time residences without any water problem that I have seen. Why would you need a 2 inch line for two residences.

Hi Gemini,

The dozer is for trench cover, regrading of the road and final gravel spreading. So far, they haven't used a backhoe. To "regrade" he has already peeled off several pieces of rock that are about 6-8 feet on a side and 8-12" thick. The dozer can handle this well, but a hoe would be overmatched.

They bid 2" pipe since in their experience it is only slightly more expensive than 3/4 or 1", since there was a lot of length for smaller pipe, and since the slip-joint is easy to lay and is rugged. It's the same pipe that the county specifies for county water mains.

I posted some pics in the "waterline install" thread.