I need to trench 1800' for power to my retirement property. The trench has to be 3' deep and a minimum of 6" wide for 3" schedule 40 rigid PVC. My machine is a late 70's Deere 410 with a 12" bucket. I'm not an operator and have only dug a couple of small holes with this machine but got comfortable operating it pretty quickly. I may end up renting a trencher but because of rocky soil, unlevel ground, and 3 small creek crossings I think there will be a need for the hoe. Some concerns: 1) How to get through the creeks while water is flowing? The flow is small enough I could possibly dam them up and pump the water around my work area if necessary. 2) Picture these creeks as a 3' deep 10' wide swale with steep sides. I need to keep my pipe as straight as possible so the power company can pull the wire through. Do I gradually taper down to 6' deep entering and exiting the creek so the pipe will be 3' deep at the bottom of the creeks? I can use 22 degree elbows to help with the transition if necessary but I would like to keep all pipe joints out of the creek bottom. From what I understand this conduit doesn't bend much. 3) These creeks and about 800' of the run is on a neighbors undeveloped property (grass fields) and I'm concerned about making a mess and the trench settling over time. Any advice to minimize trench settling? Grass seed and straw over the trench? There is water availiable from a large creek but difficult to pump. 4) I'm really worried about digging in the hard rocky soil. Does anyone have experience with using a ripper on their hoe? I'm thinking I could rip the entire run and switch back to the 12" bucket. This could help the rental trencher also. Any general trenching and back hoe advice greatly appreciated!
Ditch witch's are about as useless as **** on a bull in rocky material. I used one the other day, good size walk along machine. Everytime the chain would grab a rock the machine would stall if I wasnt quick enough raising the chain or stoping it. In clean material they work great. The plow end is the same, one good rock and the fight is on. I'd look into a "hole hog." We use them to run gas services across roads sometimes. We have 2 on the truck a 2 and 4inch. Works very well in clean material but like the ditch witch one rock can bounce it off course. It works somewhat like a jack hammer. Set it level in the hole aimed in the direction you want it to go. Spin the end one way for forward other for reverse. Runs of a hose connected to an air compressor. A rental house may rent these and may be an option for crossing your streams with out disturbing them at a low cost. I do alot of digging in rocky ground. Mostly trenching for gas main. Never use a ripper tooth. Would be nice to have a times but patience and experiance pays off. Get your trench started, once you at your depth, sink your bucket to the bottom every cycle, get a full bucket and rip out. Its faster than "taking of the top" and it helps free up material for the next bucket full. Shoot me a pm if I can help answer any your questions, be glad to help.
Thanks JS! I will look into the hole hog. My neighbors property is bottom land and relatively rock free. My property is a very different story.
I am a elecrtical contractor that does this type of work all the time.. You want a very flat bottom first off and I would up size to 4" pvc. You will want a pull box about every 400' even if its strait threw and I would not do any angle pulls in and out of the box. The utility company I hope is running high voltage the 1800' then installing a transformer correct? as for the brook crossings I would really like more info , if its down hill from the brook to the turn up location your always going to have water running threw the pipe no mater what you do it cant be stopped. Electrical conduit is not water tight no mater what anyone says! You may want to consider encasing the conduit in concreat for the brook areas and 20' on each banking and four number 2 rebars (two above and two below) in the chairs. chairs want to be no more then 5' apart and you will want to buy base and intermediate pieces. The top pieces give you a good depth gauge on how thick the pour is and a place to set the bar in. When you get to the point your going to install put glue on both the bell end and the end of the pipe then push them togearther by hand and turn it slightly as it goes in to feel it set then stop turning. Also you can not glue damp or wet pipe it just doest seal or hold. To get a string threw it after two shop vacs on blow at first to push the glue fumes out of the pipe then swap it over to suck. Make a plastic bag that is just slighty smaller then the pipe with a bit of filler like a second plastic bag inside of the other. then tie it to a bucket of nylon string rated at 200~250 lbs . the two shop vacs sucking on the far end of the pipe will draw the water out and pull the bag with the string attached to the next manhole in 5 seconds. Some times if there is a lot of water we have to blow that out with a tow behind air compressor depeing on ig the water is trapped but a rise and valley. after the string is in then upgrade to 2500 lb mule tape or 1/4" rope . Mule tape is around $400 for a 3000' roll and the 1/4" rope is about $50 per 600' just depends on what the utilty company will accept. If my site guy gave me a trench really narrow and not strait I would make them fix it and sand in the bottom and top after , long runs really need the pipe to be layed flat and strait , slight curves dont count but nothing that requires factory bends would be acceptable to me . 560' to a factory bundle of 4" schedual 40 if they are 10' , I would special order 20' pipe (it only takes 3~4 weeks to get it) . Its much easier to install , less glueing and we can install 1500' of strait 4" in a day with 3 guys and some equipment to move the stuff.
xcark, thanks for taking the time to provide such detailed information. Hopefully I can pick up hoe operation fairly quickly so I don't have to spend a lot of time fixing a wavy bottom. I'll probably achieve this at about 1,790 feet. Funny that you mentioned the 4", I called the engineer yesterday and got the ok for it because I am also concerned about this run. The last thing I want is to do this twice and pay the power company even more money for retrying a failed pull. She came out to the property to engineer this run and placed the first pull junction 500' from the pole which will include 2 of the creeks and a turn that will require at least a 22 degree elbow. The next pull is 800' which includes the most difficult creek crossing, an even sharper turn, and a gnarly uphill that my hoe can't climb. I will probably have to dig this leg drifting down backwards. Because of the terrain this is the best she could do and it has to work or I'm screwed. The power company REALLY wants to avoid overhead lines and they have priced it so far out of reach that almost no one can afford it. The underground fee is making my stomach hurt and they already sent me a bill for it. Yes, this run is for high voltage primary with 75' of secondary which they provide for free, bless their little hearts. She also said that I could backfill as I go which is nice because I'll be doing this on the weekends at my own pace. My neighbors land is a swamp right now and it will be mid or late summer before I can dig down there if this rain ever stops. I'm curious about water in the conduit? it has to get in there from faulty joints, right? She did mention that many times she has seen the conduit full of water and suggested I might want to put a drain hole in the low spots. It is direct burial cable but they want it in conduit mostly for their convenience I think. The brook crossings will be straight across, ie perpendicular, and the land is pretty flat other than the 3' deep creek swales that I mentioned in my original post. Two of the creeks dry up during the summer and one will always flow a little bit in drought conditions. What is up with the concrete and chairs? I need to Google that. Would it be visible? I think my neighbor would have a fit if I started pouring concrete even though this part of his land is un-buildable. I really like JS580SL's suggestion for the "hole hog". It sure would make life easy to be able to pound a hole under these creeks. Thank for the info on the conduit length. I have been on the fence about which length to go with. I have a friend at an electrical supply house that can get me killer prices on everything but there is no way for me to transport 20' conduit 100 miles from where I would have to buy it but I can transport 10' on my trailer. There is a local building supply that will deliver 20' conduit and I need to get prices from them. The power engineer told me to use 1/4" rope and I was planning on using a long rod to feed it through each piece. She also gave me 2 1000' rolls of plastic caution tape to place in the trench. FYI... I'm doing all of this right now to "lock in" power to my property. This run will be for my pole barn which is the only structure so far and it was here when I bought this place. In a year or so I will get to run another 300' of primary to a second transformer that will power my house along with another bill. What sucks is, the power company charges footage to your house and will run free cable to any out buildings. In my case, I have to pass the barn to get to the house so I loose out on the free cable run. Thanks again for all of your valuable time and information!!
you need to be real careful working on a slope a backhoe won't climb. Doing that without knowing what you are doing is an excellent way to wake up dead! I don't think I would do that without something big winching me down.
Yes, it is steep and I need to be careful but perhaps I was exaggerating a bit. I was trying to describe this long difficult run to the poster without getting too wordy. Power and traction wise (no diff lock) the hoe can make the hill but it will lift the front wheels and drag the hoe bucket going foward. Going up in reverse has a much lower pucker factor. I do have an 18 ton track loader that I can cable onto. A large 4wd or tracked trencher may be the pick for this hill but it is also very rocky and I still need to sort this part out. Thanks for your concern
When going up that steep hill, you could have the loader bucket full of dirt- front end will stay down then. I have had to do this when carrying large stumps and rocks with the rear bucket.
Thanks, and very true. If I do use the hoe I would want to be digging towards the uphill grade so weighting the front bucket would not be necessary in this case.
Digging the "steeps" will be easier from the top down. You can use a pile of dirt (pushing it with the loader) to help control your decent. The machine will also stay put while digging (machine will have a tendancy to pull itself down the hill if you try to dig from the bottom up). The downside is that you will be pulling your backfill down the hill as you dig. Be cognisent of this and place your spoils as far up hill as possible. I would not use the "whole hog" (also known as a power mole) if it is rocky. If you do use one you will also have to use it to pull the pipe through the hole (you can't just push it through). I would also suggest "roping the pipe" instead of using the 22-1/4 degree bends. PVC will bend (3" easier than 4"). If you have warm sunny days you can employ a "solar bender". Take a joint of pipe and place on end in an elevated position (lean it on a tree, on a fence, or a rock, truck...most anything will do) with the middle unsupported. As the direct sunlight warms the conduit it will begin to sag in the middle. This will shape your bend. Simply rotate the conduit so that the bend is in the same direction as the curve in your trench. Since you are going "across country" I would assume that you have plenty of room to make the gradual bends. Sharper turns equal more friction during the pull. The 20' joints will bend MUCH easier than the 10 footers and the shorter joints probably won't have enough weight to "solar bend". I would tend to agree with the opinion that the 800' pull is too long. That being said the designer is an engineer and they (power company) do this all the time. I would assume that they will employ the use of a power tugger and LOTS of lube. We also don't know the cable size but, again, the engineer should have all of this data taken into account. The only real variable is your trench quality. I also recommend that you go deep early, at your creek crossings, and not use 22-1/4 bends. Damming of the creek will be the ticket but I would bet that you still will have subterranian water intrusion. I suggest that you have the pipe ready and glued together before you dig the crossing (however much pipe you need to get across the creek and back into dry ground). IMO you should be able to keep the conduit dry if you use glue AND primer. The 20' joints are a must. Everything about this job will be twice as hard if you use 10' sticks. I also recommend a brush dobber instead of the crap foam ones that come in the can. They won't break off, like the foam ones, and they hold much more glue. They will apply the glue 3 to 4 times faster. More glue on the joint equals less effort to push it together. You can also save money by buying glue by the gallon instead of the quart. Be sure to hold pressure to the joint for few seconds after fitting it together.There will be hydraulic pressure in the joint (because there is glue between the two pieces of plastic) until it sets up enough to over come the force trying to push the joint apart. Always install the pipe from the bottom up on slopes. Otherwise gravity can pull them apart and you may not notice it until you can't make the pull.
The best way to dig DOWN that steep slope is to have a trackloader positioned with its bucket against the front bucket of the 410 Deere. It is safe and you have complete control in regards to digging a trench just as easily as if you were on level terrain. We installed curb drains down 2/1 slopes on highway overpass approaches many times this way. We were using a 410 John Deere and a 955 Caterpiller trackloader. A small dozer with good brakes would even be better. In regards to the creek crossings I would dam it up and rent whatever it takes to pump the water around and behind your excavating operation. Have another pump dewatering the trench if it needs to be. If you have to rent the discharge hoses you could save a few dollars by utilizing some of your conduit for discharge pipeing.
Thanks!! I'll have to look around but I think I remember a 955 with good brakes floating around somewhere. I sure wish it had a single ripper centered in the rear. Or better yet, a bigass hydraulic trencher mounted on the front! Got the pump covered. A neighbor just informed me he has a pump and lots of hose that he doesn't use anymore. I REALLY REALLY REALLY appreciate all of the good advice I have received so far. This is not the best job for a rookie to be a-learnin-on and my stress level is lowering with each new post.
Thank you Thank you :notworthy
Why are you worrying about backfilling if you have a trackloader? Dig down the hill and put the pipe together going up the hill. You are going to need a helper to put the pipe in and I would put it in as quickly as you can so the trench does not cave in. You should be able to dig 100ft. and then drop pipe. Have you done any digging out there yet? I would not even consider that long of a run without a few test digs. Will the power company be responsible for the primary once it is installed or does that fall on you? Mine wanted me to own the line if it was buried. I went overhead for that reason. It cost me $21 grand one time for a little over half a mile up the mountain but if it fails it is theirs to fix.
Having never done any trenching before maybe I'm missing the reason for a track loader. I don't want to just blindly push the dirt back into the trench. I want to get the better rock free soil close to the conduit and I would like to compact in layers with the bottom of the hoe bucket. I will most likely be using my farm tractor to do some of the pushing and leave the hoe positioned over the trench. I probably wouldn't last a day without being fired in the construction world but this is fun, not work to me, and I like to do things in a way to prevent future problems and work. Two other reasons are space and ground destruction. Up on my property, I would be tracking over a nicely finished gravel driveway. The steep hill is only wide enough to dig a trench and no equipment can come in from the sides. Down on my neighbor's property I don't want to tear up his road or field grass and I want to do the best I can to limit settling as there will be many 6' deep excavations. I suppose I could trench the hill and install conduit from bottom to top, maybe I'm overthinking this. What I don't like about this is I would be learning how to use the hoe on a steep hill. I can't go onto my neighbors property until mid or late summer because of mushy ground so my run would have to start at a "to be continued trench" at the bottom of the hill. What makes more sense to me is to start at my transformer pad on top and get 500' of practice on level drama free ground and then stop at the bottom of the hill until things dry out so I can continue on to the next pull station on my neighbors property. But you're right, I could start at the bottom and continue to the transformer on my property. I would have to estimate how much conduit I could lay in a weekend so the trench wouldn't be open for a week or 2. If I do decide to lay down the hill I have some large steel spikes that they use for concrete curb forms. I could drive one into the ground at the end of the conduit to keep it from pulling apart until I get fill over it. Are you thinking bedrock? I don't think that will be a problem anywhere on this run. I have dug 4 soil probe pits for the county septic folks and there are a lot of rocks in the ground but it was diggable. This route is my only option for grid power and I want to make it work. I'm a shop tinkerer type person and I don't want to worry about solar or generators when I want to fire up a welder or machine tools. The power company will install the primary and secondary but retain ownenership/maintenance of the wire even after paying them a sick amount of money. As this is direct burial wire, the whole conduit thing is for easy maintenance and so they can pull it out and reuse it somewhere else if you ever discontinue service. Pretty smart actually. Something else that kinda bummed me out and I never thought about it being a problem. I had the cable company come out to check my location for service and I also wanted to bury a phone line while the trench was open. Seems that the power poles going over the RR tracks are just high enough for power only so no utilities can be strung back to me. Luckily, I have good cell service and of course can get satellite for TV. Internet is very important to me but hopefully I can get it through the cell at a reasonable speed.
Definately use the 4". Make sure joints are clean and use primer and glue and stab joints and twist 1/4 turn and hold.
id love to do that job for you here in uk we had 4" electric ducting or 6" personally i wouldnt use any smaller that 4" for that work now 3 years ago we used to use a ducting whitch you could bend it was not land drain but you could bend it by pulling on it and we could do slow bends on it so we could bend the pipe so it comes up straight with the pole brilliant stuff its now all solid pipes i used to thread rope through as i went along like we used to tie a spanner on the rope and dropit through the pipes as we were fitting them other methods of this was to have a (cobra) like a rod but i dont think you would get one big enough to your pulling bays also try pull cable down hill makes life easyier id have like a 6 ton excavator for this job better than backhoe and id do the creek crossings first to get them out the way bank the stuff up stop water and put a big pipe crossing the creek to carry the water flow over the creek good thing is then dig away nice flat bottom of trench easy to work in. i then use the track of the excavator as a winch lift one side of the track of the ground where the cables are coming out of a pull box (joint bay) put the heavy duty rope around the track 2 or 3 times and get some 1 to push the track lever nice and steady not fast and just pull the tension on the rope a little so it tightens on the track and youve got a winch to pull cable but seriously have fun and stay safe
This is a great thread, top information herein, can we have some pics if you can? The creeks and that hillock on your amazing long pipeline would be interesting! I am using my backhoe on fencing on my property and putting in 'strainer posts' with Australian hardwood which I knock down with a dozer first. The old strainers are now mostly 80 years old and not giving us any paddock security on some fences so the two 'workers' take the back strain out of it. Make a giant hole, put the butt in sometimes and bucket ram really works! It (the backhoe) has continued to really impress me with its stability in steep areas, although I did have a small front 'lift' coming up a bank the other day when the rear bucket wasn't stowed, so I'll watch that in the future.
Yep....I'm learning a lot thanks to the fine members here. :thumbsup I will be sure to take lots of pics. Digital cameras make it so easy. Take tons of pics and delete 90% of them with no worries about film and development costs. That is a nice hoe you have there. I wish I had a 4n1 bucket like yours and that tree-pusher-over-thingy on the dozer. Much safer me thinks as it gives you some distance. My old 410 Deere has a pretty heavy hoe on the back and it doesn't take much to make the front end light even with a full complement of front weights.
Ok folks....last weekend I picked a random spot along the trenchline to do a test dig. I wanted to stay away from the transformer and junction pad locations until I'm sure I know what I'm doing. The hoe teeth sink about 3" into the soil and stop with a big clunk. Hmmm, do I have petrified earth or something? Surely I couldn't have hit a rock with my first stab. After I moved the rock out of the way I found that the soil proved to be a more serious obstacle as it was heavy wet clay that wouldn't release from the bucket. After 5 minutes of shaking and abusing my poor hoe it finally fell out. I dug about 6' of trench with similar results, filled it back in and it was time to go home. Bill onthehill (thanks!) gave me a tip on another thread that I will try this weekend. I may also want to consider a rental trencher for speed and the hoe to move the rocks. The wheels and stabilizers of the hoe were also sinking pretty deep and making a big mess. I thought I had unearthed a broken femur bone but actually it's just a strange looking root ball....I hope
Seems that every time I go to dig on the weekends it has either just rained or it is raining. With 1800' of trench to dig I wanted to try out a trencher, thinking it should speed up the process and save money on diesel fuel for the hoe. I wanted a large ride-on but none of the rental places had them. Just finding ANY trencher was difficult and that should have raised some red flags in regards to the effectiveness of a trencher in this area. I found a 4wd articulating Ditch Witch (Zahn) with a carbide tipped rock blade and took a few days off with the intention of keeping it 4 days which should have taken care of my property and the steep hill leading down to my neighbors property. I also had to pay for delivery which is why I wanted to get as much done as possible and rent it again one more time for the neighbors property at a later date. After a few minutes of operating I knew it wasn't up to the task because even the smaller rocks were giving it fits. I decided to have it picked up but I also had a few small shallow trenches I could use it for since it was already there. The entire machine is hydraulic and a hose that operates the chain motor blew before I had a chance to use it for the small trenches.
The 12" bucket is just about the worst for sticky mud. Try not to crowd the bucket too hard, into the dirt, or fill it too much when digging in mud or clay. You've heard the term" let the tool do the work..don't force it". This applies here too. If you find a hill that is too steep for you to drive up, without popping the front end up, than you have (2) options. You can fill the loader with dirt (to weight the front end), or just back up the hill. I noticed that your bucket pins are wider than your bucket. This will significantly slow down your digging when they start to rub through the trench sides. As you found out on your own that little trencher just won't cut it. The chain is a standard dirt chain and won't make it through rock very well, if at all. The trencher is too small anyway. It will take a BIG trencher to get through rock and the trench may swell, or sag, shut behind you. Probably not all the way but maybe enough to make it tough to install the pipe.
I got on the hoe after the trencher was picked up and dug about 120' by the end of the day. I will update the thread with some pics soon. I had no sticking problems but I didn't quite get to the wet clay part. I'm going to dig top to bottom with the hoe to the uphill so wheelies will not be an issue. This hill was the most important thing I wanted to get done with the trencher. I have a like new seat cover on the hoe and I didn't want to put any pucker marks in it . I'm looking for some narrow pins but it's working ok for the moment. My bucket is 3' tall to the top of the side cutting edges so the pins are not getting into the trench. When I get to the creeks and have to go 6' deep on the banks then it will become an issue.
I just bought my first ever backhoe, and have not been able to work with it yet, so i cannot be much help in the trenching department. Anyway, you are getting a lot of good advice in that area. There is an area that i am good in though, and that is laying conduit. I am an electrician by trade. I think it was maybe 3 years ago, i was working on a job running 1" conduit for light poles. I had ran out of glue and the backhoe operator handed me a can of REDHOT pvc glue. That was some good glue. Unlike the regular pvc glue, it welded that pipe together almost instantly. And where the pipe that was glued with the regular stuff, was coming apart after being in the standing water that was in the trenches, the REDHOT glue kept the pipe together. No primer necessary. I agree with what was said about using primer and glue. They work great together in wet trenches. The last thing you want is for that pipe to come apart, and not know about it til pulling time. And if you choose to do so, you can't go wrong. But if you want something just as good without having to handle 2 cans, the REDHOT glue is the way to go. You have quite a project on your hands. May the force be with you! lol, Joe
After the Ditch Witch left I started digging with the hoe. At first I was only comfortable moving one thing at a time. Kinda felt like I could have made a great music video for Mr. Roboto or Devo. Where did I leave my flower pot hat? :cool2 The boom swing is a bit worn and I had a heck of a time getting the bucket lined up with the trench on the return. No matter how easy I bumped the lever the boom wanted to go too far left or right. By the end of the day things got much smoother and I was moving 2 and sometimes 3 things at once. The bucket alignment over trench problem seemed to resolve itself but I didn't know why until oceanobob gave me a great after the fact tip about hydraulic priority. I was lowering the boom as I was swinging it and maybe something else at the same time which was slowing the swing down and making it much more accurate. I stopped at 120' as it was getting dark and would start laying some conduit the next morning. Lotsa roots Mouse and snake hotel. Since I have been finding a number of rattlesnakes on my property I almost expect something to crawl out every time I walk by the conduit pile. Saturday evening before quiting I glued a piece of conduit to the first sweep and left it sitting on the ground. Sunday morning when I ran my pull wire through it a mouse came scampering out.
Thanks for the glue tip Joe! Good luck with your new hoe :cool2.
Nice old 410. What year is it? It seems to have an extendahoe. I had a 1981 410 regular hoe for 7 years. I still miss it some times. I made a dump trailer that I toed behind it. I would load 4 yards of dirt in the trailer and 1.25 in the loader and take off down the road. I had great times with that old thing. I bought it for $11,000 and after 7 years I sold it for $9,500 and they kept calling for a month after. I could of got $12,000 for it. I now have a 1992 JD 310D 4x4 extendahoe. It's an au-some machine, but no stronger than the old 410. Have fun.
Deon....I have never checked on the year. The seriel # is 410D 307220T and I found it on Craigslist in the Baltimore area. I'm going to guess it belonged to a utility company, possibly BG&E, because it seems to have been well maintained but most of the hoses look like they might pop at any time. Both of the hoe buckets 12 and 24" have "ECD" welded on them which I'm thinking is short for Engineering Construction Division or something close to that. 10-4 on the extendahoe or extendable dipper stick as Deere likes to call it.
Since this is a weekend only project I had it burned into my mind that most of the trench should be backfilled by the end of the weekend because of rain. It would be nice to do so but the 12" wide trench has made that impractical. My plan was to glue the conduit together in the trench which would allow me to cover most of it. So I got into the trench at the end of my first conduit section and determined that I could do this even though it was a little tight. What dummy me failed to realize was that I would have the next section of conduit under my feet and there simply is not enough room for my feet AND the conduit...what was I thinking . I had already backfilled the sweep and some of the first section and there was no way I was going to dig it back out. I looked around the barn and found some scrap pieces of 2x6 and a short 2x10. I used these 3 pieces of wood and made a small raised platform with the conduit running underneath. I glued 3 sections this way to get me out of a bind but it was time for plan B which is to glue on top of or beside the trench and leave much more of it uncovered at the end of the weekend. Another great tip from oceanobob. The next issue with plan B was my spoil placement because I wasn't thinking ahead. I now want to use 2x4's layed across the trench for glueing but the spoil pile is right next to the trench. A minor mistake for now and I will have to deal with some spillage back into the trench. As you can see in the pic I moved the pile over a bit towards the end so I have a clean lip next to the trench. The pile on the left hand side just appeared there on its own, I guess from bucket spillage and so forth. When I continue I think I will keep that side clean also by dragging it back into the trench before I do the final cleanout swipe. As it is right now I have no access to the trench from the sides without pushing dirt back into the trench before I'm ready for it. Minor first time stuff, you can't beat a man at his trade. This stone dust is the hot nuts. It looks black cause it's wet but it turns light gray when dry. It's easy to shovel and it makes a nice level bed at the bottom of the trench. 6" on top of the conduit protects it from sharp rocks when they start settling down. I took special care to tamp the stone dust and fill dirt around the sweep because it's going to be under a precast concrete pad that a transformer or junction box will sit on. Another sweep will be placed behind this one and continue off in the other direction.
A quick and easy rope holder made out of some pallets I had laying around. Capped off both ends of the conduit when I was done to keep the critters and other junk out. You can't see it but I slit the orange cap with a hacksaw so I could get it over the rope without having it interfere with the pull. I will have 9 open sweeps when I'm done so I bought a bunch of these inexpensive orange press fit caps to keep it all covered until the electric company pulls the wire and installs the transformer and junction compartments. I'm still 1 foot down with the fill here because I have to run the plastic "buried line" caution tape and a phone wire.
Great projects and pictures! Sounds like your taking note of what works and what doesn't. I'm sure you'll be blazing along once you get your routine down. Thanks for sharing! opcorn
Nice straight trenches there, oldandworn. You obviously take pride in your work. Where i live, its a rare thing. I cannot tell you how many times i have gone to jobs to lay conduit where the contractor informed us that the trenches were ready, and when i get there the trench is weavy, and makes such awkward turns that you would have to use manufactured bends to get around them. Which then puts you over the max number of bends your allowed by the power company. Then the backhoe operator gets bent when i tell him he needs to straighten the trenches and dig the corners out so i can get long sweeps in. Long story short, i am always quick to compliment when somebody, like you, takes the time to know what they are doing and does it right. It is always a pleasure working with people like you, and if you were not so far away i would ask you if you want some help.
It's amazing how many small details need to be sorted out when doing projects for the first time. If it was a short run some things wouldn't be such an issue but the bigger the job is the more items need to be fine tuned or you end up making a lot more work for yourself. I really had my heart set on glueing in the trench for a number of reasons plus I can backfill almost to the end of my work. I may experiment with widening the trench slightly at each joint and see how that works. I had to dig an enormous rock out that you can't see in the pics but the trench ended up being about 4' wide and it really didn't take that much time or effort.
WOW! thank you for the very nice compliments. Being a machinist and engineering type I tend to over do things that don't need to be quite so perfect but it's always a good feeling in the end. I picked this easy straight run of 375' first so I could hopefully get all of my experiments and mistakes out of the way. The 900' pull down the steep hill with creek crossing has me very concerned and I'm going to be a mess watching the guys pull the wire through just waiting for it to seize up before coming out the other end. I need to get this done with no manufactured joints. Thanks for the help offer.:thumbsup Just between you and me I'm starting to think the movie Field of Dreams is a bunch of hogwash! I have dug it, but I have yet to see any helpers walking out of the woods with shovels in hand.
The level of detail and the precision of execution lead me to confidently predict one of the smoothest wire pulls .....any updates worthy of mention?
Thanks for the vote of confidence oceanobob! I haven't dug anymore trench since the last pics. My FEMA trailer that I stay in has developed a rather serious roof leak so I have been dealing with that. My tractor with a box blade which I want to use for the final leveling busted a special hydraulic hose so I'm taking time out to fix that also.
Nothing exciting to report except the largest rock so far. It was dead center in the trench so I had to dig on both sides. Straight bladed screws and hoe type digging equipment without thumbs should be outlawed. What were they thinking. Just try for a few moments not using the thumbs on your hands. Lucklily I was able to balance the rock and swing it off to the side. I have fine tuned my routine and things are speeding up immensely. My time on the hoe is now very short compaired to protecting the conduit from rocks and backfilling. Another problem I didn't think about is logistics. With only a couple hundred feet in the ground I seem to be spending a lot of time running back and forth. I need to come up with a better plan for that 1800' mark. I'm very happy that I was able to glue the conduit in the trench like I planned. The bottom of the trench is pretty darn flat and the joints really slip together easily. At each joint I slightly **** the hoe, ummm, what's wrong with that word? OK tilted the hoe with the stabilizers and make the trench a little wider. Another quality tip from oceanobob. :cool2 It's amazing how just a few extra inches of room makes it so much easier. Notice how the trench walls have become very sharp. This is the section that I ramdomly picked before starting just to see what was under there. At the time every bucket full of dirt stuck in my bucket like glue and I found that other big rock a few inches below the surface and I was sweating bullets thinking the whole run would be like this. It must of dried up nicely because I didn't have anymore sticking problems here. Plus I was shaving the soil as others have suggested. I have run into quite a few different soil types. This one is a light tan clay (where the big rock was) and a few feet before this was a red clay with no rocks. I like the red clay the best so far.
In the background to the right of the hoe is my pole barn which was there when I bought the property. My house is a few years off in the future but the utility company let me run power to the barn. They normally want a well dug, septic permit, and the start of a house foundation before they will run power so I feel lucky. Since I had to obtain right-of-ways I thought it was best to get this part out of the way. I'm more excited about running an extension cord to my trailer than power to the barn.....generators suck!!! I'm leaving the trench open about a foot down for the caution tape and possible phone line. At first I thought phone service was a no go because the poles going over the RR tracks are very old and only high enough for power. The phone engineer is currently checking to see if they can get the poles replaced but she hasn't been able to give me an answer yet. I have fair cell coverage but land line phone will be my best option for internet with about 3MB DSL.
thanks for posting those photos and the updates
Because it has been so dry in my area I have decided to stop in the middle of the run on my property and trench in some of the normally wet areas on my neighbors land. This pole is the start of the run and there are no buildings on the property other than a small shed. I'm very lucky that the power utility didn't remove the pole when the old house was razed years ago. I forgot to take before pics but the heavy dense vegetation came all the way over to the side of the road and I couldn't even see what the land looked like where I had to trench. Some work with a weed wacker, saw, and heavy shears cleaned the area out nicely. Lots of multiflora rose (heavy stickers) in there. I can fit the hoe in the culvert now and dig in a straight manner. Hard to tell in the pic but the bottom of the culvert is about 5' lower than the base of the pole. If I placed a standard 90 degree 36" radius sweep at the base of the pole it would come out the side of the hill and there isn't enough distance to flex the conduit down into the culvert. If I buried the sweep deeper it would be below the bottom of the pole in the ground, just too deep to be practical. I bought a 22 and 45 degree elbow and decided to make my own sweep. I'm not sure if elbow is the correct name but they are bent pieces of conduit, not the small cast joints. I got this idea after I left so I bought both angles not knowing which one will follow the terrain better.
Thanks for keeping us informed.....when we order conduit "bend" fittings (sweeps), we have to tell the supply house the wall thickness (eg schedule 40), the distance in inches for the radius (eg 36" or 48" radius) and the amount of the circle (eg 90 or 45 degrees, etc). Around here, for a conduit for a utility (power company) line we can only use schedule 40 , but there must be a riser coming vertically off the sweep that transitions from the horizontal to the vertical, that riser must be a minimum for about 18" and must be schedule 80 ....I believe you were going to use the thinner than schedule 40 conduit, but I dont remember if you said anything different or special was required for those pole risers. Therefore, it would not be unusual (here) for the excavation to be well over 5 feet in depth in order to do a 48" sweep and the sched 80 riser.....then one can gradually transition up to the depth for the balance of the run..... sometimes at a pole, digging like this may require temp bracing of the pole.....guy line or kicker...in your case, I believe the pole is bald? Also they are very picky about which quadrant of the pole one places the riser - this is so the wire guard terminates at the transformer correctly. We have had to specify customs on the sweeps, say like 35 degrees. In these cases, we survey and make a sketch and dig to the sketch to assure the part fits. You may wonder why we don't just cut a 45 sweep, it is because the diameter of the conduit on a sweep is not able to make up to a coupling or female end of the next joint - the od is too big. The reason is gets big is because when they bend the sweep they dont want it to be so small that it impedes the mandrel which is the gizmo pulled through the entire conduit run by the inspector prior to acceptance. I recall you were not being subjected to the mandrel test but I wrote this in here for your information. Dont get me wrong, we are not delighted with these situations, we have gone and toured the factory where they make the sweeps and this is the way it was explained to me.
Bob, thanks for your input. The POCO wants schedule 40 for the sweeps and schedule 80 at the house or in my case, barn. No riser at the pole, just one end of the sweep 6" above ground level. Yeah, I was thinking the pole could fall over so I scratched the idea of going deep. The engineer painted an orange location stripe at the base of the pole so I'm good to go there. There won't be a transformer on the pole as my line is a continuation of the 13K primary. At first I was thinking of cutting a 90 degree sweep but realized the conduit wouldn't fit well because it would be in the middle of a bend or maybe larger as you have mentioned. I still have another idea that I want to try because I really would like to use the original 36" radius sweep. The cast double females are pretty stout and I may try glueing and hammering one on at my cut. If it doesn't work well I will fall back to the other shorter elbows. The conduit supplier is really great to deal with and I can return anything I don't use.
Success! I was able to modify a 90 degree sweep to the angle that I needed coming off of the pole. It took some soft hits with the hammer but the double female fully seated and didn't distort the other end of the coupling. I thought there may be some gaps so I brought a caulk gun along but that wasn't needed.
Trip to the start of the run I figured out a good way to transport the conduit. I still don't know if I can get phone service but I can't wait any longer for an answer so I ordered another 1800' of 2" conduit. I could have gone with a much smaller conduit but the 2" was only a few cents more per foot and the larger the better in case I want to pull something in the future. After loading it up I realized I could have put the 2" inside of the 3" and carried twice the amount but this is more than enough to get me started. Having lived on 1/4 and 1/2 acre lots all of my life, there was one thing that I didn't think about when buying a large parcel of land. Working away from your home site is like taking a trip. The steep hill (conduit route) is going to need some work before I can take the hoe down it so it was about a 3/4 mile journey by unpaved road to the start of the power run on my neighbor's property. I had to run through the entire process in my head so I could make a list of the things I would need without having to drive the hoe back to pick up a forgotten item. The bag of concrete will be placed on top of the conduit at the bottom of the culvert. Being hollow, I don't know if the conduit will want to float upwards over the years but it certainly won't now. A story about the large 2000' roll of telephone wire. It's very heavy! To fabricate a stand that would support it would be quite a job. Since I'm pulling the wire as I lay the conduit it also needs to start and spin freely so I couldn't just shove a pole through the middle. So I decide to roll it out along the 500' run, cut it, and roll it back up on the smaller reel. I left about 15' extra at the start and rolled it out to the end of the run. Luckily, I forgot my wire cutters so while walking back to the hoe I passed the end of the wire about 100' away from the pole. My first thought was, this is impossible, how could this have happened? I then realized that the wooden spool diameter is larger than the wire diameter and the spool was traveling faster than the wire could unwind thus pulling the wire along the ground as well. Simple mechanics, but never doing this before it's one of those things I didn't think of. Anyway, I corrected the length and left plenty at each end as well.
This is the easiest of the 3 spring creeks. It's dry right now but the other two will always have a trickle no matter how dry it is. The soil at the pole was nice and diggable but quickly changed. I read about blue clay somewhere on this forum but have never seen or had to work in it. This stuff is just plain miserable and the trench in the culvert was loaded with it. I had to take tiny slices so I could get it out of the bucket and the bottom of the trench looks like a train wreck because I just couldn't get it smooth. I can't easily work it by hand so I'm going to make a smooth bed with the stone dust. I used caution backing the hoe into the culvert. It was steep but what concerned me more was a severe sideways drop off. I swung the boom and extended the stick over the road and it felt pretty stable going in. I thought I would have to use the hoe to help the machine out of the culvert but low gear at an idle with diff lock pulled it right out. The tricky part was when I was digging half way out of the culvert on the steep side with the drop off. This machine has a parking brake that locks up the rear wheels. If I tried to use the stabilizer on the left side to level the machine up it would loose traction when the wheel raised and slide back into the culvert. So I had to dig a lot of the ditch and blue clay with the hoe on a pretty severe tilt which didn't help the quality of the trench either.
Some nice work there....not real familiar with electical jobs but I'd love to see you trenching some oil and gas pipeline right of ways compared to some of the messes I've seen. From the photos your creek crossings should not be a big challange...but one trick I've seen done for areas of heavier flow is to dig the trench deeper at point of flow, put larger rocks, then fine gravel before laying the pipe in place. The rocks help the site drain faster so you don't have as much saturated soil. Only really seen it used near major creeks or springs though. Keep up the good work.
Looks like your doing very well with your project, nice work!
Thanks forester. Do the rocks help while laying the conduit or after backfilling and completion? Because of water, I'm not going to be able to see the condition of the bottom of the trenches in the other 2 crossings which bugs me. Maybe pea gravel in the bottom so I can easily work it smooth?
Thanks, I'm trying. I'm not enjoying all of these obstacles. I just want to be on flat ground digging and backfilling so I can feel like I'm getting somewhere. I forgot to mention I found my first immovable rock up on my property. I spent way too much time on it which resulted in a large dug up area and I never did find the other edges of the rock. The top of the rock was 2' down which I guess was a blessing because I was able to go over top of it by re-filling and sloping the 3' deep trench in front of the rock.
What I've seen done is the larger rocks work as a combination drain and anchor against erosion. So you lay down the larger rocks until you hit just below the grade needed for the pipe. Smaller gravel is used to cushion the pipe and is tamped down to ensure it doesnt' erode underneath the pipe after filling the trench in. Cover the pipe with pea gravel as normal and then fill. If it's a surface flow stream you might need to armour the bottom of the flowing creek with rocks after filling the trench to avoid the water eroding the side of the trench down and out. Biggest issue is dealing with the erosion factor. Large volume at low speed or low volume at high pressure will both carve out and collapse the sides of your trench quickly even if the sides of the trench are frozen. If you've got movement down the trench you can add things such as burlap fencing or even spruce boughs to help slow the water speed down while you fill the trench or, as you've previously thought of, pump the water over to reduce the volume involved. I know you're on private land but do you need special permits to work on the larger streams? Especially if they are fish bearing you may need a development permit to trench it open/timing restriction. Not sure on your rules down there. I'm used to companies either boring (if non-frozen) underneath streams or trenching them if they are small enough in winter. Both systems work if you take your time but not sure how heavy of frost you'll get down there. foresterab p.s. Nice work on that bridge with the culvert by your barn...now if only I could get my logging companies to do half as well.
That sounds like a very good design. All of these spring creeks are slow and low flow so I think just the smooth pea gravel will work well. There is also 3/4" gravel being delivered on site for another purpose which I was planning on using to fill up the rest of the trench with. On top of that, as you suggested, there will be larger rocks lining the bottom of the creek bed. These creeks visibly start about 50 to 100' away from where I'm crossing them. If you walk back further you loose them and it's an area of wet ground eventually turning into dry. The last pics and culvert are on my neighbors property. I'm working there right now because one is dried up and the other 2 are at a slight trickle. It depends on the amount of rainfall but late summer is usually the driest time. Thanks! OaW
It looks as though you got the coupling to mate with the "partial 90". Depending on the size of the pipe the sweep 90 usually gets out of round when they bend them at the factory. This makes it tough to make connections if trying to connect in these out of round areas of the bend. If you find one that is too difficult you can improvise a "heat and bend" solution. Take either the coupling, the cut bend, or both if necessary, and apply some of your glue. Just a bit less than if you were going to glue the pipe together. Now, use caution here, light the wet glue on fire (again, use caution here) and rotate the pipe so that you heat the object evenly. When the desired temperature is reached whip the fitting around, through the air, so that the flame is extinguished. Then quickly (while it's still at the right temperature) mate the (2) pieces together, manipulating them however necessary, so that they will change their shape enough to glue them together after they cool off. The objective is to heat it up only to the point at which you can mold the piece to the same size and shape as it's mate. Not enough heat and it won't be moldable. To much heat and it will easily deform and become useless. The amount of glue and heat will require a learning curve so try it only if you have extra parts. If you have access to a butane, or mapp gas, torch you may find that you have more control and it will probably be less dangerous than the open flame with glue as the fuel source. Be sure to keep any open flames/ignition sources away from your clothes. Especially if you have glue on them.
Oh good! Being a firefighter and hazmat tech I love firey chemicals :tong. Just kidding on the last part but thanks for the tip and I will be careful. This should be my only "special" joint so I shouldn't be setting anything on fire . I already tested the fit on the open end of the double female and there is no distortion.
hey guy, been following your post, and i must say you do great work ! hope you complete this project on time for you
Thanks Phill, I have a feeling I'll still be digging in December or maybe even into 2012. It would be nice though if I can get the curves taken care of while the conduit still bends nicely. I might autta pre-form some of them while it's still warm.
What a mess.... When I arrived at my property Friday I saw that my shale driveway had some bad erosion damage and that doesn't happen unless there has been a very heavy downpour. The extra 10' of trench that I had dug where I stopped on my property was totally gone, filled to the top with silty looking soil. The pics that I posted of trenching through the culvert were taken on Saturday of last week. I had planned on filling in the culvert on Sunday but it was raining in the morning it didn't look as though it was going to stop anytime soon. I should have stayed to fill in the culvert no matter how much it was raining. A neighbor who lives about 1 mile away had offered me the use of a pump in the past so I called him up to borrow it. He thought I was off my rocker because he had not gotten any rain during the week at his house. These mountains have some crazy weather. This guy is one of those neighbors that everyone wishes they had. Retired in his middle 60's and can work twice as hard as I ever could and is always offering to help. The first day I met him he made such an impression on me that I gave him exclusive hunting rights and he was so appreciative you would have thought I had given him a million dollars. He can hunt on 400 acres next door but that neighbor leases out to other hunters and all of the ruckus drives the wildlife onto my property. My land also came with 6 rather substantial tree stands which he can maintain and do whatever he wants with them. One of the stands is totally enclosed with windows on all sides and it reminds me of an outhouse up in a tree :cool2 Not only was there water up to the culvert pipe but a lot of soil had flowed back into the trench. I had to position the hoe perpendicular to the ditch and dig the slop out sideways. The hoe controls are the same of course but it seemed awkward because I haven't dug in this position before. After my neighbor delivered the pump he insisted that he stay and help me out. I told him that the culvert repair and installing the sweep at the pole would be slow going but it would be nice if he could come back the next day at 2 o'clock and I would have some trench dug and he could help me glue conduit and backfill. What a difference in speed another person makes. Within a very short period we had 60' of conduit in the hole after the culvert and I was back on the hoe digging more ditch while he was pulling in fill to bed the conduit. I felt guilty having someone 10 years my senior working so hard in the ditch but he insisted that he didn't mind and he has never operated a backhoe. By 6 oclock we had 130' of conduit bedded not including the 30' in the culvert. He is also going to pick up some pea gravel in his truck next Friday so we can try to fix the mess in the culvert. BTW, there was more hard rain Friday night and the culvert keeps filling up to the drain pipe about every 4 hours. A nice place to store my stuff while working here. It does creep me out a bit wondering what is going to crawl or slither out of that hole below the door when I'm standing there.
A short blurb about the transition from the side of the road to the center of the road. I'm not sure why he wants it there but I followed the lines that he painted. The owner of this property has a bad drainage problem because of all the springs and his unimproved roads are too mushy to drive on during the wet seasons. Since I'm digging a trench he thought of filling it with gravel to drain down into the culvert. I mentioned to him that he needed to stop filling 18" down with the gravel so I can place my phone conduit and caution tape, then come back and add the rest of the gravel to the top. Between the 2 step process and the price of the 44 tons of gravel needed he decided to let me fill higher with soil, place my stuff, then he would fill the remaining 18" with gravel. These are the only large rocks I have come across so far except for 1 HUGE rock that was in front of his shed. Here is my next leg looking from where I stopped trenching, right down the middle of the road. If it were me and I was looking for drainage I would have kept the trench off to the left side of the road which is higher in elevation. This road leads out into a small field and then comes the second culvert. Another simple rope holder. I know it doesn't matter if the poly rope gets wet but what the heck.
Ack..how much water are we talking about going down the slope now? Your grade does not look bad but if it's alot of volume and small sized gravel on top of the trench you might be looking at some form of barrier to reduce the speed of water flow. something as simple as those mid sized rocks placed 1/3rd to 1/2 way down would help alot. Or look at side drainage diversion channels to avoid all the water going down the trench if it is an option.
Yeah, I don't know how this is going to work out. Wouldn't smaller rock slow the flow more than larger rock? The trucker calls the stone #57 which is basically your common grey irregular driveway gravel. In most cases I think the water will seep down past the gravel and saturate the soil which may or may not become a problem. He is also installing white drain pipe with holes only in the top but I would think most of the water would miss the pipe and go into the soil. I'm not sure if this will provide much soil erosion protection but I was thinking of using the caution tape as a barrier. It's about 8" wide and fairly thick plastic. I'm going to overlap 2 strips of it and place it on top of the soil. On top of it will be my phone conduit, his drain pipe, and the gravel. BTW, his drainage trench will start at the far end of the nice green road 3 pictures up.
Water penetration into any road bed is BAD. IMO you are correct about saturation into the soils below the gravel. This will settle the soils below unless you compact it really, really, really well. BTW this settlement will change the grade of the drain and tel pipe, and may stress or even possibly break it or cause joints to come apart
Noted.....Thanks
Sorry to be off topic but I noticed in an earlier post you had mentioned having 2 transformers to feed your place resulting in another meter. What is the distance between the pole barn and your house? Can you not split the difference with the transformer between the 2?. Beside the transformer have 1 meter on a post feeding a splitter, then run secondary to your buildings from there. A second meter will usually have basic charges applied to it whether you use any power or not. And thats forever.
Not off topic at all. I have spent a lot of time thinking about doing this but since it involves so many unknown future variables I give up in frustration and decide to leave it the way it is. Besides only having one meter and bill the other major benefits are less cost (or maybe not because of secondary wire) and being able to run all buildings with a backup generator from one central transfer switch. Less cost because the POCO charges primary line footage to the transformer serving the home and all other equipment and wire to out buildings are free provided it feeds another meter. It sucks that I have to pass the barn to get to the house but it is what it is. There is also a possibility that I can't build where I want to. I was in the middle of sorting out the septic when this unexpected power opportunity became availiable and placed it on the back burner. The ground slope is at or sightly over what they want for a sand mound system but a conventional would easily pass. Because of politics or just being overly cautious it's rare to give a permit for a conventional system in my county. Even if I pass their soil tests my feeling is that it would be difficult to get a conventional permit. Another problem is the lack of a real road going down to the homesite. The power engineer said that I would have to have at least a graveled road before they would install any equipment down there. She also wasn't too keen on running line past the barn for something that might not get built. They provide the secondary wire so the install would cost them more money. Secondary wire length. I may have mentioned that it would be 300' more to the second transformer. There would also be another 75 to 100' of secondary to the house. I will have 1 maybe 2 other buildings close to the existing pole barn. One possibly on the flat area where my trailer is which is another 75 to 100'. It's still doable but the secondary runs are getting longer than I'm comfortable with and I would have to foot the cost of all secondary wire. The POCO would only install for free the short piece from the transformer to the meter on the pedestal. The customer is responsible for everything after the meter(s). More than you wanted to hear but these are the things I have been juggling around about this decision. The transformer pad and conduit to the barn will be the last thing I do so I may still go with your idea between now and then if the POCO engineer will accept the change.
So 400 ft total distance between buildings meaning 200 ft runs of secondary from a centrally located transformer. That sounds doable. Is that a real word? You would have to increase the size of the wire and of course that would mean more expense for you up front. I used to do this type of work for a utility and I aproached every job as if I were paying the bills and if you were my customer I would be trying to talk you out of 2 transformers 2 meters and 2 powerbills. I urge you to speak to an electrician about the cable requirements and costs and compare the up front costs against paying that extra power bill forever. In my area there is a $35.00 charge for every meter each month.even if you don't use any power. Also those special deals for powerlines don't last forever and you could be in for a huge dollar surprise when you must pay the going rate for high voltage underground power and another padmount transformer. Tell that utility that you are for sure going to build that house in the near future. Of course there may be more to the story that I am not considering such as the septic field issues and possible alternate location of the house. You may even be trying to convince your wife to live in the poleshed for all I know.LOL Reguarding the septic field issue, if the soil in your pics is any indication of the type of soil in the proposed field location it does look OK. It certainly does not seem impermiable. Maybe too sandy and would not treat the effluent adequately before it returns to the water table. A 2 chamber septic tank provides primary treatment of the sewage. The soil in a traditional field (final treatment)then treats the effluent further to a point where it is safe to return to any water course. Certain types of sand, large granules and rock do not provide enough surface area for the organisms in the soil to provide adequate treatment. A sand mound using a very specific type of sand and properly constructed with pressure distribution, performs secondary treatment of the effluent reducing the dangerous bacteria and pathogens to a point where it is safe to release to less than adequate final treatment in the problem soil. However, there now are high tech septic tanks that provide a levell of treatment (primary and secondary) that will allow a traditional field to be built. Thats a long drawn out way of saying you may be able to put your house where you want it regardless of septic field problems. There I go. Off topic again.
Most health department bureaucrats like rubberstamp, "one size fits all" septic systems. Any system outside their comfort zone has to be signed off by an engineer but then anything an engineer signs will fly. Clothes have a lot of synthetic fibers that will not break down in a septic system. Install a screen to catch fibers in your washer outlet and it will add many years to the service life of a septic system, better yet a screen to a grey water system.
Thanks for the screen tip, I never would have thought of that. Their grey water policy irkes me to no end and I feel like challenging them on the issue. Unless I'm missing something it makes no sense to flood a septic system with all of that grey water.
It's $7.50 per month minimum monthly charge for a barn structure but I realize rates can change. It didn't take me long to realize why they were so meter happy. I pointed to where the future barn/shop buildings might go and they were quick to mention the free installation and secondary wire feeding from the transformer. My plan at the present time is to install a meter main with feed through lugs on the barn so I can feed extra buildings from the outside panel, similar to it being on a pedestal. I was very lucky with my timing. I requested service 1 week after a merger and that saved me $3 per foot on the 1800' line charge. I want to keep the septic system simple as possible and I'm going to try my best for gravity conventional. Even if I have to go with a sand mound further away on flatter ground I will have enough drop to use a siphon dosing tank which has no moving parts instead of an electric pump.
What a relief to finally get this mess filled in before we got hit with anymore rain. It was eating bucketfuls of gravel but didn't seem to be firming up under the power conduit. Then all of a sudden the muck stopped trying to pull my Muck Boots off and the floor became very solid. The total amount of gravel to fill at grade over both conduits ended up being 6 yards. The gravel also extends out laterally in the trench to the highest possible water level. 2" phone conduit and caution tape
My other neighbor who is helping me did a really nice job with the rock retaining wall on the culvert which used to be just an overgrown swale. There is still a lot of blue clay chunks and other crud that needs to be removed from the center and other side of the culvert. Since the property owner is filling in the trench with gravel he is bringing in his skid steer to take away the extra fill. I tamped the area around the pole and sweeps really well in 6" lifts. My neighbor is turning out to be quite the MacGyver. I mentioned that I needed a way to hold the phone wire and a last thought roll of pull string. He took a couple of measurements and came back after lunch with this.
Big progress this weekend but it was in the mid 90’s with oppressive humidity. Not the type of weather for an older guy with an office job to be working in so I had to take a LOT of breaks. I tip my hat to you folks who do this sort of work every day. Oh, and I found out that washing pants doesn’t necessarily mean that the dirt will come out of the pockets. The new plan is to empty the pockets before washing. I outdid myself on trench straightness 101, it must be machinist in me coming out. ijoker are you seeing this? Actually, level rock free ground was a big help. The little jog to the left of the trench on the power conduit was to miss a “tip of the iceberg” rock. I have learned my lesson about not disturbing sleeping dogs as it could have been the size of a Buick.
Rocks Rocks Everywhere The mysteries of mother earth never ceases to amaze me. That long straight grassy road had ZERO rocks but when I entered into the second field they were falling from the sky as if someone flipped on a switch. Much worst than on my property as they were from the top to the bottom of the trench.
As you can see from my spoil piles in the background I stopped about 30’ short of the second spring creek and I’m not sure of the next step. I believe the sides are too steep and the bottom too muddy to take the hoe into it. I have an extendable dipper stick so I’m thinking I should dig to the center from both sides without entering the culvert which is about 10 to 12’ wide and 4’ lower than the surrounding ground. Do you think I should switch to my 24” bucket? To get deep into the culvert floor my trenches on the sides are going to be pretty deep and it seems like I’m always farting around in the bottom of my trenches for some reason or another. Any input would be greatly appreciated. There is a small flow in this culvert and the ground looks quite mushy. If you look closely upper left of center you can see a small orange flag next to the brown grass which is my first junction/pull point. I actually extended it 30’ which I will explain in my next post.
I obtained permission from the power engineer to extend the junction box/pull point by 30’ for a straighter pull on the 900’ run going up the steep hill. She wanted photos of the new location so I though I would post them here as well. Original flag with the new location at the traffic cone. The third and final creek crossing is about at the end of the blue line. Although it’s not a deep culvert it has the largest flow and might be the most difficult because of the tight and swampy work area. My property boundry is at the tree line so I’m back on my land for the rest of the run.
You have the right idea about your approach to the next creek crossing. If you are unsure about getting through there your idea is the safest bet. If the banks are stable you can back up to the point at which your back tires will start down over the edge. Have your outriggers down, just above the ground, as you back up. Just in case the bank gives way un-expectedly. Be sure to pay some attention to the outriggers as you back up. You don't want to hit anything with them. As I have said before, be sure to have your pipe all glued together before you dig. Once you start digging the first half you will have an idea as to how well the ditch will stand and how much water you may have entering your ditch. I still suggest that you take some of your pipe and lay it in the flow line of the creek (parrallel with the creek). Back fill over the up stream side of the pipe, leaving the end open, to force the water to enter the pipe. If the creek bed is close to flat, or even reverse fall, you should also backfill over the down stream side of the pipe (again, leaving the end open so that the water can escape) so that the water will not "back up" into your trench. A few light taps on the backfill will help to seal the water out and keep it from leaching through to the trench. The main object will be to get the water to enter the pipe, transfer to the down stream side of the trench, and on down the creek. The dryer you can keep your trench, the easier the job will be, and the higher the success rate will be. Of course, you will have to "tunnel" under said pipe but the extra work, and time, will be worth it if you can keep the trench standing until you are done laying and bedding your conduit. Once you go over to the opposite side of the creek then you can dig as close as you can to your "drain pipe" on the same side you are digging from. Dig all the way down to your conduit grade. Dig the length of "one set", not all the way out of the creek bed yet. Once you are down to grade you can reach over the "drain pipe" and push out the plug towards you. Once you have the plug out you can clean the spoils out from the side you are digging from. Be careful not to push too hard on the plug as this will tend to make the sides fall in. Take small bites starting close to the top (just under the drain pipe). You will also have to move the hoe around to get the best angles as you do this. At the beggining you should set the hoe as far as you can, away from the drain pipe, yet still be able to reach it. This will allow you to dig a more verticle back wall without damaging the drain pipe with the heel of the bucket. When it's time to push out the plug you will have to move the hoe as close as you can to the drain pipe. This will allow you to get as far under the drain pipe as possible without hitting the dipper (just above where the bucket mounts to it) on the drain pipe. The deeper you are, under the drain pipe, the easier the manuever will be. The description may sound complicated and confusing but it will become clear to you once you start in. The two foot wide bucket may be adviseable if you are getting in the trench. The only real downside, if you only talking about a small length, will be that you will use up more bedding material. An advantage will be that the digging should be a little easier, and that the trench walls should be more stable. You will still end up with dirt in your pockets though. The wider bucket will allow the rocks to enter the bucket more easily. With a one foot bucket you often will fight the rocks and, more often than not, they will ride out of the trench on the side cutters rather than in the bucket. Any binding or pressure against the sidewall will only work to de-stabilize it. This will make it more prone to cave in. Again, this sounds complicated, but time in the seat will reveal the benefits of what I'm trying to explain here. If the ditch caves in it will not be the end of the world...as long as you can still reach the spoils with the hoe, and as long as it does not cave in so wide that it extends beyond the effective ends of the drain pipe. Time is of the essence. The clock starts ticking once you start digging. The longer the ditch stays open the more chance you will have for water intrusion and cave in. This is why I suggest that you pre-assemble the pipe. Having your neighbor, or whomever, on hand is adviseable. Once you remove the plug then you can finish digging your way out of the creek bed. Drop your pipe in and get it covered with sand ASAP. If possible, start at the center of the creek with bedding/backfill. If possible backfill and compact, as best as possible, in the flow line of the creek before you move on. Backfill enough so that the water will not fill any other portions of your trench. This will only cause you more headaches (like pipe floatation, and cave in). If you think that the ditch will not stand, for the duration, than knock the edges off while you can still reach everything. Remove anything that you think will fall in later. It will take longer but will save you a lot of time and effort in the long run. The deepest point of the trench will be at the tops of the banks (both sides of the creek bed). I would suggest that you "lay back" the trench at these points. That is to say that you should dig wide at the top leaving the trench bucket width at the bottom. Use your judgement and error on the side of caution. No use getting someone hurt over this. Earlier, I said to back up the hoe to the edge if it's stable enough. If you don't trust the egde, or if you need to get closer to the center of the creek, you can dig ramps down the creek walls. This can help accomplish (2) things. Frist, it will allow you to get closer to the center of the creek affording more reach. Second, it will reduce the depth of the trenches at the creek bed edges. If you do employ this technique I recommend that you ramp both sides of the creek before you start your trench. It will take more time to make the ramps, and if you remember, time is of the essence. Take the time before the clock starts ticking (when you start with the trench). After all your pipe is in and backfilled you can restore the creek walls if you need to.
There has to be a better way How do you folks compact these trenches properly? I have been standing in the trench and raking the dirt in with a garden hoe a few inches at a time and pounding it down with my feet. Frankly, my feet can't take much more of this not to mention the added time that it takes. In most all cases, other than the fields I just crossed, there is not good side access to the trench and I still feel that I have to manually pull the dirt in to bed the conduits because of the many rocks. Other than the fields, there also has not been enough room to place the spoil pile farther away from the trench so I can compact with the hoe bucket without running over the spoil pile. And if I place the spoil pile farther away, manually pulling in the dirt would be very difficult and way too much work for me. The second phone conduit at a different level also adds to the difficulty as I still have a spoil pile while bedding this conduit and have to worry about the effects of excessive settling on this conduit as well. When I was in the back storage room of a local excavator borrowing the traffic cone I saw something that made me drool. :idea I think they are called jumping jacks. It looks like a motorized post hole digger but with a tamper on the bottom. They seem heavy and awkward but do you folks think this would be the hot ticket? I can easily pull dirt in the trench all day long but this foot tamping in 1 or 2" lifts has got to go. This tool would be a huge benefit for the steep uphill with absolutely no access from the sides as the hoe will barely fit. But can this tool be used on a hill? I know just from looking at it that it needs to be held level or it would try to kill you.
Jumping jacks are usually a pretty effective way to get compaction. IMO compaction is not the most important thing for most of your trench. Most of your trench is in un-improved areas so, I assume, some ditch settlement can be tolorated. The worst part is the effects to the second conduit. If you are only talking about 12" of verticle seperation than you probably can get away with not compacting between the conduits. Simply install the electric conduit, shade it to the level of the tel. conduit (by hand, I'm affraid, at least until 6" over either conduit), install the second conduit and shade it too. The remaining backfill can be done with the hoe and tire rolling can be your compactive effort. I ommited the warning tape so install it as required too. If you feel as though you must compact between the conduits than this can also be accomplished with the backhoe bucket. You will have to straddle the trench. Once the electric conduit has been hand shaded you sweep some dirt in with the hoe. If possible, sweep in the dirt that is closest to the ditch so that you can back up without driving on the spoils. Leave your outriggers out in case the trench caves off under your tires. You can either do this all the way along the trench or do it in sections (the reach of the machine) installing all conduit and tape, and backfilling as you go. IMO it would be much easier to install both conduit at the same depth (I probably already suggested this and you probably already said why you can't do this). If you dug everything with your 2' bucket this would allow nearly 2' seperation of the conduits. If you use the jumping jacks (can be rented at most any rental yard for about $80/day, $240/week) you should not exceed 12" lifts. A 12", rock free, lift should be enough to protect the bottom conduit and give you enough compaction to prevent any detrimental issues with the upper conduit. If you need 12" of vertical seperation than I would suggest that you make your lift about 14 to 16 inches thick. This should compact back to about 12". Again, you are only trying to reduce the problems of settlement for the upper conduit. These lifts exceed the normaly accepted practices for propper compaction, with this tool, but should be fine for the middle of a field with the intended purpose. These things weigh about 150# so they can be a PITA to man handle. Jumping jacks can be operated on slopes but it is not the most desireable job. If it is steep enough it will take (2) people to do. One person will operate the tool and the other person will hold the rope. The rope will be tied to the foot (usually a small eyelet is on the foot). The jumping jack will, at all times, be pointing up the hill if on a slope. The operator will be down hill of the tool and will steer the tool, if necessary, back and forth across the trench. The slope work will require more down force on the handle than flat ground. The "rope man" will help control the decent and/or assist in the climb. I suggest 12-15' of rope length. This will help reduce the shaking effect on the "rope mans" hand's. The 1/4" pull rope will be sufficient. If possible afford enough rope so that the "rope man" can handle the rope with it going around his back (at about belt height). This will spread the load out and will reduce his effort, and the stress to his hands.
This sure is a lot of typing. You should have just hired a contractor .
Wow DGODGR....not ignoring you. I'm still trying to soak info in from your first post.
I must have missed that or didn't understand but it sounds simple to do in this culvert. I did notice that the first culvert was filling subterranean through the walls but I guess this is where quickness comes into play. Understood about digging around the bypass. Took a while to sink in until I followed the motions. You can say that again!!!! That last section made a believer out of me. Many times the bucket would get stuck and drag the stabilizers and tires across the grass making a mess. Been there done that. I can easily have the conduit assembled on this culvert and i remember you mentioning it early on. Having to build the sweep on the first culvert made me hesitate but I think I could have guessed at the angle and it would have been close enough. How about the #57 gravel (3/4 minus I think) like I used on the first culvert? It seemed to work very well although I wasn't thrilled about the sharpness. The stone dust just turned to mush and the pea gravel turned out to be something way way different. I thought pea gravel was named for looking like peas? You know, like nice round river stones. Any other alternatives to sand? I can order sand but I wonder if a truckload of giant boulders will show up.
That was my main concern and I want to make sure the rest of the trench on my neighbor's property sinks as little as possible. Actually there is no seperation requirements for telephone. At first I wasn't going to install telephone. Then I decided to just lay the direct burial wire in the trench along with the caution tape. Then I thought about all of the rocks and animals gnawing on it so I decided to install conduit. On the other hand there could be an extreme shock and fire danger, remote but it could happen. The power is 13,000 volts the same as what is run on top of some power poles. I'm sure you have seen the power available when they touch the ground or a tree and sometimes the fuse doesn't blow and they can burn until the power is manually shut off. If this were to happen the conduit would be toast and anything near it would also be disintergrated and possibly electrified with very high voltage. Of course this could also happen up on the pole but the high voltage wire and ground are less than 1/2" apart inside the conduit and it wouldn't take much to start a short if a little water got inside of the cable from a nick in the insulation. Another thing is AC hum being picked up on the phone line. They are quite a few feet apart up on the pole (lowest wire) but being too close for 1800' has me a little worried. There is 21" of seperation now and I wouldn't have any problems going with 18 or maybe 15". That would have worked well. I think I will do that going through the culverts if I decide to switch buckets. If the hill is as rocky as I think it will be I may use the 24" bucket there as well. I was initially thinking that moving twice as much dirt wouldn't be very productive but your points about compaction make it actually seem easier. Forget that idea. I have a tough enough time with a 60 pound bag of Sakrete.
I don't feel ignored. I was just being a smart ass but I did not use the emoticons to convey the sarcasm.
3/4" minus will be fine. I would not worry about the angular rock. You did say that you were using SCH 40 right? If so, don't worry. If both conduits were placed at the bottom of a 2' wide trench you probably won't have any static bleed off. Better safe than sorry for sure. As far as the jumping jack goes, you won't feel the 150 lbs while you are using it. They are pretty well balanced while they are jumping. You will feel it when you are lifting it in/out of the ditch or truck.
Hi Oldandworn. Yeah i have been following this thread the whole way. Pure entertainment! Been reading all the good advice you have been getting and marvelling at all the good pictures. You are doing a great job. I would keep that neighbor around as long i could. He is very handy. I like the, what i like to call, the pole reel jack. I have used a pair of ladders to hold reels of wire over conduit. But that would work a lot better. Next time i have to do that i will try to come up with something like that. I don't have a lot of advice for you on compaction. A lot has already been said. But from experiences i have had with this, in this area, they don't worry to much about it unless it is going under a street or otherwise a road. Just make a pile on top of the trench, (assuming you have enough dirt to do so), after you have ran over the backfill with your backhoe and call it good. The trenches going uphill, they just backfill by hand and use the foot method as they go. They don't waste a lot of time doing that. In fact i have seen them backfill the trench completely and just stomp down on top of it, and leave a mound of dirt on top for settling purposes. I can imagine with that much trench it is hard on the feet. And it seems the older we get, the more it hurts. If it were me, i don't think i would be worrying too much about compaction. When it settles you can always get back out there with the backhoe and fill it in. Or not. Depends on who is going to see it and who you have to impress. Yourself or someone else. Like myself, you are a perfectionist. I like to overkill rather than skimp on things. It doesn't hurt. And gives more confidence of fewer problems down the road. Keep up the good work. And the posts. Cheers :drinkup
The big advantage to having good compaction on the uphill part of the trench is it will cut down on erosion and washout of the ditch. Consider hiring 2 young fellas to do this part of the job. I have run whackers enough to say they are tiring on level ground and on a good steep hill they are real hard on a fella. I suggest you backfill the whole hill and work down from the top tamping it. The cost of hiring some help will seem cheap if it does not wash your dirt down the hill.
Thanks ijoker! Yeah, I told him I was going to post a pic of the holder on the net and he got a kick outta it. The second conduit is becoming a PITA concerning backfill and I may give the 24" bucket a try so I can place them both in the bottom of the trench as DGODGR suggested. For example, the last pic in post #38 is how I left the trench on my property before moving to the neighbor's run. At the time I was just going to lay the wire in with the caution tape so I didn't spend much time on compaction. I hand compacted real well to about 10" above the power conduit then pushed another 12 to 15" in with the hoe bucket from the side of the trench and roughly leveled it out. Well, it doesn't look nice and flat anymore and it has some pretty extreme level changes because of settling. Granted, it's an open trench and we have had a few real good rains but even a filled trench with a depression from settling would channel extra water in also. The good part is, with a little fill work that trench should be good to go for the phone conduit as most of the heavy settling has already occurred.
Erosion is a big concern Bill and there are some pretty deep ruts in the hill already. I'm seeing a lot of rock in the ruts so it should be interesting digging. Agreed on the help. After I'm done I think I should build a few water bars.
I made an effort to use 4" schedule 40 as many suggested here. I found 1000' of 4" in 20' sections for 50 cents per foot on Craigslist. I had the seller send me detailed pics to make sure it wasn't weathered or damaged and I noticed how thick the walls were. I went to a big box store and lifted up a 10' section, the longest they had, and determined I would not be able to easily handle and glue 20' sections by myself and I didn't want 10' sections. The local industrial supply had miles and miles of 3" DB60 in 20' sections and they told me that is what the electricians use. 3 or 4" schedule 40 would be a special order so I went with the DB60.
Yeah Oldandworn, Speaking from experience, seperation of the conduits is an important thing. You will get noise on the telephone if the condiuits are laying against each other. Not always, but in some cases. But if you lay the conduits in the bottom of the trench, keeping them pushed to opposite sides of the trench, you will be fine. Not all jurisdictions allow this. I have worked in areas where the power company does not allow conduits of other systems in the same trench. And i have also seen where they require a foot of fill over the power conduit, basically the way you were doing it. But if the power company doesn't care, why not make it easy, right? There are ways of keeping the conduits seperated. I understand what Bill is saying about making sure to compact on the hill parts. It makes sense to not have washout in those areas if you can prevent it. Thats good advice. :notworthy It would probably be worth it to hire a couple of young guys to tamp that down as they backfill. Maybe you can get away with a couple of hours for 2 guys? :beatsme
I found a use for the blue clay. The DGODGR water diversion method worked very well and the blue clay held up for 3 days without a single leak. I could only get the felt paper slightly under the culvert pipe because of clearance problems and some of the water was trying to get under the paper but a little clay on the bottom lip stopped that also.
I originally didn't care for the idea of having an extendable dipper because it added more looseness to an already OldandWorn machine, thus my name on HEF. Also, the extra long hydraulic hoses are horribly routed and needs to be looked into because of kinking. Now that I have needed it a few times I'm glad to have the extendable option. I almost made extra work for myself moving spoil piles around when trying to connect the trenches. I thought about machine and spoil placement before hand but I miscalculated the size of the hoe and how close to the machine it could dig sideways. Once again the extendahoe got me out of a bind by finding a spot farther away. It was quite a chore hand shoveling the last bit of rocky dirt out of the trench because there was nothing left to push against.
Sometimes we use a compaction wheel in lieu of a whacker (eg jumping jack). Another problem is the correct moisture to meet the soil engineers curve for optimum compaction - eg pre-conditioning of the material. Trench compaction on slopes is 'next to mandatory' (imperative) with documentation due to the possibility of entire content sudden migration due to water moving under the surface or following the trench.
Rocks and gravy The area had large amounts of rain which is why I didn’t work the previous weekend. An empty 5 gallon drywall bucket that I had outside was filled right to the top. I had about 30’ of open trench in the field because I had run out of time during the last work session and it was filled 2’ deep with water. I pumped it out before I started working in the culvert. There was some blue clay on the outside edges of the culvert but the middle was bottomless muck with lots of rocks. Before I could swing the bucket back for another scoop the sides of the trench would slide into the abyss. I'm sure diverting the water from the culvert pipe was a help but it seemed to only be a small percentage of the source. Water was bleeding from everywhere including parts of the trench I had just dug up on the higher ground. The next morning I had about 100’ of flooded trench. I’m not sure how this happened but it even got high enough to re-flood the part I had pumped out in the field. I would swear that field is way higher than the culvert. Maybe it was filling on its own and running down into the culvert? All of the trench bottoms were smooth and ready for pipe so I hope it will just be a matter of draining the water and making sure no large rocks fell into the ditch. However, the bottoms are very mushy now and the conduit could sink into the many rocks that are hidden below the muck. I could shovel gravel into the trench bottom to firm it up but this is getting very old and expensive. We did get the bottom of the culvert filled in with gravel and man did it take a lot of it. I was stepping the gravel in but it never got nice and firm like the first culvert. It was like standing on top of a water bed or pumping soil. I would step in one place and the gravel would raise 3’ away from where I was stepping. I wish we would have pushed some of the larger rocks back into the sides of the trench to make it narrower before filling with gravel. I may do this when I fill the rest in with gravel after laying the conduit. I made an effort to get the trench dug and covered before I had to leave but like the first culvert it just didn't happen. I was going to take today off but it started raining Monday afternoon and they are calling for rain everyday this week. As a side note, the company that I work for never recovered from the meltdown and it was sold a few weeks ago. I had been saving leave for 15 years and I lost 380 hours in a single day. I did get paid for some of it but I need the days off for this and future projects.
Thanks, I need to pay close attention to this for sure.
Some Wildlife When I arrived Saturday morning I heard noises in a large tree about 100’ away. I looked over and saw 3 bear cubs making their way down the tree. Not knowing where mom was I climbed up into the seat of the backhoe. She finally made an appearance in the field along the woods line and was looking straight at me. I slowly reached for my camera and just as I was getting ready to snap the picture she took off. Bummer, it would have been a nice clear photo. It looks as though I might have a friendly buck now. When I got back to my property there was a buck at my trailer eating away at the bushes. I got my camera and actually had to make noises and wave my arms so he would raise his head and look at me. A little history, when I bought my property a friendly doe that hangs out at my barn came along with the place. There is a load of deer around but they will always run from people like normal except for this doe and she will usually bed down within sight of my trailer. I have seen 3 fawns from her so far and of course they do as their mother does and not run away from me. I can almost approach them but not quite. They don’t run, but simply walk to another bush and continue eating. I’m wondering if this buck is one of her first fawns? If the eyes look a little strange it's because I photo shopped them. The flash was on and their eyes were as bright as flashlights.
good luck and have fun
Tic Tac Toe Anyone? Busy looking worksite. See the traffic cone at the end? That is the point I was aiming for and I kept the cone dead center in front of the hoe while trenching. When I started to get close I noticed I was off and had to adjust over towards the end. The same thing happened to me with the trench up on my property and I can’t figure out why although I didn’t have any problems keeping the trench in the center of the flat grassy road. Could it have something to do with the unlevel ground? The trench on my property sloped just like this and I had to correct to the left also. I level the hoe while digging, maybe that is throwing my aim off? There is about a foot of gravel under the conduits. Last weekend it was mushy and pumping but sitting for a week allowed it to become very solid and I couldn’t feel any give at all. The price of gravel is sending me to the poor house so I killed two birds with many stones (pun intended). A perfect opportunity to loose some of these rocks I have been digging up. The outside teeth on my poor bucket are all rounded off now and my trench is getting narrower. I’m pretty much finished in the culvert other than muck cleanup and I want to contour some areas with more rocks. I think I might also place a row of large thin rocks on top on the gravel.
This was as close as we could get with the rocks and gravel and there are a lot of shovelfuls of gravel in two of those buckets. All this work for a silly pipe sticking out of the ground. I was so relieved when I saw my yellow pull rope come out of the sweep and there was even some left on the roll at the other end. Phone conduit. I’m mounting a sealed splice box on the post and another sweep will take it to the next run. It was getting hard to pull towards the end of this 500’ length and I’m wondering if it will make the 900’ run, it’s much straighter and downhill though. If not, I will pull till it stops and install another junction box. As with the pull rope I was overjoyed to see that I still had wire sticking out of the sweep at the beginning.
I’m still trying to get the 60’ or so piece of trench backfilled between the culvert and end of the run. Lots of rain this month and it always seems to come late in the week so working conditions have been bad. Saturday, I was able to use the backhoe for the first time since my last post and I pushed the spoil piles closer to the trench but the rear tires were sinking into the grass and making too much of a mess. The ground is so saturated that the tire depressions filled up with water from the underground springs in this area. It’s a 5 hour round trip to my property so when I get there I want to work but I don’t want to start another run until this one is completed. So for the past 3 weeks I have been taking the quad down and working with hand tools only. The wet clay spoil piles have glued themselves to the ground and it takes a lot of hacking and chopping with a rake or garden hoe to get that last few inches separated from the long grass that is underneath. Sometimes I think I'm taking more soil out of the trench on the bottom of my shoes then I'm putting in. Today was a “bad handle day” with the handle pulling off the hoe and the wooden handle breaking off of my tamper so they came home with me for some repairs. I took the backhoe down the steep hill for the first time on Saturday and I will tell you all about that little seat sucking adventure on my next post.
String lines and spray paint are the best way to stay on target. The more trenching you do the better your aim will get without any guidance. Practice makes perfect.
I agree with what you say but since I can hold a good line on flat ground I have been thinking about what the difference could be. Looking from the rear, since the ground slopes heavily to the right and the right stabilizer has to be extended much further to make the machine level, it will kick the pivot point and bucket to the right also. The further you travel from your last dig and the more you have to extend the hoe to meet the trench the more exaggerated the error becomes. Since I was sighting the cone when the machine was traveling and tilted with the ground I wasn't taking this error into account and ended up having to correct to the left. This is second nature to you experienced guys but I think this may be the actual reason behind it. If the ground sloped to the left I'll bet I would have had to correct to the right.
I finally got the last bit of trench after the culvert finished on my neighbor’s property. That was after 3 weekends of hand shoveling because it was too wet for machinery, a weekend with 8” of snow which I didn’t work, and this past weekend with beautiful weather. Since my neighbor filled most of the trench with gravel for his drain system, and I haven’t finished filling the trench on my property, the trench before and after the culvert are the only major parts that I had to fill all the way to the top and I’m finding out that fill dirt is at a premium. When I was digging the trench I placed the sod along side of the spoil pile just to keep it separate but I didn’t have any intention of reusing it. The wet weather in the past month kept the sod in pretty good shape and most of it had about 4” of soil still attached to it. After scratching the ground for every last bit of dirt from the spoil piles I was still short so I used the sod to get to the top. I’m guessing there will be settling over the next few years and I may have to top off the trench from time to time but every little bit helps and it has a nice finished look. I’m most likely going to need some fill hauled in when I continue with the trenching as I can’t think of anyplace on my property that wouldn’t contain a lot of rocks. Question…..Has anyone ever used plastic under their spoil piles? I have a large 6’ wide roll of heavy black plastic and I was thinking about trying it. Since I can dig and fill only a small amount per week the sheet wouldn’t have to be but maybe 60’ long and could be reused if not too torn up. I want it close to the edge of the trench so I would have to roll it out as I go to keep the wheels and stabilizer off of it. I’m hoping this would save on cleanup time and allow me to reuse almost all of the dirt if I find that I’m running a little short. Also, the hill is going to be a dirt eater which I will explain later. The black angled line with debris and soil around it is the last 30’ of trench going into the culvert that I finished this weekend. I ended up putting a lot more rock on top of the gravel just to get rid of them. There are actually 2 natural paths for the water. One of which is under the big rocks slightly to the right of center which I think is coming from under the culvert pipe and the little stream flowing across the pic which is the water coming out of the pipe itself. I saved the really nasty clay and rock spoil piles for last in case I needed some more dirt. I did have to use some from a pile which is to the left just out of the pic and the one in the pic got spread out and lost after I was done filling. It actually looks pretty good down there now. I’m happy with the way the vegetation came back under the spoil piles at the start of the run. There are even a few small weeds growing on top of the trench already.
In regards to plastic and spoil piles I see this done at times usually for conservation of topsoil before going into the parent soils. Only issue is that it's tough to roll up afterwards and tears easy with equipment teeth. Plus you mgiht kill the grass faster if it's left due blocking light/forcing water to pool underneath. Works well for smaller jobs (think city parks and front lawns) but for anything larger scale in the woods I usually just see it piled and dealt with afterwards via recountouring and seeding.
Thanks forester....I was thinking of the same negatives but might try a short section to see how it goes.
I want to finish the trench that I started up on my property next but here is the hill I have to trench down eventually. Not super steep but enough to make me uncomfortable and it’s about 600’ long. I have slope meters on my Ag tractor and they are telling me about 12 degrees or a 21 percent slope worst case. At the bottom of the dip is the last creek which has an old iron pipe that spans the width of the road. The right side has a very steep drop off and the left side where my trench will run is somewhat level. I may have to stay on the road and try to dig off center. This is where a side shift hoe or small excavator would come in handy. Not too much working room here, hill on left and steep drop off on right. Hard to tell from the pic but there is a deep erosion rut on the left that runs almost the length of the hill. If I have to place my spoil pile on top of the rut I will loose a fair amount of the dirt. I want to try the 24” bucket which means more dirt to find a spot for.
There are all kinds of sharp pointy objects at the bottom of the ravine on the right side of the trail. Hopefully I won’t have to make any “on the fly” decisions. Up towards the top I have more breathing room on the right. And finally over the top where it’s straight and level. Notice the skid mark on the left. Here is what gave me some seat suckage when I took the hoe down for the first time few weeks ago. It was early morning and the grass was still wet. Going slow in low gear the hoe started to speed up on its own. I knew what was happening and I didn’t like the outcome if I couldn’t get the hoe back in control. My first thought was to engage the difflock but it’s a slow process. I think that it needs to find a slot to lock into and it seems to take forever sometimes. I revved the motor up to match the hoe speed and then slowly back down and luckily I got my traction back. If it would have gained much more speed I’m not sure this would have worked.
Bet you'd have some great views for a house site on top of that hill! Is that your plan?
That's the plan Boone. My property is a bit unique as there is a plateau about 100' higher than the surrounding land except for the part that the river runs through. I see Lee down there in his van quite often. At the back property line it gains another 1000' in elevation. I have a nice spot picked out that will be perfect grade for a walkout basement. The property is all wooded right now so most of the views are obscured but with a little clearing in the back of the house I will have a great view of an endless mountain range or two.
Nice! Sounds like plenty of projects to keep you AND your equipment busy.
Back to the original trench on my property getting caught up with the phone conduit. I was able to install both directions at the same time in this case which was a big plus. I found 8X8X4 inch plastic weatherproof boxes at Lowes and Home Depot. I would like to have gone with 10X10's but the next size up was 12X12X6 and they are really huge looking. I wish I would have known about this pull string when I did my first run. I saw some Verizon guys using it the other day and found it at electrical supply houses. There is 6500’ in the bucket, way more than I need, but this is the smallest quantity I believe and it was inexpensive. I will most likely never need it but it’s cheap insurance.
Yeah that is basic pull line. We use it all the time. It works great with a vacuum and mouse. We have even been known to use a basic sandwich bag in place of the mouse. I don't think phone companies care so much, but our power company around here wants us to use a heavier string than that for their conduits. I forget the number for it offhand, but it is orange instead of blue. It will go in using a vacuum, but not as easy as the blue string. We use the blue string as much as we can because it is cheaper. On another note Oldandworn, i never knew the hill you were talking about had trees to deal with. And that spot between the hill on the left and the dropoff on the right. That looks scary. All i can say is, good luck, and beeeeeee careful!
Thanks for your input ijoker. I saw the red/orange stuff next to the blue at about twice the price. I'm running the phone wire and pull string as I add conduit so in the future if the need arises the string will be there. The POCO wants the 1/4" yellow rope which I'm pulling also. Trees to deal with? I'm not sure what you mean, the hill is all open and I don't have to take any trees down. If you mean that one tree on the side I'll be a aiming for that one if I start sliding down the hill.
Well i hope that doesn't happen. All i meant with the trees was the picture with all the trees there. I realize you are not digging where the trees are. Didn't mean to throw you with that. ops
Oh sorry ijoker, I understand now.
From post #62 I spent a lot of time thinking about the transformer placement before the power engineer came out and we settled on a location close to the barn because I couldn't say for sure where the house was going to be built. I like the setup but the thought of multiple meter payments just doesn’t sit well with me. It’s like a lifelong balloon payment and you never know what the future rates will be. If I don’t get around to erecting another building or 2 in this area the meter would only serve the barn and there is a good possibility I wouldn’t meet the monthly minimum electricity usage. I got to thinking about this again and spent the entire day Saturday walking the area trying to figure out what to do. 1800’ is to the transformer location at the barn and in the future I would have to dig and pay for another 300’ of high voltage line at a minimum of $8 a foot to the second transformer close to the home site. The plus is that all secondary wire to the meters is provided for free. Here is the current setup. The trench will continue in front of the barn and across 2 driveways, all of which is nicely surfaced, to the transformer location on the other side of the barn where the pink flag is. Then down this road to another transformer at the future home site.
If the engineer will allow me to change the transformer location this is what I may go with although I’m still debating the conduit path. This would be only one transformer and one meter for all buildings. If I go behind the barn I can reach the new location with maybe a little more high voltage line over the 1800’ at a savings of say $2000 off of the future 300’ run. I have a little too much conduit in the ground to make the turn so I would have to abandon 20 to 30’. The downside is I would have to buy and pull all of the secondary wire, 150’ to the barn and 150’ to the future house at a cost of maybe $2 per foot but still way ahead in savings not to mention the extra meter charge for life. I would also be able to power all of my buildings from one central location with my backup generator. The end of the conduit is bottom left and I would need to go straight up the center of the pic through all of that dense brush to the right of the barn. The route looks bad but the ground is pretty level from what I can see of it. My 955 and an experienced operator could clear that in probably 15 minutes but knowing me I will turn it into an all day affair just to savor the moment. More brush behind the barn. This is where the friendly doe lives but she’s just gonna have to deal with a little home wrecking. I don’t see her pitching in for the property taxes. :crazy More brush The spot that I picked for the transformer is just to the right of that big stump. It was a difficult and lengthy decision because there is not much flat buildable ground back there and I was trying to predict where future out buildings could fit. I don’t want the transformer getting in the way of things and I had to pick a spot that I knew would be at grade. There will also be a post close to the transformer where the meter and breaker box will be mounted to. All of the conduit runs to any buildings will come from that breaker box and the power company will only have to come out one time for the high voltage pull and single meter install.
O&W, good thread mate, it makes an interesting read. I understand your difficult decision on where to put the tranny. When I put my power in, the placement was great......until years later when I built a bridge over the creek and a new access road. Now, as you drive up toward the house, the pole/transformer is directly in the line of sight :Banghead
Thanks Ando, I'm getting great advice here and I enjoy posting the progress.
Just out of curiosity, Oldandworn, if you do decide to go with one transformer halfway between the barn and the home, what size service do you intend to build? 400 amps? If this is the case i think you would be wise to plant 2 pressure treated 4x4's and put a piece of plywood across them for a backboard. It has been a while since I installed one, but you can get a residential meter box with 2 200 main breakers in it. As i recall these boxes are pretty wide. Too wide i think for a 4x4 or even a 6x6 post. It might fit on a 6x6 post. I really don't recall just how wide it is. But the backboard would support the weight of that box much better than just mounting it on a post. And also eliminate the possibility of side to side wobble, thus loosening the mounting screws. I have seen this happen before, that is why i mention it. Another advantage the backboard would have is versatility. Say you have 200 amps goin to the home and 200 amps going to the barn and you want to build an equipment shed not far from the service. You could use the 200 amp breaker feeding the barn to feed a new panel mounted to the backboard and use that panel to refeed the barn and feed the new equipment shed. Just some food for thought. Maybe you already have it all figured out, and i am wasting my breath?
ijoker, any ideas are very much appreciated as they could prevent a major blunder. I would go with a 400 amp service with this single install and there are no extra POCO charges up to 400 amps. In reality, a 200 amp service would be fine for my expected usage but I hate doing things twice so I may as well do the 400. I did say “post” but it will be a 2 pole structure like you mentioned. I have been following house building threads on other forums and have seen how large the electrical service area can become. The existing pole barn has a gravel floor and will most likely just become a machine storage building if I eventually build some more structures around it. Even so, I want to run a 200 amp service to it because future buildings up that way will be sub-paneled from it. I also would like to build a simple lean-to or something of that sort to keep most weather off of the meter and panels. I scored a really cool 1961 military generator (I like old stuff) powered by a legendary Continental Red Seal 4 banger and I want to house it in a small shack. The generator shack will be a great attachment point for the panel equipment lean-to but I have to make sure I find the right spot so everything will fit. I also want to run the genny on propane so I need to consider a spot for the tank as well. These dang decisions and planning just keep piling up from a simple task as to where to place the transformer. :Banghead
That's a cool generator. My cousin has one similar to that. Does it have automatic electric start?
im sorry i thought this was your first job but your actually fair play like that youve done these jobs for years there is some impressive work there my friend even if it is your first job very good keep it up and with sending us some more pics
Umm.....kinda...sorta. It does have electric start and a remote stop/start but not automatic. It's a very manual machine and I could retrofit an auto start but will most likely leave it as is. I'm not sure if the auto starts have a warm up period but I like to baby my old stuff and running full load at startup in the dead of winter doesn't sit right with me. The outside metal work was a nightmare when I bought it as if it was dropped a few times and run into with fork lifts. None of the doors would shut and one was torn completely off. The hour meter said 43 hours and mechanically it's like brand new but I was doubting the hour meter for a 50 year old unit until I did some reasearch on this model. It turns out that this is an emergency backup generator for a generator. When the military sets up a base, in some cases the base is run on generators. In the background there is another set of generators all set up and ready to go if the primary generators fail, thus the low original hours. What had me wondering about this generator is the fact that it has a gasoline powered heater installed in it that heats the cooling system, oil, and battery box but it also has an electric blower fan that runs on the 24 volt batteries. I'm thinking, what good is a heater if it runs the batteries down? Well, there is a big electrical umbillical cord that is hooked up to the running generators that feed 24 volts to these generators. So these generators sit with toasty fluids and batteries to be able to start and immediately take over no matter how cold it is outside.
Thank you for the nice compliment volvobl. Well, the knowledge part was gained here on this forum. :notworthy The big giveaway clue is the timeline, 700' in 6 months. They say....first you get good and then you get fast. I'm still working on the good part.
Another simple wire holder, I went with the full roll this time since I wasn't dealing with the weight working up against a power pole. Thanks for the ladder idea ijoker. BTW, I found a feature on the front loader that I didn't know about....a tilt blade. While I was pushing dirt in the trench from the side, with the edge of the bucket pointing straight down, I was wishing I could get the edge of the blade level with the ground for a cleaner push. I found that if I swung the hoe over to whichever side was high I could substantially change the angle of the loader blade. Even though the spoil pile has been there since May it made a clean seperation from the existing grade, maybe because I never drove over the pile with the hoe and it was on dirt, not grass. It was nice having enough room to push from the side and was a real time saver with no manual labor to dress it up.
the main thing is though i bet youve enjoyed the work no matter how fast or slow your doing the job il love my work i must admit im on my 10th year and still enjoying it
O&W- I really like your thread and it's one of the ones I check on. I saw where you swung the backhoe bucket to pitch the loader bucket. I've done that too, sometimes with a full bucket of dirt especially if I am cutting a slope on a parallel when I was working on my pond or cleaning out my side ditches on my drive way. A couple of other things that may help: >When final grading keeping the front bucket full of dirt (as much as will stay in while flat) helps to cut the high spots and has a little dirt to fill the low spots. The bucket seems to behave better. >For grading over banks, really soft/muddy areas and cleaning around trees, a 4'-5' or so drag for the backhoe bucket made out of I beam works good. It has a double edge so it doesn't dive-in as much. It's fairly simple to make, cut small holes in the web for the teeth to rest in (not so deep the teeth touch the ground) and cut two holes in the ends of the webs to run a chain through with a binder to the back of the bucket. With your extendaboom, this would be real slick. There are similar things on the web, like two cutting edges welded in a 'V' and some with a plate bolted to the teeth. >A 12'-14' or so I beam on the front bucket helps in wide areas to keep from making as many passes and it sort of averages out the materials. My machine has a 4 in 1 bucket so I can clamp onto the beam. I have used one on a track loader with teeth set up like the one for the backhoe above but it may take a little rigging to work on your machine. IMHO these techniques/attachments work best once you have the material 'hogged out' and are ready for fine grading.
Hello again oldandworn In my previous life as a utility worker I would have a few additional thoughts for you regarding your electricity requirements. In the area I am from in the great white north nobody uses electricity for heat because it is way too expensive. We also have very few hot days a year so air conditioning isn't a requirement for most people. That being said most residential services are 100 amp. Some farm or acerage customers such as yourself will have a 200 amp service. 400 amp services for these situations are unheard of unless there is grain drying or some other unusual situation going on. Your area and utility may be different. Without going into the complexities of how utilities make thier money,I will say this. With a new installation such as yours,the utility must take into account your demand requirements at any given time. Residential is pretty straight forward with similar charges being applied to 100 and 200 amp residential services. 400 amp services which are usually used for commercial or industrial applications are a different story altogether with demand charges and demand meters and penalties for exceeding the maximum demand that your account is set up for. It all spells out big money. From the utilities perspective it goes like this. Thier electrical system must be large enough to accomodate that 400 amp load every hour of every day of the year even if you only use that much power for 1 hour of every year and the rest of the year your electricity requirements are only 1 amp. that means your transformer and all components of the system must be larger than you may ever need. For most people in your situation a 200 amp service will be more than adequate. That means 1 set of wires feeding from the transformer to a 200 amp main breaker and meter. From there you may feed other breakers,sub panels and or splitters to your buldings as required. That does not mean you can't have a 200 amp service feeding each building. It only means you cannot use more than 200 amps @ any 1 time. Which you would probably never do anyway. That so called 400 amp breaker box that ijoker refered to may be set up this way but then it would be refered to as a 200 amp main with a 200 amp sub feed. Me not being an electrician I can't be sure of this however it makes sense to me. Utility workers and safety codes will also have some very deffinate concerns and methods for wiring up your back up generator. Backfeed from incorrectly wired customer generators has killed more than a few linemen over the years. I can expand on that in a further post if you like. As a do it youselfer my self I can appreciate all the excellent work you are doing out there as well as the thinking and planning that is going on in your head probably most hours of the day. Talking to an experienced electrician about your situation will make that planning way easier for you. I hope this helps.
Thanks scout, I see a lot of views on this thread and I often wonder who checks in. I used the hoe swing trick today and it worked very well but working space is getting tight on me again because of trees behind me on the other side of the road. Just moving the hoe over one bucket width takes quite a bit of maneuvering and I was really wanting a skid steer or small tractor with a loader to push the spoil piles. There is about a 2’ steep drop off from the road where the hoe is sitting to the trench elevation. As luck would have it, as I’m pushing the spoil pile the front wheels of the 410 drop off the road onto this down slope so I basically coast with the brakes on just inching along while adjusting the height of the loader to keep from digging into the grade but it’s way better then using a shovel and garden hoe. The next trip up I’m going to try my little tractor with the rear blade turned around and see how that works out. I bought the rear blade late last year and haven’t even used it yet so it’s time to get some dirt and scratches on it. Thanks for all of the grading ideas, something I haven’t done with the 410 yet. I really really wish I had a 4n1 loader bucket as they seem so versatile. Speaking of clamping with a 4n1 I came across something interesting that I have never seen before. When I first got my 410 I found a free downloadable military service and parts manual that shows a 4n1 installed on the hoe, not the loader bucket. Among the optional accessories, they listed a hydraulic auger and jack hammer that had strange looking metal plates attached to them. To install them you would simply clamp them into the 4n1 on the rear hoe and connect the hydraulic lines up. Pretty cool and quick I thought. I have read a couple of threads here on HEF about the neat grading setups for excavators, I think there were a lot of pics and ideas in a dirtman2007 thread IIRC. I’m not setup for heavy metal fabrication yet and time is a big issue but yea, I’m wishing for something like that whenever I’m trying to push dirt around with teeth hanging out of the bucket. :Banghead
Thanks for checking back in skipper. It is different in this area, maybe because electricity usage is higher or less expensive, but a 200 amp service is the norm for new installations and 400 amp is popular with larger homes and acreage. That being said, if there was a monthly cost difference between a 100, 200, or 400 amp service I would be looking carefully at what my real needs would be but I can’t see how they could charge more. I will call the billing department and make sure before I make a commitment though. The reason I’m so sure of this is because all of the equipment is the same no matter what size of service that I choose. The high voltage primary wire that they will be pulling through the conduit is the same size for any residential amperage. The transformer is the smallest that they stock and is capable of supplying up to five 200 amp services. The only difference between a 100 amp service and a 400 amp service is the size of the secondary wire that they run from the transformer to the meter socket and they provide that wire at no cost. Now, the equipment that I have to buy from the meter socket on is more expensive but I would rather be oversized than undersized and not have to redo my work in the future. I have heard so many times from people that wish to install something but their service isn’t large enough or their breaker box has no more space. You are correct about the main and sub as I will split it down right after the meter and provide 200 amps to the house and pick and choose what size of service I want to run to the different out buildings with fused disconnects or a meter main. I can do the exact same thing with a 200 amp service but if the only difference is the size of a short piece of feed wire and a larger meter socket I may as well have 400 amps to play with. Nothing is set in stone at this point and I appreciate the input but 200 would definitely be the minimum I would consider. The POCO approved generator transfer switch is installed right after the meter and is similar to a normal disconnect but it is a double pole double throw arrangement. The load would be on the common bus, generator on one set of contacts, and utility power on the other set of contacts. It is virtually impossible to connect the generator to the utility lines because you can only choose one set of contacts at a time (break before make) to be connected to the load. Please feel free to continue on this subject as I want to understand all of my options.
Hello again oldandworn It appears as though you have done your homework regarding the backup generator and transfer switch and are planning on a safe installation. Regarding the 400 amp versus 200 amp service. In my end of the world and probably yours as well 200 amps is the largest self contained meter that is available. That means that all of the current (amps) being used go through the wiring and circuitry in the meter. For a 400 amp service the wiring would have to be too large to be self contained within the meter itself. Therefore,something called instrument metering is used. That requires additional components called current transformers(CT's) which all the current flows through and a proportionate but much smaller current flows from the ct's through smaller wires to a special meter which registers your electrical consumption. That is just 1 of the reasons for added expense with a 400 amp service. Is electric heat and air conditioning common in your area? That would explain why 400 amp services are popular for acerages and larger homes. In my previous post I mentioned that utilities charge more for larger services because all of there equipment must be larger as well. You stated the equipment serving you is a minimum size that would accomodate much larger than 1 200 amp service. I was also refering to all of the utilities equipment back through the main line,back through the sub stations and back to the generator itself. 1 customer of course doesn't make a difference however they must be able to supply your 400 amp service as well as well as the thousands of others at any given time because the potential is there. So if every customer were to overbuild thier system,the utility must overbuild thiers and you can see how that could impact the utilities bottom line which of course would be passed on to the customers. I hope that makes sense. I am just trying to explain to you why an electric utility might be concerned about the size of your service and make you pay in some shape manner or form. Whether it be the original contract for power installation or your monthly bills or a combination of those 2. Once again I will say that the info I have provided pertains to my area and your milage may vary.
Had not been on here since September, was able to do some reading and catch up. As to the e-service: Some folks here think 400a is needed on a country property, others say only if there are big pumping loads for irrigation or maybe electric heating. A/C loads for a house is a debatable point but the motor starting rating is what drives up the ampacity requirment, a soft start compressor wont have that problem. 2WD going downhill: we are sure glad we have 4WD as it makes downhill braking possible, glad you survived the pucker!
Good to hear from you again Bob. I took this weekend off and stayed home because of heavy rains last week.
Generator backup power and fuel There are some electrical panels that have a few switches in them, when you wire the house you can use this concept so you can place easily place certain loads on the generator....basically the panel has circuits which go through a on - off - on switch......the generator is started and feeds the so to speak dead bus, then switching from the one On position through Off puts that circuit over on the generator. There is no possibility of paralleling. We are going to try out VP's $15 per gallon, ethanol free, long term storage gasoline fuel for these seldom used machines. Thinking of keeping a quart or two in the tank, then when the machine is needed, it can be started up right away...at some point, additional fuel from the service station (which will have been freshly purchased) could be added.
Cross Slope work with Backhoe Loader To change cross slope, pay attention to area where rear wheels travel. Go to stockpile, shape as required in order to fill loader bucket on one side only. Place this fill in area to be raised, reverse hoe and groom this material with the hoe. Traverse area and rear wheels will now produce the desired cross slope as seen on the loader bucket. If cross slope can be affected as desired by lowering one half the driven area, then use backhoe bucket to so accomplish, remove spoils from driving area and produce cross slope similar to above.
I thought about going that route but I'm going to energize the whole property and just be aware of the loads. Luckily, the generator engine can be converted to propane easily. Thanks for the grading tips. In this case I'm just pushing the spoil pile back in the trench from the side and the machine wheels are running on undisturbed ground that I don't want to change. Just a little tweek of the loader angle is all I need.
Thanks skipper, I do electrical engineering and testing (fiber optic communications) for my day job which doesn’t mean I’m an electrician but it’s kinda the same except the wires and watts are much bigger with electrical work. Around here CT’s don’t start until you go beyond a 400 amp service. When I say 400 amp it’s really 320 continuous 400 peak. I would think the local utility would factor in the total customer usage on their system but the engineer is treating this decision very lightly and here is how that conversation went. Make sure you run 4” conduit between the transformer and meter and call us before we come out if you decide on a 400 amp service so we can bring larger wire. And this conversation was for the 2 separate transformers so if I really wanted to be an energy pig I could end up with an 800 amp burden on their system. The small all electric house I’m living in now (no natural gas available) is about normal in the Washington/Baltimore area for a house with no gas. 200 amp service: 100 amp breaker to the indoor heat pump air handler for the backup and emergency resistance heat. 40 amp breaker to the outside heat pump compressor. 40 amp to stove 40 amp to oven 30 amp to water heater 30 amp to cloths dryer 15 and 20 amp circuits to the rest of the house. I have never tripped the 200 amp main but here is an example of the draws that have occurred many times. Wifey is cooking and has the oven and stove going. Water heater kicks in, heat pump goes into defrost mode (every 90 minutes when cold out) which turns the high wattage backup heat on, outdoor unit is still running in A/C mode for defrost. It’s possible if my MIG welder was fired up while all of this was going on it may have tripped the 200 amp main. I do agree that it will be rare to ever need more than 200 amps at one time and I still may go with the smaller service. Home Depot and Lowes sells the 400 amp stuff and the cost of the larger equipment that I would have to buy isn’t really that much more money as long as there is no added monthly bill which I still need to check on. I’m big into metal fabrication, welding, and I have a medium sized machine shop with motor starting loads but what about the future? With 150 acres I may decide to farm, start a winery, build a rock crusher,:crazy saw mill, or just sell the place and the larger service might be a good selling point. The larger hydro company wire is free on the initial install but if I wanted to upgrade in the future they would charge to run it. I wasn’t planning on researching this install for a few years but if I want to change my conduit route and go with one transformer I need to get this done now. Here are some examples I have found on the web and I would appreciate some input if you or anyone else viewing is familiar with this equipment. Ijoker? Here is a 400 amp meter socket, nothing special but really really big. Notice how there are two separate 200 amp services coming out of it. Here is an example from a different hydro company of a 400 amp service split down to 200 amp disconnects which is what I want to do. These meter mains are really cool, a 400 amp meter socket and a breaker panel all in one enclosure. The second 200 amp breaker would fill the open area on the far right. What is nice about this setup is I would have easy access to some smaller clip-in breakers. I’m pretty sure that my well pump is going to be close by and that would be a perfect application. The generator shed could use a light and some outlets so there is another breaker spot taken up. All of this equipment is rated for outdoor use but I would feel better having at least a roof over it because I have seen how corroded and rusted this stuff can get over the years.
getting my post count in - #4
Some interesting looking electrical equipment there that I have not seen in the areas I worked. Silly me for thinking the world revolves around my little portion of earth. With that much land, no natural gas, and you doing some welding it seems as though the 320 amp service should be a consideration. Especially if there are no additional utility company charges for the larger service.
I have not seen a 400 amp meter socket hooked up like the one you posted. At first it looked to me like it is hooked up wrong. I don't see any lugs for the utility. And i assume those two feeders in there are not longer than 6 feet going to seperate mains? If there are no lugs there for the utility, then it is hooked up wrong. Please enlighten me on that one. As for the 400 amp service you pictured, good deal! That is better than what i had told you about previously. The panel i had in mind has the utility side with a meter, and then it has 2 200 amp mains in it to feed whatever service you want.
The line side has not been hooked up yet. It would come in the conduit on the far left, make a turn at the top of the box and connect to lugs that are on top of the meter socket which I can see on the larger pic. I found this pic on the web and I'm guessing it goes into two 200 amp breaker panels inside of the structure. Is the panel you had in mind like the last photo in my post?
is it cold enough to reduce the population of the mosquito and other nuisance bugs? called back to Pgh and they complained that it was indeed cold.... Am curious, do you need ether to start your machine? Here in Ca we've not yet had the annual rains, been blue sky and San Diego like temps...all good save for the anti diesel environmental rules and so little construction work due to the economy.
Well, I would say that the temperatures have just recently become normal. Crazy mild winter so far. Two weekends ago (60 degrees) there were some flying insects about but nothing like the knat clouds of summer. My sweet old Deere just amazes me on the starting thing. Even though it has been mild during the day, most mornings that I have had to start her have been around 20 to 30 degrees. The machine came with an automotive battery instead of the standard two 6's so it spins a little slow but always lights off with no ether. My starter solenoid has developed a bad contact so every now and then I have to beat it with a stick to wake it up. Thanks for checking in Bob!
Hydraulic Leak!!!! I knew it was bound to happen. I have been noticing this wet spot on the floor in front of the rear operating station but thought it was from my muddy boots or something.
This is where is SHOULD be leaking from!! I cringe every time I use the extend-A-hoe and I know it’s gonna bite me one of these days. Does anyone have any pics of a 410 or know the proper hose routing for this area? My parts manual doesn’t show these round thingies that the hoses are going through. They look like “eye hooks” that have been welded onto the machine. It seems that Deere didn’t pay much attention to the hose routing and someone attempted to make it better. On the left side of the machine the hose comes out of the bucket cylinder in the opposite direction so it’s a little different than the other side.
Sorry i haven't been talking back at you oldandworn. Had a problem with our computer and ended up having to buy a new one. Got back up and running this weekend. Yeah i figured there was something i couldn't see in that 400 amp meter base. I knew the conduit on the left must have been for the utility, i just couldn't see the lugs for the conductors. As for the 400 amp panel with the 200 amp breaker in it........ SWEET! The ones i have installed have 2 - 200 amp breakers and no distribution. This one looks like just what you need.
The weather has been crazy this winter so I haven’t placed much pipe in the ground although I did get all of the open trenches covered up. Nice sunny days during the week and rain mostly on the weekend when I’m trying to work. Last weekend I started the 900’ run of which 600’ of it is down the steep hill that I mentioned. The 2 sweeps that you see here will come up into a junction box (pull point) for the power company. After I finish the run I will level the ground up and place a 6” thick base of gravel. The power company will bring a 4’ x 4’ x 6” thick precast concrete slab and set it over the sweeps. On top of the slab they place the plastic junction box. The pad has the same dimensions as a transformer so in the future if I want to tap low voltage from this point all they have to do is remove the junction box and place a transformer at this location. As DGODGR suggested way back, I’m trying something new on this run that I think will save me a lot of time, work, and aggravation. With the 12” bucket I was basically doing twice the amount of work because I had to bed the conduits at 2 different levels and the amount of rocks in the soil is overwhelming. This is what I was doing before. Make a nice rock free flat bottom for the 3”, then backfill one foot deep by hand to keep the major sharp rocks away from the lower conduit. Compact this fill with my feet for minimum settling of the second conduit and make a flat rock free bottom for this conduit to lay on. Then backfill another 6” by hand to keep the sharp rocks away from the 2” phone conduit and finally filling the trench to the top with a machine while still picking out the really big rocks hidden in the spoil pile. So I’m thinking I will switch to a 24” bucket and bed both conduits on the bottom instead of 2 different levels. I’m finding another big plus to this idea because trying to work in a 12” wide 3’ deep trench is just plain brutal. You have to walk sideways, roots are constantly grabbing at your hips, your pockets fill to the top with dirt, and there isn’t enough room for the conduit and your feet. Another big problem was trying to glue the 20’ sticks together by myself. I wanted to glue them in the bottom of the trench but that’s impossible while you are standing on top of the conduit and you can’t bend down far enough to work because your shoulders wedge in the trench. They will slide together nicely when flat and aligned but the only flat place is the bottom of the trench. So anyway, working in this short section of 24” wide trench that I dug was like getting out of a claustrophobic hole in the ground to nice wide open spaces with no limit to my movements. It’s hard to tell in the pic but I slowly ramped the smaller phone conduit down to the same level as the power conduit. My hoe handles the 24” bucket with the same ease as the 12” so the only difference is more fill. But once I get some clean soil over the conduits I can use the machine to fill the rest of the trench.
Will this revised technique reduce inadvertent "root to body contact", in particular, roots of certain vines having toxins such as poison ivy, oak, etc.? We put on gloves and trim the roots with a garden snipper....burning off the roots makes the stuff go airborne.....mostly we have poison oak and sometimes it is THICK.
You have done very well for being a greenhorn ! Its recommended to keep all utilitys seporated by 24" min. If there is any questions I can help you with feel free to send me a PM. I wished I had followed this thread more closely , its been a interesting read.
Hey xcmark thanks so much for the nice comment and help offer. I have heard all sorts of distances for seperation. I have been averaging between 12 and 18". The power company doesn't have a minimum distance for phone, cable and things of that sort, but I do like as much seperation as possible.
Oh yeah big difference, although for the most part it's the few trees that I have passed that give the most grief. You can see I had to cut the roots in the one picture going past the tree, some were large enough to require a hand saw. Maybe it's the type of soil or something but I have yet to see any poison ivy or oak on the entire property.
I agree the extendahoe piping looks the work of an imbecile. Have you thought of taking the pipes from the boom over the pivot at the top, and onto the dipper arm?The amount of piping looks way excessive and unneccessary the way it is fitted
Thanks robin....I will look into that when I replace the hoses. That cylinder assembly moves up to 5' in a downward direction so I need to take that into account if coming down from the top.
Still chugging along but running out of steam Making my way towards the big downhill and I ran into a rock that was a bugger to remove. I went another foot and came across a rock at the 2’ depth that wouldn’t budge. Thinking ahead this time I went another few feet to see what lay ahead and came across another one about 18” deep. Instead of fighting with them I decided to backfill and slope my 3’ deep trench starting about 20’ back and go over top of these. Well, as luck would have it I came across yet another rock at 12” deep right in front of the 18” one. This couldn’t have happened at a worst location because at this point the trench is diagonally crossing a grass road that I use to get to other parts of my property. I was not happy with the 18” depth but 12” was out of the question so I had no choice but to dig it out. Since this rock was right next to the rock at the 18” depth I decided to take it out also since a good part of the digging was already done. It actually turned out ok in the end as I was able to cross under the road at 24”.
Oh, I also covered the conduits with stone dust when crossing the grass road. I originally ordered a tri-axle load of it dumped at 3 locations to get me started but soon realized the logistics of getting the dust to where it was needed for the entire run was a major pain with only one machine. I have been using it here and there for these "special occasions".
Good to hear you're still plugging along O&W. You must have some smooth operating skills, the water bottle stayed on the rock.
one thing to keep in mind is if its down hill to where the pipe is going to the meter the water is going to follow the stone dust like a river. I suggest using clay to back fill the last 20' at the house site no mater if its up hill or down because of water getting to the foundation walls very easy threw stone dust. keep up the hard work , your doing a really nice job!
Thanks Scout.....super glue
Thankyou! I will remember that tip when I run electric to the future house. The only structure on the property is a pole barn with a gravel floor and I will use native fill on that conduit also. I don't like using the dust around the sweeps, it doesn't seem to give the same support as tightly compacted soil. I don't know what their pulling setup looks like and I don't want the sweeps trying to pull out of the ground on the 500' and 900' runs. I'm wondering if there is an arm or something that exerts downward pressure on the sweep exit while they are pulling the wire? I'm trenching away from the barn right now and there is another junction/pull station at the bottom of the hill which I installed last summer.
I have been a bit apprehensive about this hill but everything turned out ok except for my seat of all things. Some of the balls in the slide rails decided they wanted out of the cage just as I started down the hill which turned the seat into a rocking chair and caused the lock lever to unlatch every time the seat moved. Not something I wanted to deal with while sitting at what felt like a 30 degree angle and slamming me towards the front of the tractor away from my levers. My old Deere has a type of parking brake that locks the transmission up similar to a car with an automatic. I was thinking the amount of pressure on the gears wouldn’t allow me to release it and maybe I would have to pull myself up a bit with the front or rear bucket. It came out of park just fine but I really had to push on the brakes to keep from rolling down the hill too fast. As an added precaution I also placed it in gear as I was breaking down the hill so if it got away from me I could just move the shuttle lever forward to control my descent. It’s always hard to see elevation changes with pics but you can get an idea how fast this hill drops off by looking at the end of the conduit which is lying on flat ground. I wanted to go deeper with the trench at this point for less bending but I ran out of room for the spoils. The DB60 conduit followed the downward contour just fine by its own weight so it turned out to be a non issue.
Another problem with this hill is there is no way to get back on top to backfill without taking about a 1 mile trip. And then at the start of the next work session I have to take this trip again to continue the trench by backing up the hill as there is no room to turn around. I sure wish I had a mini excavator so I could just keep it on the hill and backfill with the hoe on top. My neighbor was able to help me on Saturday and we set a new record. Dug 100’ of trench and got most of the conduit bedded with about 8” of soil on top. I finished bedding and backfilling on Sunday and smoothed it out with the rear blade on my tractor. I’m going to try something a bit unconventional that might save me from moving the hoe around so much. The rear blade on my tractor is hydraulically controlled plus it has a side to side offset feature for like working in a ditch while keeping the tractor on the road. If I turn the blade to the max so it is almost parallel with the tractor I may be able to use the side to side hydraulics to push the spoils back into the trench. If this works I will be able to leave the hoe on the hill. My tractor has a reversible operator station so I will be facing the rear of the tractor towards the blade just as if it was mounted on the front of the tractor. There really is no front or back on this tractor. :cool2
The mice are getting wayyyy too aggressive. :tong
looks to me that the mouse has 2 legs
I'm hoping for 4 legs. Ummm not really, but 4 would be much better than 2. The missing chunks in the top of the chair frame are tooth or claw marks. It put some serious tooth holes in my 5 gallon pail that holds my pull string. There was also about 30 feet of 1/4" pull rope on the ground. Like what the bored family pet would do to the toilet paper roll. There are lot of bears around so that would be my guess. One almost ran straight into me last year because they can't see very well.
I forgot about bears, .In a way I would prefer them to the human vandal.The bears are curious, the human is malicious. It must be very peaceful in your place. Heaven on earth
Another 100 feet scratched off of the total. I feel blessed with the most rock free digging in the project so far and I sure hope it continues all the way down the hill. The lack of rocks makes bedding the conduit and backfilling almost enjoyable. The road gets very narrow past this point and I’m afraid I might have to go back to the 12” bucket because there is no room for the spoils. That’s going to be a hard pill to swallow after experiencing the speed and working room of the 24” bucket.
I used to do work for a gas contractor in Birmingham, UK, who had to repair leaks on a 3 foot cast iron gas main. They were only allowed to hand dig this main because of its age and fragility, but sundays there was never Gas Board supervision.I used to use a 9inch bucket and lean the machine at an extreme angle to get as much muck from around the pipe. We used to start a 7.00am and finish by 1.00 at the latest. I forgot to mention the top of the pipe was covered in concrete so first job was to use a breaker and carefully crack the concrete.NOT ALLOWED but the cash bonus I earned every sunday was lovely
My tractor with the rear blade worked OK for backfilling but I’m really really wanting 1 or 2 mini excavators. There was another wrench thrown in the works as I had a difficult time backing the hoe up the hill even with the differential locked. It would get about half way up and it would just start spinning. I had to extend the boom and dipper almost horizontal to put more weight on the rear wheels. I left the hoe on the hill today and I hope I will be able to continue backfilling with the tractor. The top of the hill was wide enough to push at a slight angle. When the road got tighter the side offset hydraulics did a better job than expected pushing the spoils sideways back into the trench. A cool feature on this tractor is that it articulates (swivels) up to 15 degrees in the center as you can see the cab and engine are crooked to one another. This keeps all 4 wheels better planted in unlevel terrain. This thing is a mechanical billy goat. If pushing the diff lock switch doesn’t give you enough traction you can push another switch which locks them all up for true 4 wheel drive.
very few drivers would think to use an extended backhoe and dipper arm like you did to get weight on the rear axle. Top marks Sir!
That's amazing Robin! I saw a strange narrow bucket on a YouTube video from the UK. It was like the bucket didn't have any sides if I recall.
Thanks....I HAD to get it up the hill or my project would come to an end with my current equipment. I suppose I could have pushed it up with my track loader but that would have been a bit dodgy.
When stretching out for traction is not enough, get the biggest scoop of heavy dirt you can an ddo it. The added weight will really get you places. If that is not enough, brace yourself with the front bucket and get a bite with the rear. raise the front a little, and pull with the rear. I do it first in neutral, and if I don't get enough pull, I lower the rpm's some and put it in gear, then help with the hoe as well. When doing this, adjust the rpm so the hoe and tires match each other as close as you can. You can get up nearly anything then. Just be sure to set the front bucket good, with a sharp down angle for a good bite, each time you have to get a new bite with the hoe.
the bucket you describe is used in extremely sticky clay.To empty just bang the "scoop" on the ground
Thanks for the great tips JD. I can see how important it would be to get good bites. The place where I got stuck has a steep drop off not far from one wheel and it would have been a guaranteed roll over. I wish this machine had a better designed diff lock pedal as I have to almost stand up to keep it depressed.
Yes, a scoop more than a bucket. It's been a while since I saw the video but they were digging under a big pipe or maybe a building foundation. The excavator was in a deep hole next to the work and I believe there was a rotator as well so they could just pull the dirt into the machine pit without hitting the bottom of the structure. It seems that europe is cutting edge when it comes to trick expensive toys.
to me the "thumb" is cutting edge. Never seen one on any size machine in the UK. They would make a difficult, time consuming job so much simpler.
oldandworn.... just picked up on this long and amazing thread. i couldn't believe my eyes as i have a very similar project in my future as you are now doing. it's like seeing into my future. i have 1800' of power to run exactly as yours, but my property is not as hilly. i have been looking into burying power as you have done, and immediately thought i should just run it over head on poles. why did you decide to bury with conduit instead of overhead? obvious reasons are who wants to see poles and lines.... is it as simple as that? what about cost? was is not a lot more expensive to bury? i bought a backhoe, and have been a weekend warrior like you for a while now, trying to tame some wilderness to build a retirement home. we're on a 3 - 5 yr plan to get something done that resembles a place to live. last year i put in a road. 1800 feet, and 800 metric tonnes of gravel!! 3" gravel bed on fabric. i think it was 35 triaxle's of the stuff. huge difference. so much clearing to do. brush, thorns, trees, 200 years of farming junk all over the place. awsome. i'll post some pics of road going in next. i can't believe this thread is so much like what i'm about to face. i'm dreading it now, but can't wait at the same time!! what?
the road is in now. i have to start clearing the sides of overhanging branches and bush or i'll scratch my truck paint job. then i have to clear trees for a path to run power as you did oldandworn. whacking through the bush is brutal, but the trenching you did makes it seem trivial. respect!! i hope i can trench as well as you have.... if you don't see any photos of my trenches you'll know why!!
good luck on this task you have set out to accomplish.Where is the trench going to be?
i haven't decided yet. just beside the road somewhere i would think. i'm still waffling about trenching it in or running overhead. spoken with local power authority, and cost for overhead on poles will be in the $20k range, ouch!! trenching would probably be more. so many ways to look at it. buried is prettier for sure, but all that water and power mixing.... not to mention the effort to trench. haven't priced the trench option yet. i have a buddy who is an industrial electrician who can supply me materials at cost which should help. his knees are shot though so no physical help there... good advise though i hope. oldandworn hasn't mentioned prices he's paid, but i'll bet that's because it's high? different areas, different costs i'm sure, but it's sure interesting to see others doing similar work. i have had a thread going called 'charging problems'. i've been making sure my new hoe is ready for the tasks ahead. my story is very similar to oldandworn's. i've got another 20yrs of working ahead of me before retiring, but i'm getting strated now. i'm old and worn already!!! in another 20 yrs... i can't imagine.
i'm worried about interupting oldandworn's thread. i shouldn't do that i guess, but how to post so there is some connection for all to see? i don't know how this is all supposed to work yet, but it's great.
in the UK all utilities are buried except for the big power grid lines which are on big pylons.Trenching is going to cost you a lot more than putting the cables overhead.There is no need to worry about water and buried power lines. If you have to join a cable and it is done properly ,it is perfectly safe done this way.I see from your pics your machine has the central positioning for the hoe. All machine of this type in the UK use the slide type which is so much easier to use and 99% have the 4 in 1 clam type bucket usually fitted with forks.Old and worn is a mental condition. Working in nature will revitalise you, promise
ha! thanks for uplift! slide type? any photos? ya, forks would be super handy. i have 400 or so 3'x4' slabs of marble on a-frame skids 10 - 12 per skid. i've been picking them up with straps on the hook of my bucket, but forks would be magic for sure. i've priced getting hooks welded on my bucket (hooks lock onto rod welded to bucket). it's like $1500 or something. not bad. one day maybe.
No worries.....the thread has run its course. I'm at work now so I can't spend much time writing but I will answer the reasons for going underground in the next evening or so.
the slide type is a way of moving the positioning of the hoe anywhere on the slides horizontally..The hoe is kept in place by 4 hydra clamps which hold it where you put it.In the UK the stabilisers are different to the US type, the legs go up and down vertically and this means you can position the machine hard up against a wall.When you are digging you vision is not obscured by the central hoe position as in the US setup
The biggest reason was cost. Although the utility will allow overhead they price it crazy high at $25 per foot, forcing most to choose underground at $8 per foot. This also places most of the work on the customer and eliminates the maintenance of overhead wires. The wire remains their property and they will dig and repair if there is ever a problem. Even if cost wasn’t a factor, most of what I have placed in the ground in this thread is on my neighbor’s property. I never asked if overhead was an option but I’m sure he would rather it be underground. Another problem with overhead is accessibility. They want to be able to reach the line under all weather conditions with standard service trucks so the hill that I’m on now has to be underground. That leaves about 600’ on top which could be overhead but I would also have to extend and maintain the road for service. I know in some parts of the country they will install overhead almost for free so it just depends on the utilities policy and rate tariff. I was pretty lucky as I only had to clear small brush from a short section of the trench line. Good luck with your projects!! They can get a bit overwhelming at times.
thanks for the info oldandworn. you've inspired me to go for the buried option. it's a lot of work, but worth it i think. sadly, i was mistaken.... i have about a kilometer of line to run! that's about 3200 feet!! holy crap! i'd better get started. first though i'm building a barn/work shop where i'll run power to first. i've had an engineer do up the structural drawings, and we plan to harvest trees on the lot to use to build the barn from. that's going to take a while yet as there are a lot of elements to the project in it's entirety that must be considered together or some costly mistake could be made if i get too ahead of myself on something or other. we'll probably 400A service into the barn/workshop to be able to weld etc... and a separte 200A service to a disconnect in the barn that will be the run to the other end of the property where a house will one day be if i live that long!? i love your dozer.... i could use one like it for sure... with those tracks! man, that's cool.
Hmmm, what is the price difference between overhead and underground? That is a lot of footage and I would be wanting to do some or most of it overhead if you can swing it. Will they run power just for a barn or do you need to have a residence built first? There is no way that you need a 400 amp service for welding unless that is your trade and have big industrial type welders. 200 amps to the barn is a good idea but it's also overkill if you are running it for welding. Most welders call for a 30 or 50 amp circuit. If you are thinking about welding thick metal on heavy equipment an engine driven welder is the smart move. If it's a long distance between the barn and house you may have to go with 2 separate transformers.
As I read your post I found this interesting. Here in AL, Alabama Power (Southern Company) has to run overhead power to any residence ( I do think there is a distance limit though) for free since they are governed by the Public Service Commission - basically they are a monopoly in our area and have certain rules they are governed by. Underground power for a rural residence is sort of a luxury. You can run your own conduit, like you did but you have to pay for it and get an inspection before backfill. They will run overhead for free, so most long runs of residential service is overhead. Most all subdivisions are underground but the rural services are a majority overhead.
My utility company also serves two other states CM. In Maryland, no overhead is permitted for new construction. West Virginia gets the first 1000’ of overhead for free and $5 per foot after that. I had a contract on some land in WV which had a very long power run as well so I studied up on the rates but the sale never went through. Since it was the same utility when I bought in PA I mistakenly thought it would be the same rates as WV so getting power to the property was a much larger expense that I was counting on. The engineer told me that not too many years ago they would run overhead to just about anywhere for next to nothing, hoping to recoup the costs in electricity sales. But the trailers or mobile homes would disappear or the customer stopped paying the bills and they were shelling out all of this money to build the overhead lines but not getting the payback. As a side note, I ordered my service one week after they were bought out by another utility and the charge went down by $3 per foot. I didn't know this, just lucky timing on my part.
sorry, i explained myself so poorly before... i was meaning to say i'd run a total of 400A into barn... 200A for barn use, and the other 200A for future house 2300' away. it's very early days yet as we figure out what exactly we're doing, and how we will wind up doing it... if that makes sense? there's so much to consider. after running our road in which was 2300', we now have access to the area where we need power run to for a future home. we still have A LOT of clearing to do just to be able to see the land. the mass of brush is intense, a thorny mess with poison ivy everywhere. put my wife in hospital for four days!!!! no kidding. a house exists on the property now, but rules only allow one residence per lot. any accessory structures are allowed on lot now as part of existing house. so we intend to build a barn now, and run power into it. a pole would definately be put at property line with transformer, from there i'd run underground (900 feet or so) into barn. from barn to area where house will be is still 2300' away which i'd like to bury, but will probably run overhead due to cost restrictions. early days yet as we figure out what exactly we're doing, and how we will wind up doing it... if that makes sense? talked with local power authority, and they said it would be between $10K and $30k to run power overhead to house site. this includes poles, lines, transformers complete. large range. probably wind up in middle somewhere. definately not free. have to work on pricing for buried, cost of conduit and wire etc... what i'll do, and what power authority will do. we'll see i'll post more when i find it out. not sure how fast that will be as like oldandworn we're weekend warriors who are on a long track to getting all of this done, but it sure is fun!!! power authority wants 10' cleared of all trees around power lines. we have a lot of large trees which would be a shame to cut down. trying to build barn from timber collected from cut trees. location of new house will have to have about a dozen large pine and hemlock cut. this is not a clear cut either. still lots of trees around that will surround house for that built into the woods appeal. need to mill timber properly and store for a while until we're ready to build barn. figuring out order to do everything so no avoidable mistakes made.
You must have a huge piece of property! You will need to run high voltage to both locations and have a transformer for the barn and another one for the house. About 300' is the limit for one transformer because of voltage drop. FYI about the size of an electric service. Say you have a 200 amp service to a property, many people think they must divide it up between buildings and not excede 200 amps. As an extreme example, you could have 10 or 1000 out buildings and run a 200 amp service to every building. Of course one can't use more than 200 amps total at one time but you can have it available to all buildings.
I thought that I would update my thread. Still making my way down the steep hill and I’m about 250’ away from the bottom and the final creek. Since we are now closer to the bottom than from the top my fantastic helpful neighbor is able to transport the 20’ sticks on top of his old farm Jeep up from the bottom instead of hand carrying them down the hill. The tractor and rear blade idea didn’t work out very well for backfilling the trench once the path got narrow. The angle of the blade needs constant adjustment to match the terrain and I only have 2 hydraulic remotes on the tractor. A third remote is in the plans for the future but I didn’t think I would need the tractor for backfilling like this. I can switch the hoses over to make adjustments but that got old real quick. Since it is so difficult to get the hoe back up the hill from the bottom I decided to leave the trench open except for about 6” of soil over top of the conduits. I have been hand filling the trench to the top about every 100’, sort of like a speed bump to keep the water from reaching a bajillion MPH. We have had some heavy downpours and the soil is staying in place rather nicely. Yesterday, just as the glue was drying on the last piece of conduit the skies opened up heavily and we had to quit for the day. After 30 minutes or so when it stopped we tried to cover the conduit but the soil pile was a soupy mess. Thank goodness the conduit was down and ready to be bedded because a LOT of soil from the spoil piles fell down on top of the conduits. I can’t even imagine the amount of hand digging it would have taken to fix 100’ of trench if the conduits had not been laid yet. I can't believe I'm saying this but I'm bothered at the lack of rocks on the hill. If you remember I rented a trencher and took a few days off work mainly for this hill and I think this is the only place it would have worked. The rocks in the run leading to the hill just kicked the trencher around like it was a toy and I never got to try the hill itself because a hydraulic hose busted and I called to send it back within 15 minutes. It would have been so nice to have a simple 6" wide slit going down the hill as it would have avoided so many problems. My water pump bearing or something is getting very loose and I’m watching it carefully, still no leaks. I hope to get through the creek and then I can take some time to repair it. It seems my bear has taken a liking to the chair but is leaving the trailer alone. Every week there is more damage to it. I didn’t take any pics yesterday but the seat part has a bunch of missing pieces now.
Holy Cow!! Be careful around there, Thats not what you want to mess with
I made it through the third and final spring creek last weekend. :thumbsup I choose to veer off to the right instead of straight down the center because there was talk of a pipe that was put in many moons ago. Looks easy enough right? Piece of cake compared to the 2 larger creeks I went through last summer. Just a few rocks and a slight babbling brook sound. :sleeping WRONG!!!
I ran into a problem with the pump on this crossing which caused a lot of extra digging and an even bigger mess. The water was loaded with so much junk (mainly small pieces of charred wood??) that the pump screen kept getting clogged. This little road was built about 150 years ago and whatever rock they put in this crossing was completely mucked up so the water had no place to go. I had to claw a trench perpendicular to the hoe because there was no room to position the machine on either side. This area gets saturated and impassable during the wet season and I can see why now.
The next problem was the 2’ of muck in the bottom of the trench. I learned from the other 2 creeks that firming the bottom up can eat serious amounts of expensive gravel. This time I kept throwing large rocks in until my boots stopped being pulled off of my feet and then filled with gravel until the bottom was firm and didn’t pump.
There actually was a pipe here. A two inch diameter steel buried about 1’ deep that ended in the middle of the road. ***?? :Banghead About 50’ more to go and this completes the 900’ run to another sweep under the bucket. My phone is on the left and I will tie them together in an 8X8 plastic box. I still have quite a mess to clean up but at least the conduit is in and protected from whatever might want to cave in on it. I will fill in with lots of large rocks and I might as well lay some drain pipe in the bottom of the canyon to keep the area from flooding when the wet season comes along. I also have about 600’ of trench to finish filling in going up the hill. I don’t know if I should start at the bottom or the top. Any suggestions?
to backfill with the hoe, maybe you should go up in reverse....this way if you run out of backfill material you can return to the spot with the loader....vs vs...depends on traction, 2wd hoe vs 4wd in this situation.... but like vertical welding, if you go up to fill, you can hoe tamp the backfill way better... didnt recall you using a compaction wheel? You will get real good using the heel of the bucket to push the backfill upward and over into the hole...
Thanks Bob.....I will give up the hill a shot. If nothing else it will be more comfortable facing up than down with the "sliding off the seat feeling". The slide rails on my seat are pretty much shot now (balls fell out) and I have to stand and fight with it each time I want to swivel. I might be able to slightly lift the rear tires and pull myself up the hill? I wouldn't even want to try that going down the hill backwards. Could you explain a bit more about better compaction going up vs. down? I'm not quite getting that part. I wish I had a compaction wheel. A company is installing a sewer line next to where I work and I have been watching them use one on an excavator. I'm not real happy trying to compact with the hoe bucket but it's my only option. I switched back to the 12" bucket so that will help a bit having less surface area. Between the hoe and my narrow tractor I can also run over the trench in some areas of the hill that aren't too tight. BTW, my pull rope and phone cable got real easy to pull towards the bottom of the hill. Not quite self feeding, but if the hill was any longer or steeper it may have gotten to that point.
Pls Note: This is the way we were taught and what our soils inspection firm inspects/expects, not necessarily what everyone does. If you fill the ditch / trench proceeding from bottom to top and staddling as you proceed, the backfill material can be placed level and then tamped fairly readily. If one is proceeding down hill and straddling the ditch, the backfill material tends to be sloped quite steeply and is therefore a poor candidate for tamping. One procedure works with gravity, other works to some extent w/o considering gravity....lifts for compaction are best accomplished by placing them level or normal to the force of gravity. On a bigger scale: If we do a slope, we make it bigger than it is required to be and use level lifts, then we reach over the edge and shave it to the shape....we never run up and down or across a slope to compact it. For the smaller scale in a trench: similar. If the slope wasn't too severe and you had a wheel, I guess one could spread thin parallel lifts and follow the slope with the wheel and down force on the boom....but for tamping, I like to do level lifts, tamp, repeat.
always dig from the top down on hills, that way you arent pulling yourself down hill and instead have the weight of the machine doing all the digging.
I was so relieved to see this pop out of the conduit. It was always in the back of my mind that something would break and the anxiety got higher towards the end. According to the length markings on the cable, 870 feet. The red leader is 25 feet of #12 solid electrical wire and I did that to keep the phone cable out of the last freshly glued joint. I used 20’ sticks. The wires will be tied together in an 8X8X4 inch box but I’m not sure what fittings to enter the box with? The conduits will also get a lot of heat from the sun and I’m wondering if I should use some sort of sliding joint, like maybe an unglued bell? The grey plastic boxes I found at the big box stores are not very impressive quality wise but should work. Does anyone have any suggestions for a higher quality box? Thanks!
ask the utility company what they suggest
I am thinking you are beyond the so called "demarc point (where the maintenance of the line is not the utulity company)". If so, some suggestions we have seen on ranch or country property. What think of a galvanized metal box, type 3R, from Hoffman or similar? Make sure it is galvanized before powder is applied. Punch or drill two holes in the bottom of the box - conduits are terminated with male adapters with typical lockrings into the holes, or you can use a meyers hub (but if on the bottom then maybe not necessary thats why typical male adapter first noted). Make holes with (I don't buy models with ko's): Punch kit tool from Greenlee (hydraulic or threaded) or a hole saw kit from Hougen. The box mounting to the pole: lag screws with thick fender washers under heads, set through the back but better if you spread the screws a bit and use a beveled shim/sleeve over screw like a piece of galv pipe 'tween box and pole... Conduit protection UV: paint 'em Conduit protection physical: maybe wrap from pole to pole with a piece of ss, galv sheet metal into soil will rust away starting from end Everything above is readily available and can be installed with battery tools. You may have to order box in the galv sheet metal item but shouldn't be more than a couple days. ****** Will there be a tall pole (like a snow marker) at the other end [where there are only the conduits in the picture]? Tractor driving around in the wonderful PA brush or snow makes me unsure about physical damage...avoid contact. ******* Q1 What is method to splice wire? Am assuming this is 6 pair twisted, in silicon, with no rodent guard rated for below ground outdoor etc etc? "Punch down and go" on a strip, or individual conductor connections like the 3M "squeeze till it clicks see the goo rush out"? *** Don't forget about considering using that polyester pull rope with the numbered markings so you have the correct length of wire...always read at least two numbers at each end to make sure not confused....
Many moons ago it looks like someone buried a burn pile in that area. I ran into that last week on a job I am doing. Stripped the topsoil for the rear parking lot and water started to bubble out of the ground. The ground would pump under your feet and water would squirt up. Brought the backhoe in the next day to probe/excavate the area and it turned out to be a 3' deep, 20x20 square, burn pit that was just covered up. Dug a few burnt tires and charred chunks of wood out of it. Ashes and charcoal will absorb and hold ground water when they are buried. We over-excavated the area and brought in structural fill, problem solved.
That's exactly how this area gets about 8 months out of the year and it sure did stink when I started digging. My neighbor brought up some 8" green sewer pipe that I will place across the road along with lots of large rocks. His property line is upstream along the left edge of the trench so this may help with his wet areas also.
Yes, the demarc is back at the pole. I need to see what is available in both metal and plastic. I'm worried most about keeping water and bugs out. The plastic enclosures at the big box stores are a little flimsy and I'm not sure how well the cover will seal. I have the tools and I need to make my own holes to line up with the random conduit spacing. The box mounting to the pole: lag screws with thick fender washers under heads, set through the back but better if you spread the screws a bit and use a beveled shim/sleeve over screw like a piece of galv pipe 'tween box and pole... I was mainly thinking about expansion and contraction from cold temperatures and hot sun. They are only about 30" out of the ground so maybe not an issue? I wasn't thinking about any physical protection but you gave me an idea. I have plenty of aluminum and stainless sheets and I could mount a strip in front of the conduits with long lags and a spacer to keep the sun off of them. Everything above is readily available and can be installed with battery tools. You may have to order box in the galv sheet metal item but shouldn't be more than a couple days. ****** I wasn't planning on making the pole any higher. There is not much activity on this property and both the telephone and power junction box are on the side of a well defined roadway, well at least cut/uncut. He doesn't normally cut the area where they sit so if they become hidden I may want to think about something in the future. ******* 4 pair, no silicon, no rodent guard, direct burial. The roll was a gift from the phone company so it's kinda low grade stuff. I'm glad it didn't have silicon and rodent guard because I probably would have just placed it in the open trench. The cost of buying new wire vs. conduit was a toss up so I chose the conduit obviously, smart move I think. I was planning on the individual connectors, nothing fancy. *** Don't forget about considering using that polyester pull rope with the numbered markings so you have the correct length of wire...always read at least two numbers at each end to make sure not confused....
I installed the pad for a junction box (pull point) today. It’s the same spec as a transformer pad but it will be a hollow box that they splice the wires together in. In the future if someone wanted to pull low voltage at this point the power company would install a transformer instead. I had to jack the back up quite a bit to keep it level. Those big rocks in the background came out of the small trench behind the pad going to my phone pedestal just out of the picture to the right. Some oddly different dirt was mixed in with these rocks. It’s very powdery and black like top soil all the way down to 3’ deep and it won’t compact at all, sort of like black sand. What I don’t understand is why I had leftover dirt even after leaving all of those rocks out? My poor old hoe had a breakdown which is going to require a repair to continue. The water pump bearing got very loose and it finally started leaking yesterday. I have one more day of easy work to get off of my neighbors property and I will probably pull the pump next Sunday. I have owned the hoe for almost 3 years and this is the first time I have had to add a fluid. Engine oil, hydraulic, and coolant have never changed level. You can see the plastic jug catching the coolant just behind the front wheel.
Still enjoying your progress reports. I think this is the first full on shot of the 410. Built like a tank. :usa
Yeah Boone, not much plastic. 15,000 lbs and she lets you know it when you get into wet areas. Last year when I was working here the ground got so wet I couldn't bring the hoe into this area and ended up backfilling the last bit of trench by hand. I wonder if unclogging that spring creek will have any effect on the ground saturation here. Speaking of said creek, it's still wide open and I need to get pipe and rocks down there before it all caves in.:nono
Backfilled up to the spring creek and I’m now finished work on my neighbors property (t-post and pin). The coolant is pouring out of the seal at a large rate now so it’s time to take a break and repair the water pump. I also got the 8” sewer pipe that my neighbor kindly donated laid in the canyon with some cover so I’m good to go if we get any heavy rains.
This has turned into a “while it’s open I should do something” side project so I’m MacGyvering ideas up on the fly. The big problem is, the intake to the pipe will be underground. I continued the gravel bed up to the intake of the pipe and placed some large rectangular rocks parallel to the intake with plenty of space in between. On top of these rocks I piled some more with the idea of creating a level surface with a void underneath. I still have some more leveling to do and rock on top of the pipe in the second picture will be removed. I just had it there for weight while backfilling. This BFR, which is about 8” thick, is conveniently laying close to my pipe inlet box. I’m going to bring some straps and use the hoe to gently place it on top of the inlet box. On the side of the trail in the woods I found a roll of that heavy black fabric fencing that is used for erosion control. I’m going to cut it up and place it on top of all of the rocks that will be buried and leading into the pipe intake, including the gravel that my conduits are buried in. The conduit gravel might be the weak link with this idea because the flow has to cross through it. Can anyone comment on the possibility of the gravel getting silted up over time and hindering the flow? I would love to hear any suggestions and ideas as this is still open and I can make some minor adjustments.
I did a quick flow test and it looks to be about 10 GPM. We have had extremely dry weather and both creeks that I went through last year are bone dry (rare) so this is probably the minimum flow. I never gave this spring much thought because it’s kinda far away and very difficult to get water from because it just seeped slowly out of the ground in a culvert below this pipe. The pipe is a little short but long enough to get the trail covered back up. If I extend it another 10’ or so the outlet will be at knee’s height and with not much more work I could easily get it to waist height. Without having a well yet, this has become important because I have to haul up 5 gallon jugs of water for large usage like weed spraying with my ATV sprayer. I have always been fascinated with self powered ram pumps and watching the water flowing out of this pipe has got the gears turning in my head for yet another project. I now wish I would have buried some PEX in the trench, and I still could because there is 600’ open, but I could also easily just run it on the forest floor if the pesky gnawing critters leave it alone. 1200’ length and +100’ in elevation might be a bit much so I will have to go over the numbers first. The flow isn’t spectacular but they run 24/7 and it could easily keep a large tank filled.
any thoughts on a small pond ? maybe dig a hole , line it and stock it for fishing ! I have a small stream on the back corner of my camp lot that We are thinking about a small beaver pond or wadeing pool .
Good to hear from you again xcmark. I could make a pond but my neighbor built a fairly large one just last year which I'm welcome to use if I wish. In the first pic of my last post you can see the high bank of his pond right at the top center edge of the picture. It's not fed from this spring but a different one a little higher up the mountain. The green pipe dumps into a deep ravine and a little farther down the other 2 creeks I trenched through joins the flow. From there the water empties out into a large creek which is on my property and has some good fishing holes.
How is the water pump going on the 410.looks to me like there was no need for all this power line with all this running water you could have had some kind of small scale hydroelectric generator. or maybe not but that would have been fun seems like i have heard of some that will make some power on as little as 10 gallons per minute. anyway your doing a fine job.
Welcome to HEF denver. I'm picking up my parts tomorrow and will have to bring the pump home to use my press. I should have it back on the machine 2 weekends from now if all goes well. I have put a lot of thought into alternative power but kept coming back to the electric company. All of the water sources are down elevation and just so far away from the building sites. I would still have to do a lot of trenching and buy my own high voltage wire and transformers because of the distance. The top of the mountain would be a good location for a wind generator but how to get 4000' of high voltage wire down to the building sites. So anyway, I just want to flip a switch on and not worry about batteries, water flow, wind, or how much sunlight there is. On the other hand, if there was a raging creek flowing down the mountain close by I would definitely be playing with something.
It was more less a joke but would be fun if you had unlimited time and money to play with.thank for the welcome i have been watching this site for over three years and just finally joined. i am only 20 but have been on equipment since i was 4 years old and now on it every day when we have a job. but cattle farming is my main thing and me and my family are getting more in to that and less in the excavating. we are tired of working and not getting paid and then sometimes going a long time without work. so being able to take a load of calves to the sale and bring home a check is alot more fun.
I finished leveling the inlet box with some large flat rocks. Chained up this large rock to the hoe bucket and gently placed it on top. I placed a layer of rocks on top of the conduit gravel so the water would have another path to take if the conduit gravel silts up. Most of the flow from the spring enters at a point higher than the gravel and rocks, just under that big oblong rock on the left. Rolled the silt fence out and covered everything up but I left a strip of rocks open on the edge for surface water. The inlet box will be covered over by dirt but the rest from the trench over will get filled up with more rocks. I changed my mind half way through about the rock fill so the extra strip or 2 of silt fence isn't going to serve much of a purpose.
is the horse shoe your good luck insurance policy? I like it
LOL yeah....it came out of the spoils from this area and I thought it was fitting.
The road is a bit narrow at this point so I made the first row of rocks solid and flat so they could be driven over. A little gravel in the cracks to firm them up. For better accessibility to the trench I took my hoe onto a small side trail a little ways up the hill and started backfilling towards the spring crossing. Once the trench is full I can use whatever dirt is left over to bring the level of the road up. Some of the water flows into the trench about 15' up the hill and that took another full bucket of gravel to firm the bottom up.
Last week the phone company got their wires run to the top of the pole. Just got a call from customer service saying my line is working and the billing will start. It sure is gonna get cold on top of that pole. I wonder if they have a Mr. Haney too? :spaz :duh
I don't know if you've answered this before but what kind of tractor is that? It's pretty nice looking.
It's an Italian vineyard/orchard tractor made by Antonio Carraro. It is very surefooted and compact for steep slope work. With a logging winch attachment I think it will do well pulling firewood down off the mountain.
What to do.....what to do I’m not happy at all with the backfilling progress. Using a bunch of fuel and making lots of motions but its real slow going. There is nothing solid to pull myself up the hill so I have to swivel the seat, stomp on the brakes, and take the transmission out of park each time I want to inch up the hill. I wish I had the hand style emergency brake which Deere switched to on the later serial numbers of this model so I could leave the machine in gear with the shuttle in neutral. On the narrow parts of the hill I had to place the spoils on a steep bank and it gets even worst farther up the hill. The clay type soil has turned into mushy gooey blobs and have adhered themselves to the banks which was in the back of my mind while I was placing them there. A lot of my time is spent pushing and pulling on the piles trying to get them to break loose. Even with the 12” bucket I can’t get to that all important edge. I can’t even come close to getting all of the soil back into the trench and the wheels and stabilizers are doing a very good job of tearing the hill up. I’m not sure what to do at this point. Do I leave the road all mangled up with the hump in the middle and let it settle down? How many years will that take? If I make it nice and smooth right now I’m thinking there will eventually be a depression in the middle? Winter, no grass, erosion, I’m not seeing anything good here. :beatsme On a good note, I did buy new slides for my seat. :thumbsup
better wait for the weather to improve, next year,,,,,,,,What vehicles will be using this track? Any 4X4 will negotiate this judging by your pics,
It's an unused road. I mainly run my ATV or dirt bike down it as a shortcut to my neighbors property.
I would be pretty happy with how the road turned out given the steepness and clay soil you have there.
I guess I wasn't expecting all of this damage. Never thought about the area under the spoil piles being wet and soft or the dirt not fitting back into the trench. Mainly as a learning process, I would like to smooth the road out and try some water management ideas as it was very rutted before I worked it. Problem is, once the grass starts returning I'm going to be reluctant to disturb it again.
Deal with lots of clay soils here...that hill appears too steep to use your bucket to back blade with to smooth it out so here's a couple of other options: 1) get some old tires/timbers and use them as a drag to help level it. This will work best if the top soils are dry. 2) grab some old straw bales and put them along the slope to create a barrier to water movement. Erosion is volume by velocity so the bales help deal with reducing the speed of the water and reduces errosion potential 3) try to get some seed on the slope early for next spring. lots of grasses/clovers etc people use for stabilizing slopes but some plants also attract wildlife and/or are not allowed by local laws due to being non-native species. If water being channeled down the slope gets to be a real issue you could always put some small cross ditching in with a shovel until the vegetation comes back.
Thanks for the tips forester. My main dilemma is settling of the trench over time. I’m compacting with the hoe bucket best I can but it still results in a hump over top of the trench. If I smoothed the road and spread the hump out I’m thinking a depression would develop over the trench when it settles. At least I assume it will settle? I have a track loader or a tractor with a rear blade or box blade for working the road but I can’t do anything without removing the hump unless I put a heavy crown on the road. But then the toe at the bottom of the steep bank would become a channel for the water and that’s where the heavy erosion took place before. There is a deep ravine on the other side of the road and that is where I want the water to go eventually. I was thinking about carving a few water bars to direct the water into the ravine. In reality, the road condition just doesn’t matter as long as a path for water doesn’t develop over top of the trench. I have a strong desire to learn new things coupled with OCD/perfectionist issues and this road is a good candidate to practice ideas on. I think a ground guy with a rented jumping jack would solve this problem but that’s not practical being this is a weekend only project.
Yair . . . OldandWorn . It seems to me that the "road" function is of very low priority . . . your main concern is controlling wash. The last thing you want is water running down your trench so I reckon you are spot on at the moment leave the backfill high . . . as you point out it will have a tendancy to settle. What I try and do in these situations is build a series of "wooboys" . . . essentialy low embankments that can be driven over but that are high enough that they will divert the water off to the side . . . they can be angled left or right. The steeper the hill the closer together they need to be . . . you need to get rid of that water before it builds up too much speed and volume. On no account would I try to direct water by carving drains or channels. Cart material up or down in the bucket and wheel roll or backslam it in place. Erosion control on little projects like this can amount to just as much work as the project itself but under certain conditions you ignore it at your peril. As forester has mentioned vegetation is your friend. All the best with it. Cheers
Wooboys Thanks for the new word Scrub Puller! I can't stop chuckling....seriously. I wonder if the off road motorcycle term whoops came from this word? Anyway, it sounds like a wooboy is the same thing as a water bar.
One other comment from pipeline construction inspection..you do end up with a hump we call a roach over the trench. That breaks down in a matter of 12-24 months around here assuming its just soil as the freeze thaw action works on the compacted dirt allowing it to loosen up and settle. you might end up with a small rise but that would be easy to work with when you have time. In terms of water running inside your trench and washing things out it should be a non issue as long as you don't puncture a muskeg (makes a great fountain at -40 ) or hit a spring that would allow for water to seep into the trench. I don't see much tamping of soils unless it's culvert installation where they are trying to get the pipe settled before armoring the stream channel. Haven't heard the term Wooboys except for around horses...ususally we're saying something else when you hit those water bars at speed
Different type soils? Different moisture content? For whatever reason it's starting to all fit back into the trench and sometimes there is slightly not enough. Ravine on one side of the road, about 15' deep in some places. Note to self: Try not to place spoil piles on a steep bank. The spoil pile on the right is breaking loose from the ground like flapjacks in a new teflon skillet.
Thanks norite
Well it could have something to do with this - :beatsme HeavyEquipmentForums
Things that make you go hmmm. I was leaning toward less moisture but maybe it's really the moon that is sucking the water out. That or....:spongebob
I finished backfilling the hill. My Jeep is sitting on the part that I filled with the ag tractor back in May. There are still some small dirt piles on the left that needs to be side shifted that I couldn’t reach with my blade. I don’t know if I was getting seasick or breathing too much diesel but I felt really bad by the end of the second day. I need to investigate how the hoe is attached to the machine because it seems really loose. Every time I pushed down to compact, a gap in the floor boards would change by about 1/2 inch. It has been quite a rollercoaster ride between all of the slop in the pins and a machine that feels like it’s bending in the middle. I’m finding that to be efficient at backfilling with a hoe takes a completely different set of skills that are harder to master than digging the trench itself. If I ever get around to re-bush the machine I’m going to have to learn how to operate it all over again cause my “flick” will be totally off.
When I first saw this I was thinking how stupid it was to install a heater in an open cab. Well, it turned out to be a great companion Saturday. It wasn’t super cold but the wind, cloud cover, and snow flurries made for an uncomfortable day. I think this machine came from a utility and I’ll bet the operator loved this little heater during the middle of a winter’s night digging holes in the road. I need to take the motors home and lube the bushings because it took some coaxing to get the blades to spin on their own. It even lowered the engine temperature which normally sits at 190. Unfortunately, the previous owner told me some kids broke out every piece of glass on the machine but the temperature and oil gauge still work if you give them a little tap on the back face.
Is there an indent on the loader arms control lever which allows the arms to move up and down on their own ?This is usually done by pushing the lever to a lower position than normal.
a quick way of straightening up a back filled area is to use what is known as "back drag".In reverse, turn your front bucket cutting edge to a position where you scrape dirt as you reverse.This will fill up many of the indentations I can see from your pics.When you have done this to your satisfaction this is when you use the float facility on the loader arms.Reverse at a much higher speed with the front bucket nearly flat scattering fine stuff as you go, you steer using the unlatched brake pedals
But, the Big Question Is: Do you miss the squeaking door hinge sound after fixing those zerks?
Thanks Robin, I will give that a shot when the dense wet clay dries up a bit. As soon as the last bit of trench was filled I shut the motor down and made a beeline for home which is 2.5 hours away. I'm still not feeling 100% for whatever reason.
My bad.....zerks are in the same state as my tachometer but enough lube musta got into the joint as the creaking hasn't been back.
oceanobob, I ended up buying a plastic box from Home Depot. It’s real sturdy and even came with stainless hardware. I was there when the nice phone guy extended my line to the bottom of the pole and he gave me a bunch of goo filled splice pills.
Already, a critter has chewed on my cable and broke an unused wire. I took a short piece of silver plated copper shielding from a coax cable and placed it over the cable. My new phone station. Hey, at least I don’t have to climb the pole anymore. Seriously though, it was very satisfying to hear a simple dial tone after all of the work to get a cable run this far. Another couple of hundred feet to the barn and trailer. A mouse jumped out of a hole in the side of the cable reel when I was hooking the wires up and almost landed in my shirt pocket. Scared the #*$^ out of me.
Awesome job OldandWorn ! You dug the first test hole on 5/25/2011 and finally get a dial tone at close to the end of the run on 12/09/2012. It has been and continues to be very interesting thread.
Great work -- lots of fun reading the thread. Where is your property located? I'm in eastern WV working on a similar project and wondered how far away you are from me.
Thanks Tinkerer.....Sometimes I wonder if I'm talking to myself but the views keep climbing so I know there is still some interest. This project has become so drawn out that I have lost a lot of my motivation and posting pics on HEF has become something for me to look foward to.
Thanks for the nice complement. I'm a little North of Cumberland. I had a contract that fell through on property in Burlington WV before buying this one. Since it is the same electric company I though it would be the same rates but not so. I could have got this electric for 1/3 of the cost if I had bought in WV.
Ah ok -- I'm in the Harpers Ferry area, so looks like you're about 90 miles west of me. I've got about 1300 ft of conduit in for the utilities, working on detached garage now with plans to build house over the next year. Other than the main driveway, I've been doing all the clearing and trenching myself. Only have one machine right now, a mini-ex but it's been doing really well for what I need and it's a blast to operate. I'm getting my power installed for "free", but only if I agree to two meters on the same building (don't even ask). Otherwise it's $5 a foot.
Nice area... It seems like you can never have enough or the right equipment. A mini-x is a good choice for the first. Good luck with your projects!
O&W, what a nice thread you have here. Some forums can be really tough and I really didn't know what to expect as a newb here. I hope the rest of the HEF site is as welcoming as your thread!!! I am a union electrician of 18 years and you have gotten some top notch replies to your questions I must say!! Good luck with your machinary and your property, it looks like an amazing place to enjoy.
Thanks...I have to honestly say this is the nicest and most helpful forum I have ever visited. On the other extreme, to satisify my evil entertainment needs, there is ET. opcorn Being an electrician you may know of it. My face and belly ache from way too much laughter when I go there. :falldownlaugh
O&W Hey I have a couple of questions.... I have a JD straight 310 and I see you replaced the seat tracks, seems this helped you out...what exactly did it do, tighten up the seat from rocking etc? Also, I have the older parking brake that you speak of, being engaged by the shifter/transmission. Any advice on how you went about engaging/disengaging on your hills. Thanks, Outback
that type of seat is in common use in all sorts of applications,.Renewing the rails makes the seat behave properly, no more rocking and rolling,. As for the handbrake on all the JCBs I have used the hand brake only got used when parked for the night.The front bucket and rear stabilisers do a much better job in my opinion.
I had 2 different problems with my seat. When I first bought the machine the slide rails were tight and worked well. The large pin in the center that the seat swivels on however had a lot of slop in it. I turned the pin down and bored the hole larger which enabled me to place a 1/8" wall thickness bushing in there. Right as I was starting down the hill with the trench I lost most of the balls in the slide rails. I think there were a few left in the center which made it feel like a rocking chair. I had to stand up and fight with it when I wanted to swivel. The new rails were a bit pricy at $130 for the pair but I didn't have the time to go looking for something else that would fit. I was thinking that it would be difficult getting the machine out of park on the hill. Some thoughts were to rock the front bucket or pull with the hoe to take pressure off of the mechanism. I didn't have to do either and it always came out without the feeling that I was damaging or bending anything. Placing it back in park is easy but I have good brakes on my machine. If it didn't want to go back in I just drifted an inch or so till it caught.
How's it going overall on the project? You mentioned that you were kinda losing steam but getting close to the end....you think you'll be ready to make the final sprint in the spring?
It depends on the weather. I prefer doing grunt work in cooler temperatures so as long as the ground isn’t frozen and it stays fairly dry I’ll keep chugging along. As you know, last winter was very mild but I didn’t get much done because of rain late in most weeks or on the weekends. After much thought, I have decided to stick to the original design and go in front of the barn and just be happy with 2 transformers and 2 electric meters. In these pics from a previous post you can see that I’m right up to the gravel with the power conduit and I only have to go a short distance to the transformer pad with the pink marker. I would kinda like to use the 12” bucket here for less damage and it’s on the machine right now but I sure like a 24” wide trench to work in. Another minor problem is the end of the power conduit is buried deep in silt from a big downpour last winter so I need to search for it carefully. I stopped the phone conduit (12” trench here) right after those 2 trees in the second pic of post #250 because I was unsure of my route and possibly needed to sweep towards the rear of the barn, abandoning some of the power conduit already in the ground. So I can now continue the phone conduit and finish filling in the trench up to where the power conduit ends. I also have to dig from the transformer pad to the barn where the meter will be installed. Install the meter pan, install the electrical panel inside, call for an inspection, and then the power company will come out and pull their wires. Oh, I also have to build the pads for another junction box and the transformer.
1. Pull Box: The pull box looks good, there will be no rusting with that one and hopefully no wasp/hornet/bee nest in that due to the gasket and seal. 2. Squeak: Glad that annoyance is quiet (for the moment) 3. Motivation: One needs to examine if the newness of a process provides the impetus & excitement for a project and then once the knowledge & confidence is gained, the mind relaxes since one "has it figured". These factors affect how one plans the time and attendance necessary to complete the job. One can avoid this by treating jobs like mowing the lawn: you've done it before, you know how long it takes and what it looks like when it is done. But one is able to do it without the need for the "new". 4. Conduit Groping: Put the bucket all the way out so the teeth are not able to poke into the underground expensive item, they would sort of hopefully just slide over it, lift the front loader bucket off the ground a few inches, and for the ultimate in feel, pick up the stabilizers so they just hover on top the grass....in this situation, the downforce on the backhoe is minimum and if the bucket strikes/bumps the conduit, it will sometimes (mostly) just ride over it since the fulcrum is on those spongy rear tires and not the lip of the loader bucket...this arrangement is solely for those smoothy operators that can clean a bug off a windshield with the hoe (surely you know operators like that?)....but seriously, this works but! you got to use your fingertips on the controls and go real slow and feel the weight moving around, no sudden motions 'cuz if you get it to jump, it will indeed eat that expensive underground item...recommend you put the machine on flat ground and play around to drag a 2x4 block and you will know if you are ready. Good Luck. I always find pipes and conduits when I take 'one more pass'.
Looking good, sounds like you are really close now. 1) If you need a little incentive to finish -- get it done before the electric company changes the specs on you for the transformer pads. My elec co got bought out mid-project, and I ended up having to redo 7! pads (including 4 that weren't even on my property). 2) I've run into the silt buried conduit before, as oceanobob says, curl the bucket in so the teeth are parallel to the ground and not tearing into the pipe. Also once I know generally where the end is, I will overdig a bit right past the end of the pipe, this makes it easier to chip the dirt away from around the pipe with a shovel by rolling it into the overdug area rather than lifting it out. If I know I'm going to leave a pipe end sitting for a while, I'll use the same trick, dig about a foot or so deeper right where the end of the pipe will be so even when some silt washes in the pipe is still sticking out in the air. When in doubt use a shovel.....every time I try to get too fancy I end up cracking the pipe and having to fix it. NOT worth the time. You might be able to get away with touching the pipe with the bucket on Sch40, but since you're running DB60 (which I'm using as well) I'd give it a wide berth. The thin wall DB60 will crack just from having a small rock drop in from the top of the trench.
Thank you, great info as always Bob :thumbsup
First Energy? They also merged with Allegheny Power a week before I put my request in. Maybe I should check in with the engineer and make sure all is still well. Seven pads for 1300'.....difficult pulls? Yeah, I was going to stick a sweep on the end of the conduit but the storm came during the week that I made the decision to stop here and start on my neighbors property. :Banghead Is your new pad configuration similar to this?
To be more accurate the engineer sketched up my run and gave me the documents before the merger. The official work order was after.
Yup First Energy is the new company for me as well. It looks like your diagram shows the "old" method. Concrete pad with a cutout in the middle, sitting on top of a gravel base. That's how I originally designed mine. After they became First Energy, the specs changed to use a plastic box that you bury 12" with 3" sticking above the ground, and the transformer sits on top of that. If you're lucky maybe they will let you use the old method. In my case, they absolutely would not pull cable unless I met the new specs. I had to redo all 7 pads...dig out the existing gravel pad, dig down 15", put in 3" of gravel, then set the box on top of that. At least they gave me the boxes for free, but man was it a PITA and I REALLY hate re-work. And a lot of the pads had 4-5 pipes coming in, had to dig a good bit by hand to avoid breaking them.
Oh, re your question about the number of pads: I only have 3 pads for my 1300ft. However, the power actually stops another 1000 feet away along my right of way through a failed subdivision (a casualty of the real estate bubble). They never pulled the power cables through half of the the subdivision since there are no houses needing service. The other 4 pad locations are in the subdivision along my ROW feeding future homesites. Naturally the developer is bankrupt and no one else wanted any part of it...so if I wanted power I was going to have to fix it on my own.
That sux but I'm sure I would have done the same. Like you said, who else is going to do it. I guess I had better double check on this, maybe reserve a couple of concrete pads if they are getting low.
Thanks for the info...
It's either been raining or snowing so no more digging for now. I went down and checked on my pipe and noticed a brown stain in the bottom which was difficult to rub off with my finger. Iron maybe?? Judging from the brown stripes higher up in the pipe the flow got pretty substantial for short periods of time.
O&W! What a great thread. Took me about a week to read it all, but very impressive job and my hats off to you for sticking with it over such a long period. Really takes both mental and physical energy to keep big jobs like this moving forward. You should be proud. Now one question. Any idea of the number of hours that you added to the old Case since the start of this job?
Thanks and welcome to HEF drivadesl, this is an outstanding forum. Yeah, after the excitement of learning something new went away it was hard to keep motivated. I glanced at the hour meter on the John Deere while backfilled the hill and I think it was about 125 hours higher than from the start of the project but I need to double check that. It seems like most of the time has been on the ground laying and bedding the pipe.
Thanks for the welcome. I've been one of the lurking members and enjoy reading up on all this stuff. Sorry I typed Case, but meant Deere, must be that age thing creeping up..... Looking forward to when you can continue with the project and this thread. Any estimates to completion?
I'm hoping to have the utility out early or mid summer when my neighbors land is dry.
Good to see the threads still alive O&W. Maybe you'll have to change the title to "advice for those starting their first big job"
Thanks for checking in Ando. With my luck there will be some big break through in laser power distribution right as I finish and wires will become obsolete.:crying
Haha....well, I did see a science show on TV recently, that had an article on wireless power distribution (through the ground) Although I suspect you and I may not be around to use it.
It could be iron, algae or another mineral leaving the stain. Sometimes the iron in our soil will leave red stains and a metallic looking film on top of standing water.
Future news flash.....mutant electrified worms wreak global havoc.
I have seen that film you mentioned a few times in my life, almost like a slight petroleum spill. I'm very interested in the water quality from this spring as it may come from the same aquifer as my future well. Some more boring water flow pics from last Saturday. It was really rolling through there and making lots of noise.
Subscribed. Started reading your thread, not an owner or operator yet, but it looks like there is some good information in here. Thanks for posting.
Hey no problem, I hope you can pick up some good tips.
Oceanobob in your reply 264 was great .I read that as if it was realy happining .Sounds like you have been in the saddle a few hours .These great replys are how we learn . If I could start all over again and could have read all these forums years back I Probably would have been a much better operator years ago Cheers
The soil on the hill had perfect moisture content for grading. I have about 30 minutes worth of experience with a rear blade so it was a bit frustrating at first. I walked it in with the backhoe. Normally the hoe won't make it up the hill but I got it smooth enough that I could use a higher gear and get some momentum. Got the phone conduit caught up with the power conduit. Judging by the offset at the start, the lost end of the power conduit should be about 9 feet ahead. As I was compacting the soil around the conduit with my feet a small area kept heaving up on its own. A few seconds later a mole popped out of the ground.
Big Hydraulic Leak Somewhere above the hydraulic filters I think. The only indication that something was wrong was that the hoe bucket curl got slower than usual. Lucky for me it happened right at the barn and I was able to get it to a flat area to work on it. I was also finished with the machine for the weekend and I was folding the hoe up to shut it down.
Something odd....it was leaking slightly from this area way back when I was working on the hill but it stopped all by itself.
There is only one Leak That Stops by itself: it is called hopeful. * Possible the leak 'placed' the oil on a section (of say frame, etc) to make sort of a puddle, then when driving it changed the angle and the puddle ran out, thus the trail? A hole in a hose may have been open more or less, due to operating position and/or pressure. May have to replicate operating position / motion.... Did you check fluid level? - may not have changed much since amount on ground always looks worse than amount actually there. * PS any flies or mosquito's survive the winter?
Heyyyyyy Bob! It was a gusher under there with drips coming off of everything. I really should have investigated but I have a full weekend of work coming up without needing the hoe. I even forgot to check the level but I'm guessing 1 or 2 gallons as it was kinda deep on the ground for a while. I looked at my manual when I got home and it may be leaking from the loader valve assembly which is above the filters. Best case, maybe a loose fitting or something unscrewing from the block. It leaks just with the engine running BTW. Nobody believes me but there are no mosquito's or flies around my property that i know of and I normally get eaten alive by mosquito's. But OMG the clouds of gnats are relentless and I usually end up with at least one in my eye. I often wonder if the gnats keep the mosquito's and flies away?
Hey oldandworn. is it oil? I had a similar leak leaving a trail and dripping all over underside of machine. it was the water hose for the cooling system that burst. it only leaked out when the engine was running as you described. it was an easy fix with a short section of copper pipe and some hose clamps. I hope yours is so simple. happy day when it is.
oops, sorry only noticed earlier post saying it was hydraulic oil, duh, I guess my forum skills are rusty! I did too once have a trail of oil that looked similar and it turned out to be a steel hydraulic hose serving the loader that had rubbed right through finally leaking like crazy. it was a bit of a pain to replace, but not so bad.
Hey Adolphous, how are you making out with your electricity?
Dodging black grunge bombs and dripping oil Even though there was plenty of oil flowing it took a long time to find out where it was leaking from. I eventually took one of the floor boards out, and looking down from the top I finally saw where it was coming from but it didn’t make any sense at all. Because everything was coated in thick black grunge it looked as though my main transmission housing was cracked or something real serious was going on. I was able to reach down from the top and scrape enough grunge off to see that there was a casting bolted to the side of the transmission housing and the oil was shooting out between these two pieces. Well…..lemme tell you, it was not a fun job getting this casting off of the machine. There are 7 hydraulic lines that had to be disconnected from the casting and filter canister assembly which had to be removed also. None of these lines ever stopped dripping while I was working and the wind was blowing so strong yesterday that the drips were going in every direction but down. When I first got this machine I bought the expensive Deere Hygard to do a filter and oil change but never got around to it. Now that everything had to be taken off and drained it will be a good opportunity to refill with it. The transmission screen was so clogged I don’t see how any oil was passing through it. BTW, I looked up the casting when I got home and it’s called a Pressure Control Valve.
Bear Attack The bear was able to dislodge my pull string bucket off of the ladder and drug it about 30 feet. A closeup pic of my screen.
All I have to worry about is crack heads stealing batteries.
Hi OldandWorn, Your photos bring back memories of my 1981 410. I remember spending hours trying to stop all the leaks. It's really difficult to jam those huge wrenches in all the tinny spaces. One event I remember was when the Reverse clutch control valve cover gasket (#3) was leaking badly. Once removed it was obvious it had been leaking for quite some time. The oil had worn a track into the transmission casing. I filled the cavity with JB weld and installed a new gasket. The repair was totally successful. I was glad I had JB weld. Actually I am alway amazed when I think that all these old machines are running with 30+ year old o-rings. I'm surprised that any of them still hold pressurized hot oil.
I will take the bears hands down CM. You can have the mice though as they are causing more grief than I ever could have imagined. There was actually one crawling around the framework over my head watching me work and I couldn't get it to leave. I think she must of had a nest going on in the hoe somewhere. I **FINALLY** saw a non venomous snake in the barn (which is one reason I'm working outside) and a stray cat so things are looking up in the mouse department.
Hi Deon. I always worried about the hoses but now I have something else to worry about. I'm on JD parts at the moment making up my parts list and decided to check on the filter prices. The filters I took out had a Wix number so I was thinking about ordering them from NAPA but the JD filters are slightly less than $8 so I will go with them. I was going to mention the wrench situation as I had the same problem, either hitting something else or the other end hitting the ground. Actually, that would make a good photo op. Be back in a few with some pics. LOL
I even had a 1 3/4 wrench to fit the big nut that holds the filter screen in but most fittings were 1 1/4 I think. I almost forgot I had them but a few years back I bought a set of service wrenches that go all the way up to 2" at Harbor Freight. I really hate shopping there but sometimes I get weak. I don't know how well they would work for tightning or loosening because the heads are so narrow and made in China but they worked like a charm for unscrewing the rest of the way. If I can't get the right clock for the final tightning when I put everything back together I may have to try these service wrenches with a short cheater on the handle.
Well....not so fast actually, thanks for asking. you continue to impress, and your thread certainly seems to have not finished running it's course as you once suggested. keep going oldandworn, people love it. me included!! good thing we're not in a rush at our place, but time does fly by, and your handle 'oldandworn' feels more and more real everyday, haha! work has conspired to keep me so busy that I haven't had time to move forward with our project too quickly, but it's going to happen eventually. I have been clearing a lot of brush and trees along the road (I posted pics in your thread of a while back) so that the hydro boys can come out to stake a route. that's how it has to work I'm told. it'll get done eventually, and if I have any interesting stuff to include here I will do so. i'd rather have it take a bit longer, but get it right than rush it and realize later I screwed something up and would do it differently next time (because there won't be a next time, unless I live to be 300). your experience here is helpful and interesting. thanks. in the meantime, the machine is running great, but slow hydraulic leak bug me. loader is fine and stable, but hoe end leaks. boom and dipper sag during use, and make accurate work harder. when the machine is sitting stabilizers droop as do other hoe parts. hydraulic oil is not cheap, and topping up adds up over time. I researched removing control valve to rebuild, but it's not a trivial job. expensive too even if I take the valve out myself and take it in to be rebuilt at a shop. it weighs 120 lbs and would cost a lot to have rebuilt. like your machine mine has a lot of crud obscuring exactly where the leak is coming from. I'm not totally sure where the leak is coming from. it was suggested to me that I clean it up as much as possible and then try to see exactly where the leak is coming from. If I can avoid taking out the control valve I sure would like to. i'm not sure how fussy to be about the leak. some people say it's kind of normal, and that most machines leak a bit. just top it up some say. once I've cleaned the control valve area, and figured out what is leaking i'll post back and see what comes back. not sure how fast that will happen....
I can’t say that I enjoyed this repair other than the satisfaction of clean filters and changing half of the fluid with high quality new. I would like to put the engineer who designed the oil filter assembly on a torture rack while driving toothpicks under their fingernails. If anyone has had to deal with this thing they will know what I mean. To make matters worst someone hit something and broke the mounting bracket off of the frame and welded it back on crooked so the roughly 4" long 1" and 3/4" I.D. hoses didn’t line up any more. I came very close to putting the old hoses back on but finally managed with the new ones. BTW, the oil filter assembly has to be removed to get the tubular screen out. 3 1/2 gallons drained out of the machine when I took everything apart and it took 9 gallons to fill it back up. Adding lets say another 1/2 gallon that ended up on my face and clothes it would seem that I leaked out more then I estimated. The screen was clogged worst than I thought as the gunk was just as thick on the inside of it as well. I didn’t see any metal or big chunks of anything, just thick black paste. There must be some sort of bypass path for the oil. It’s nice that Deere doesn’t gouge you on the little stuff and it made me buy a few extra things that really were not needed but good to replace while apart. The new o-ring to replace the broken one was $1.09 This service wrench set is really nice for the big hydraulic lines. I only remembered that I had it when I was almost finished taking the machine apart. I used it on everything while hooking the lines back up and then used the standard big wrenches for the final tightening. There was one 1 1/4" fitting that I couldn’t get tight with the big wrench because of clearance problems so I had to use the service wrench. It held up very well to the hammer pounding and nothing bent on the wrench.
A set of wrenches called angled open end (double on each wrench) is available to 1-1/4" (and above) from some tool suppliers ... ends are angled at 15 and 60 degree. We have two sets of these and one broke so we bought another entire set (they lessen the amount of bad words voiced during tractor maintenance especially hoses); don't want to say where I bought them but they are import. I checked and this name/description will get you the item from domestic sources. ** Note: Sometimes we try stuff from the import store and if we like the idea, we replace it with a better one. The ease of going to a certain import store and immediately walking out with something is part of the reason - one has to work at getting the domestic version. ** I noticed the ones you show and thought these would be good to have as well.
Thanks Bob, I hope to remember this if I get into a bind. I didn't even know wrenches like this existed. When I bought my ag tractor from Phoenix AZ the heater didn't work because of clogged fittings (non use) and I needed large wrenches that would work in a small space. These are self sealing fittings so you can take the cab off without loosing coolant or Freon. Anyway, I needed a 37mm and some other metric sizes and lucky me found them on sale at HF. I think I spent around $25 each for the American and metric sets. That's just crazy.
Are you still around MountainGeek ? Was informed that I have to use the new transformer box PLUS I was shifted over to a different electric company, Penn Electric I think. I don't have an easy way to pick the box up and was thinking of hiring my neighbor. Would this box fit ok in a small pickup like a Chevy S10? Is it light enough that he could just push it off his truck bed at my property?
Could you advise where the screen is located? Is is between the two filters, hydraulic and transmission housing. It is possible that the clutch is the problem......But sounds like clogged screen though.
Yes, the top of that short black hose goes to the screen in post 295. You have to move the horizontal filter assembly out of the way to get the screen out which is behind the huge 1 7/8" fitting on the transmission.
I think the screen mainly feeds the hydraulic system and shouldn't affect the movement of the machine. It also didn't seem to matter that it was completely clogged up. Did you mention that you took the input off of your main pump and didn't see any oil being fed to it from the pre-feed pump inside of the transmission? If so, that's where you need to be looking. There is another recently active 410 thread where the guys mechanical dry clutch fell apart and wasn't turning the transmission pump I just mentioned. That was confirmed when he couldn't get the transmission gears to grind because nothing was turning past the flwheel.
Thank you for your response will check these out and get back.
Best to keep any updates in your thread so future readers don't miss anything. I follow your thread but I don't have any info to add to what has already been suggested at this time.
Hello, thank you for this information. Could you tell me where I can purchase this set of tools. Seems I have this big job to do on my machine, and sounds like these tools would make it easier.
Sure, Harbor Freight. I got the sets 3 years ago so I don't know if they still sell them. Google "service wrench" and you should be able to find plenty.
Heat and rain has slowed me down quite a bit but I got 20' of power and 40' of phone conduit down yesterday. The previous owner filled this area with about 18" of shale and gravel so I kept that seperated on the left side. New style transformer pad. The power company was nice enough to deliver it to my property.
Curious, what is that pad made of? Does it have some way to rig a strap so you can lower it into the hole where the conduits are? Or is it hand work? Not seen this contrivance before.
The POCO engineer told me fiberglass. It's not very thick as you can see but it is extremely rigid. The holes on the top are threaded stainless inserts. He also told me it weighs 40 pounds which seems accurate. It should be an easy task for even one person to lower into place. The old method was to place the transformer on a 6" thick precast concrete slab resting on level gravel. Perhaps they had problems with the transformer base rusting out? I assume the transformer gets bolted to the new base so it would prevent it from sliding off during minor vehicle impacts. I also see a ground rod installed inside of the base. I need to find out who is responsible for its install as a rod wasn't shown or mentioned on the old drawings. I hope they are the ones who have to deal with it. I have heard of many contractors and electricians who will drive them in as far as possible and then cut and mushroom the top of the rod.
That's the ones the power co. here have been using for a couple of years. The standard was the concrete base set on a bed of stone for many years. These were harder to transport and set, compared to the fiberglass/plastic units used now and I assume hold up as well since the power co. engineers spec them. Dug the primary and secondary conduit on an O'Reilly Auto we were recently working on for the electrician. This was a 3-phase transformer pad so it was bigger but easily handled by two guys. A much easier install. I have done a fair amount of trenching for primary and secondary lines since we are usually on the job during that time and it's cheaper for the electrician to hire us for a few hours than bring/rent a machine. Sometimes the GC wants to include in our scope of work the primary lines to the transformer pad, the secondary lines and the teleco to the building. 90% of the time the electrician doesn't figure total stone backfill for the primary/secondary/telco trenches that run across the parking lot.. As far as the ground rods go, if the ground is hard and/or rocky they are driven to refusal and cut off - standard practice by all the electricians I have worked around, whether it's code or not. My set of line wrenches came from Harbor Freight as well, they are handier than a shirt pocket when you need them.
Hello CM....The utility would bring out the concrete pad when they install the transformer so in my case the new base was a minor wrench in the works as I had no way to transport it. They will still be bringing out 2 concrete pads for the junction boxes. It looks like I will have to go about 1' deeper on the sweeps to keep from cutting too much pipe off and clean fill dirt to pack around the base is at a premium. I mean, of course there is plenty of dirt around I will just need to find a spot and dig a hole to get some. I found out that the utility will install the rod at the transformer and I need to install 2 at the barn.
I was going to get caught up with the phone conduit (only 30 feet to go) and backfilling this weekend but there was a lot of rain on Friday that I didn’t know about and the trench was flooded. Instead, I tackled the transformer base and this completes the 1800’ of primary conduit. The new style base was a lot of extra work but if I had to do another one it would be easier for sure. I should have trenched from the barn to the base before building the pad but I wasn’t sure how deep the sweeps needed to be because of the buried box. Now I have to meet the trench in the middle which involved a lot of hand digging the last time I did that going through one of the creeks. The last pic is the extra primary conduit heading to my future house. I measured the length and sunk a t-post so I can find it easier and I’ll use the pic and the trees for an angle reference. I also marked the end with a wooden stake but if that disappears it will still be easy to find.
Rent a bobcat with a trencher
Welcome to hef paxtonj, this is a great continuing thread and I recommend you go back to the beginning and start reading it from there. It is not so much about seeking advice, instead just letting us know the trials and tribulations that OldandWorn is going through completing his project, with lots of great pics along the way.
Secondary done! That's it for the power conduits but I still have that 30' of phone to do. All of the conduits are bedded with at least a foot of fill on top of them but once again I'm getting way behind on completing the backfill. There has been a heavy rain almost every week and I got tired of digging the end of the conduits out of the silt and working in a wet muddy trench thus the push to get all of the conduit done. 3' deep 12" wide trenches really suck and I wish I would have bought an 18" bucket instead of using what I had. I must say that I haven't damaged any conduits or had to saw any mistakes off during this project so I'm pretty happy about that.
That's good news. I still remember reading your whole thread and seeing the good advice you got here, it really made me realize what a good forum this is. Once again, your work is top notch, I'd work that conduit system any time. Congrats on a great job!!
Oh....I couldn't figure out for a while why only my right boot was filling up with dirt and little sharp rocks. Ripped a hole on a tree root. Gotta love that duct tape! :drinkup
Hey, thanks for the compliment. I will post some pics of the meter and load center install too. Just one receptacle next to the box to speed up calling for inspection. I'm not sure if it's required but it seems dumb not having at least one.
A little trick, take a stick of conduit and lay it crossways over the trench, then rest the conduits in the ditch on it. Tape the ends up or plug them to keep rain water out and when you start laying conduit again you don't have to get in the ditch. Also place your spoils a little farther away from the ditch, it makes it easier using this method. Last week I dug a section of primary for the electricians on a Taco Bell we are doing the site work on. I needed a mini to dig part of the rain leaders and didn't want to drag mine 50 miles for a short section. A little wheelin' and dealin' with the electricians that had a mini and we both finished early.
Sweet deal on the mini CM. I tried doing as you mentioned but it ended up being more of a hassle because I had to hand work the area under the conduit. Then there was the upward angle where the conduit exited the fill that I couldn’t get to and fix. I was told by the utility that these were difficult pulls and to make sure the conduit was as flat as possible so these little humps bothered me. Leaving the conduit in the bottom allowed me to skim the muck out of the trench in front of the conduit using the hoe with just some hand digging to expose the end of the conduit. Plus the conduit was nice and flat and not angled up. I couldn’t glue the 20’ sticks by myself unless they were level with the previous section and the bottom of the trench was the only flat spot. So I still had to do get in the trench and do this part of the work anyway. On the days that I had help we did glue outside the trench except when I used the 24” wide bucket. The main reason I placed the spoil piles next to the trench is the need to bed by hand because of the horrible rocky fill. It doesn’t take much effort to slide the dirt in and leave the big rocks behind. I once tried to place the piles farther away and it was a labor intensive nightmare just having to drag the dirt that little extra distance.
We had a huge storm roll through late in the week but I was still able to get some work done. I left the last bit of conduit un-bedded in case I had to make some adjustments after the meter socket was installed and it turned out to be a very good idea. The ridges on the wall were a pain to deal with and I didn’t account for the stupid worthless clamps they want on the riser conduit. The original spot that I picked would have left one of the clamp mounting holes right on top of a ridge so I had to slide the riser over to the extreme left of the trench to make everything line up. The trench at this spot was a gooey mess so I bedded the last part with gravel. I removed the water out of the trench with the hoe bucket but 2 days later it still looked like this so I still wasn’t able to place my post and complete the phone conduit. I did add another 20’ stick which got me right to the edge of the muck and used the rest of my time to do some backfilling in front of the barn. Why can’t I leave well enough alone? I had a nice level base for the transformer box but thought it was a good idea to double check and make sure the gravel was tamped well with the hoe bucket. To my surprise, the base felt like it was sitting on top of Jello and was pumping all over the place. The top of the conduits were all level and now they are at different heights with one about 3” higher then it originally was. The transformer base is at the lowest point and with the trenches still open I guess it was channeling all of the water to the soil under the base. I’m not going to mess with it again until all of the trenches are backfilled but I don’t know what to do about the shift in the conduit height. Do I try and push them back down with the hoe bucket or cut off the excess height? They were at the maximum height before so I have to do one or the other. Maybe I should have tried to push it back down while the soil is still Jello like?
Huge rain but I worked Friday and up till 3 on Saturday afternoon before the deluge hit. The area for my phone pedestal was pumping like crazy but it was holding me up and I got it done anyway. I’m not the most creative person and sometimes I have to see things for an idea to click. I originally wasn’t going to run a phone line to the barn because I didn’t feel it was worth the extra work of digging an intersecting trench to meet up with the power trench. I saw how close together they were up by the transformer and a little work with a mattock made the connection. I didn’t use any conduit and drilled a hole in the main feeder sweep. I had some cut lengths of 2” conduit with no bells so I decided to use them up as sheathing around the phone wire in the main trench leading to the barn. I also got enough backfilling done and the transformer box placed so that future wet weather shouldn’t hold me up anymore.
Does your pic of the phone wire show direct burial? For some reason I was thinking "all wire" was to be in conduit due to underground tunnel type creatures gnawing on the line like it was a root or something.... There is that one pic with the U turn half circle where the phone cable is in the bottom of the trench and then the drilled hole in the sweep to get into the riser.... On 9/15 you mentioned thinking about 'pushing down on the end of the conduit riser' to 'bring it back to even ht' and the jello backill.....did you leave well enough alone? Thanks again for taking the time to report on your progress....
It is direct burial Bob. It could be gnawed but I haven't seen any evidence of burrowing critters as of yet. It was just a small additional perk when I saw that I could install it easily. In the future I have plans for some more trenching that will cross the secondary trench so the sleeving will hopefully be easier to spot than just a small black wire. Yeah, I tried to give it a push but it was rock solid because the base was not pumping anymore so I had to cut the conduit off. I think it would have easily pushed back down last week but I didn't want to try it without asking first. Next week I should have the base completely backfilled and I want to put a piece of plywood or something on top to prevent it from filling with water.
Actually that's not true. I just remembered seeing a mole while backfilling.
Airhead trench guy was gonna place one of the ground rods in the trench to get an easy 4' head start but he forgot. Oh well, the first 4' 3" went in like butter and then I hit a rock, or maybe the conduit. After lots and lots of beating it finally started moving again but the rest was tough going although always moving with each hit. Then it gets about 3" from being flush with the ground and it stopped hard this time.:Banghead 15 more minutes of beating and it finally takes off and I got it about 4" below the surface. I could have brought the Sawzall up to take care of the last few inches but a hassle trying to cut it below the surface and the fake mushroom would have looked really lame. Notice the concrete support pillar behind the sweep. I had to get close to make everything fit on the wall. It looks undermined in the pic but it's not. Just some temporary blocking to hold the conduit in the correct location while backfilling.
Do you drive the ground (earthing) rod with a sledge hammer? Once we learned we could use an attachment for the roto hammer (and yes, we first shift it into 'percussion only' mode LOL), these rods are much easier to place.
I was going to look into renting a hammer. The plan was to just place it in the trench and drive it the rest of the way in when I installed the other rod. I think it got my curiosity up when it hit something just below the trench depth and ended up sledging it to see what was down there.
Wow that was a lot of reading, finally caught up!!! Great thread!!! Thanks for taking the time to write it and post pics. :thumbsup
Hey thanks and welcome to this great forum.
Any other hoarders out there? If I ever decide to finish out the barn I stuffed in some 30 year old insulation I had squirreled away. This is the first time I have worked in the barn after dark and it was spooky. With the generator running and only the workspace lit up your early warning senses are pretty much out the window. When I was placing the top row of insulation I had what could have been a serious accident with no help around. Standing on top of a 3' step ladder, the next thing I knew I was laying flat on my back with no way to ease the fall when the ladder kicked over. I landed on top of a live electrical outlet box so hard that it split the receptacles in half. At first I thought I had broke my back or damaged a kidney but I'm still kicking. Installing the heavy plywood and trying to bend that big wire the next day was no fun at all.
Q1. Curious: we use 3' ladders for a lot of things ... any idea why it kicked out? Q2 Hey, thanks for showing the pics of the connections. Do you regularly use the No Ox? I completely disassemble the bus works, lugs, connectors etc, coat all with the NoOx, then reassemble. Regardless of copper or aluminum wire. Reason: after some time, the threads on the connections begin to freeze up, etc. The ones with the No Ox always have threads in good workable condition. Q3 On the subpanel, looks like the Grounding Conductor (nicknamed Green wire or Ground Wire) has yet to be run? FYI 'a' I figure that breaker panel is a service entrance panel with the meter set on the other side of the wall? On the southern west coast (SoCal) we use a lot of combination meter, main, and breaker. I guess it is all about the weather (or lack of it)! FYI 'b' The use of the yellow pull rope around these parts is taboo, must be the flat woven polyester pull tape. "Rumor has it" the pull tape won't cut the conduit like the yellow rope. Haven't seen yellow rope in a long long time, all remnants having been used up and discarded quite a while back.
Hi Bob, There is pretty coarse gravel on the floor and my best guess is that a main weight bearing leg slipped off the top of a large rock when my weight shifted. I normally shift the ladder back and forth a little to plant the legs firmly but maybe I forgot because I was in a hurry and uncomfortable working in the dark. This is the second panel I have installed and the first one was 30 years ago in my home and I can't remember. I did use Noalox on this installation and also put it on the threads. The torque specs were fairly high at 18 and 21 and I wonder if putting it on the threads causes the connections to be over torqued? This is actually a main panel so it doesn't get the fourth equipment ground wire. I do still have to install the ground rod system (GEC) but I didn't want to be beating on a ground rod with my back aching like it was. I actually wanted to use a meter main and I searched every manufacturer but none provided exactly what I wanted and the utility required. It would have been nice for the trailer feed, well pump, and extending the service to a future barn close by. I installed what the utility wanted which was 1/4" poly. They will use my rope to pull in their flat rope. I can still see the poly burning through the sweeps but maybe they have a protective sleeve that they slide down into my sweeps? I hope to be there and maybe take some pics.
I added an extra sweep for another possible home location and did the same as the other one. Small t-post about 6" under grade and took a pic of the tape measure. This pad is at grade in the front and about 15" high in the rear. The sweep on the left is the starting point for this project that was installed back in June 2011. Nice ground rod driving weather Saturday morning, 36*F, so I installed the second rod. No drama at all for this one as it moved every time it was hit. Funny thing though, once I got it 4" below grade, which is where I wanted it, the rod hit what felt like a very big rock that wasn't going to give.
When I was building this pad I remembered something that might not have been very smart. I ran my phone conduit through this pad. Even though this is just a pull point for the high voltage primary they still might drive a ground rod at this location and definitely if a transformer is ever placed here. I'm planning on being here when they do the install but if I miss it for some reason I need to let them know about this conduit. I will spray an orange line on the gravel and maybe attach this pic to one of the sweeps. I will know more tomorrow when I talk to the engineer.
Hi oldandworn. Been a while since I posted here. I have been keeping current on your progress though. Everybody gives you top notch advice. And they beat me to it. Any way I was looking at your meter base and the chase that goes through between them. If that is plastic, you have to have a ground wire between them. If it was metal then your ok. If you know that already then forget I said anything ok? It is a main panel and you don't need an equipment ground but you do need to carry your earth ground through. If that nipple through the wall was metal it would have to be bonded. That is the advantage to using plastic. No bonding.:cool2 Just wanted to throw that out there, and say hi!:drinkup
Oh. something else I was going to mention....... I don't know about where you are at, but our authorities here allows us to lay the ground rods in the trench, attach the wire with the acorn, and run it to your service as long as the trench is 2ft. deep. ointhead I am pretty sure that is in the NEC. Maybe it is too late for you to do that. They also can be driven at almost a 45 degree angle. This helps in rocky ground.
Hello ijoker, it’s great to hear from you again and I hope life and work is being good to you. I spend a lot of time on an electrical forum and I’m seeing that grounding of the meter base is a regional thing depending on what the POCO wants. Here, we just run #6 copper from the load center to the ground rods which I should be installing this weekend. Actually I’m going to use #4 because I have some leftover from a project I did 25 years ago and it’s time to use it up…..just like my 30 year old insulation. I don’t think we can lay the rods in the trench here but I imagine it boils down to how much common sense the inspector has. Do you have an NEC code section I can look for? I was thinking of driving the second rod at an angle but chose straight and it turned out to be a winner as you probably saw.
You would have to check with your local electrical authority to see if they allow this but up here we often use what is called a "ground plate". It is just a piece of approx. 3/8 plate about 16" by 18" with a 6" stub of 3/4" steel round bar welded to one of the long sides, all hot dip galvanized. The ground cable is attached to the rod part with a ground rod clamp and the whole thing gets buried about 18" deep. Just one is required and is a lot easier than driving ground rods in rocky soil or where solid rock is near grade.
Hi norite. The Canadian electricians mention these often and they seem popular in New England, or like you say, anywhere the rock is close to the surface. I have just a few more hours of work before I'm ready for the inspection so I will try to schedule it for Monday and stay over an extra night so I don't have to make an extra 5 hour trip just to meet the inspector.
Good luck with your inspection, looks like a first class job to me. Let us know how you make out.
Did you ever had a hydraulic problem? I have a problem with my hydraulic the front bucket will work perfect for about a hour then it start to move very slow. I've change my filters and it still do the same thing. Do you know what the problem could be?
My front bucket also moves slowly but it doesn't sound the same as your problem. The linkage to my control valves is worn to the point that it's not opening the valves fully. If I move the bar right at the valve everything speeds up quite nicely. I think you can start your own thread after 3 posts....or maybe they changed that and can do it with one post. Anyway, give it a shot as there are plenty of folks here willing to help.
I can see where that would be the acceptable thing to do when you simply cannot drive a ground rod norite. I haven't heard of it being done quite that way though. Very interesting!
Oregon has a lot stiffer standards on grounding. They are called addendums. They require 2 ground rods when you are installing power to existing buildings. On new buildings you are supposed to have a ufer ground. That is a 20 foot at least number 4 rebar run in the foundation of the building. Encased in concrete. If you don't have a ufer you have to run a ground ring. A ground ring is a ground wire run around the building in the ground. And there has to be 2 ground rods. Not a way you want to go around here. :Banghead The ufer ground is in the NEC article 250. States differ on addendums. The NEC is always minimum requirement. On your service Oldandworn, yes! You run your earth ground to your main panel. Then take a short piece of the number 4 bare from your main panel to the meter base, and you got it! Like I said before, it is an advantage using pvc between the meter base and the panel because if it was metal you would have to bond it. But, the bonded metal makes the ground between the meter base and the panel. When you use plastic the ground is not there. The grounding conductor only needs to sized for the grounding electrode, not the size of the service. That is where you save. t
Our POCO would not be too happy to find a bonding jumper in the meter can, Grounded conductor is bonded to the meter can already, and is boned to earth ground in the main panel. Ground rods get tossed into the ditch, same at the pad sleeve, 2 rods bend them into a 90, tie them together to make a square making sure one has a long tail of wire. Before you fill in the hole for the pad sleeve set the rods into hole and tape the wire tail to your pipes and backfill.
No ground electrode conductor to the meter for this POCO ijoker. The small lug is there on the grounded conductor bus for areas that require it but not here. Like playindirt mentioned, the white neutral takes care of the bond and the GEC bond wire would be redundant.
I passed my inspection yesterday. :drinkup Not necessary but a nice touch, I ran the GEC to ground level in some left over conduit from the phone line.
Congrats on the successful inspection. Nice pics too.
Thanks norite!
Your outlet is upside down.
LOL.....there always seems to be a story behind everything that I do. I originally planned on dual receptacles in the one box installed ground down of course, but then I found out that tamper resistant receptacles are a code requirement now. When I was looking at them in the store I noticed there were also water resistant receptacles as well. Not knowing how picky the inspector was going to be I bought a cheap tamper/water resistant receptacle for under $3. When I got home I noticed that the “WR” printed on the front would be upside down if I installed it ground down. Being OCD I now had a serious dilemma on my hands but since I knew it was coming back out (to be placed under the tracks of my Caterpillar) and being replaced with standard receptacles I got a laugh out of the whole deal and decided to install it ground up.
Congrats on passing your inspection Oldandworn. Yeah grounding differs a little bit from state to state. The lug provided on the neutral bar is for bonding a metal nipple. It has been a while since I have done a split meter and panel. Playindirt is right about the power company wouldn't be happy to find a ground wire in there. After having that said, I am reminded that the grounded conductor from the panel bonds the meter base. The earth ground goes to the main panel. I am getting old and worn myself. I forget a lot of things. :Banghead I want to ask you. You said you got a tamper proof outlet. This is in your shop correct? Or barn? I didn't think they are required in a garage or shop or barn? Only in residences. I know that code keeps changing all the time, and me and my co-workers have been talking that eventually they are going to require them for everything except commercial and industrial installations. I am not up to speed on residential code. Maybe it is like that already for all I know. Did you check and find out it was required? Or did you just assume?
Hey thanks ijoker! Just to be clear and placing the metal nipple bonding aside, there are some power companies (not the NEC) that require the ground rod wire to go directly into the meter socket. There is even a small knock out in the bottom of this meter for that wire to pass through and connect to the small lug. Here is the wording that applies from the 2008 NEC: 406.11 Tamper-Resistant Receptacles in Dwelling Units. In all areas specified in 210.52, all 125-volt, 15- and 20-ampere receptacles shall be listed tamper resistant receptacles. 210.52 (G) Basements, Garages, and Accessory Buildings. For a one-family dwelling, the following provisions shall apply: (1) At least one receptacle outlet, in addition to those for specific equipment, shall be installed in each basement, in each attached garage, and in each detached garage or accessory building with electric power. (2) Where a portion of the basement is finished into one or more habitable rooms, each separate unfinished portion shall have a receptacle outlet installed in accordance with this section. That being stated, I asked the inspector if I needed tamper resistant receptacles in the barn and he said no. He either didn't know or he adjusted the code to what made the most sense to him. I didn't want to fail and have him come back so I installed one just to be sure.
Over on one of the better electrical forums, they were critiquing this subject and it seems the 'eleven' electrical code book helps clarify the accessory to the residence concept thus bringing the detached garage into the realm ....maybe that outlet was a good investment for the future?
Hi O&W- It looks like you have a 1 foot bucket for your backhoe. I have a JD 310B and just aquired a 1 foot bucket. How do you like your bucket? Does soil stick in the bucket often?
Hi Bob....I'm not following what you wrote but in this case I will do what the inspector wants only because I have a thorn in my side about the pussification of the human race. I stuck a paperclip in a receptacle when I was 5 and the results were spectacular. There is more of a chance of being bit by a rattler than an outlet in this structure.
Well, I like it because of less mess and backfill work but it was a horrible choice for this project because the trench was too deep and narrow to work in. So, I guess it comes down to what kind of project you are doing and the surrounding circumstances. The biggest issue was trying to glue the joints in the bottom of the trench. If I would have had constant help so I could have glued outside of the trench (or lifting at an angle), worked everyday, and was only laying 1 conduit, then the 12" would have been the perfect bucket. In my case an 18” would have been sweet and also provide enough separation for 2 conduits at the same depth. Other than an excessive amount of rocks I’m very happy with the soil that I dug through and didn’t have many sticking problems. There was about a 40’ length of moist clay close to the pole barn that gave me fits. I had to scratch along with the bucket not filling it very full. Even then there was a lot of shaking involved getting it to release. There was also some blue clay in the creek beds but I think any bucket would have had a bad time with that damn stuff.
Thanks for educating me oldandworn. Like I said I am not up to speed on residential code. It has changed since last I looked at it.:Banghead And yes. I know that about the meter. I have put ground wires in them before. I have been dealing with commercial and industrial new construction the last few years and these services pretty much always have a ufer ground with the ground wire going to the MDP. All conduits and nipples are metal. So every thing is bonded. Sometimes an inspector will want a wire ran from the main panel to the meter, but it isn't necessary when everything is bonded. Sometimes we argue with them, other times we just do it knowing it's not necessary. :notworthy
Power company switched toward the end of the project. First company didn't want to replace the pole but the second company did. Instead of coordinating with the phone company so they could pull the old pole, they just installed a new one in a location where my power conduit would still reach the new pole. If the old pole is removed (supposed to be) I’m going to have to rework the phone. :Banghead
I bet it feels good to see that wire snaking through there...
My rope from the 900’ pull. It has been in the conduit almost 2 years and I thought it would be really nasty but it looks like brand new. The rope from the lowlands with the 2 other creeks was also clean and dry (bottom pic).
The final 400’ run was nice and straight so they pulled it by hand. The old company just wanted a flat gravel pad for everything but the new company wants a buried box. They told me I had to install one for the transformer but the junctions can stay the same. Now the linemen don’t know what to do. They have to try and find the old style precast concrete pad but the new style box they brought supposedly won’t fit.
They set the transformer and left. No word on when they will be back to finish but the nail biting part is done. :drinkup
OMG was it ever!!! :thumbsup It would be major suckage to dig that conduit back up. I hate rework with a passion.
Congrats on a job well done!:thumbsup
Thanks CM....and a bunch of thanks to all of the HEF posters that guided me along. :notworthy :drinkup
I will always think of this post as the challenge of a trench too narrow .....
My congratulations too O&W. I have followed your progress from the beginning. It sure has been an interesting and educational job ! Over 62,000 views of your thread and still counting. keep us up to date . I would like to see the first time your yard light gets turned on.
Ummm....would that be the WWI version of a Bridge Too Far?
Thank you Tinkerer. My original thought was a simple light bulb but it may have to change to an army of smart chargers. I'm normally good at keeping up on my batteries but with the main focus of getting this trench done I let my 955 Cat sit too long. I tried to start it a few weekends ago and got nothing but a click. The next weekend I brought up a bigass charger to see if I could revive the batteries. The only thing I have big enough to power the charger is my military generator which is also a 24 volt system. Well....wouldn't ya know, I just got a click out of generator as well. I removed the generator batteries to take them home and noticed the end cells were frozen. So now those batteries are boiling away on chargers at home trying to bring them back to life. ointhead
The power company might be back this week but I don't know if they will be able to finish up in one day. Because of the restructure they have a long travel time to the far edge of their service area. Between travel time both ways and lunch, it doesn't leave much work time. The old power company is just a few miles down the road. I was able to restore the generator batteries to good condition. The end cells float/almost float all 4 balls but the fourth ball is lazy. I got the 955 batteries up to 50% with the generator and small charger so hopefully that was enough to keep them from freezing until I can get the big charger going.
Nice and straight.....perfectly centered. Why did I even bother making a square pad.:cussing They did a much much better job on this one. Very straight and almost centered but close enough not to bother me. Thanks a lot though for leaving me a sticker from hell and even more shrink wrap residue. I can't really fault the linemen for not cleaning this crap off but it shouldn't be on there in the first place. They did pick at the sticker but gave up pretty quick. :tong
Finally!! I wanted something a little special for the first power used but the pickings were slim. Junk Chinese work light or a 50 year old fan that purrs like new....hmmm. Many thanks again to the helpers and followers. :notworthy :drinkup
Yair . . . Good one OldandWorn , I bet it was a nice feeling to finally flick that switch! I am not familiar with those box thingy's that are causing you grief through misalignment . . . what are they and what are they made of, it kinda looks like plastic? Cheers.
Yes it was Scrub, and especially sweet without generator noise. Not quite sure what they are made from but they are amazingly strong like the box that the transformer is sitting on. Could be fiberglass, plastic, or a combination of both? They are just empty boxes with two power cables connected together inside and I could give it a push with the hoe or tractor to straighten it out. The really crooked one is on my neighbors property and it will eventually be hidden by tall grass and forgotten about. It just bugs me that most people out there don't take a little extra time to do things right. When the concrete pad was dangling from the crane it would have been so simple to make sure it was straight and centered. :beatsme
Yair . . . OldandWorn I know the feeling mate. I was just curious about the boxes as they look vulnerable to bush/grass fires if they were plastic. Cheers.
Congrats on the success of the project OldandWorn! :drinkup There is nothing like the sense of satisfaction finishing a long, tough job. I would take some topsoil and backfill around the concrete pad to cover the stone up and finish out the grade. That's what we do around transclosures, leave the soil a couple of inches below the top of the concrete. Scrub I don't know what material OldandWorn's transclosures are made of but in my area the power co. has switched from concrete bases to plastic bases and then set a metal transclosure on top. They used to use concrete pads but did away with them a few years ago. In my area we don't really have to worry about grass/forest fires, rains too damn much.
Thanks CM...filling is a great idea. You made me look at the drawings again and they even show that. :duh Not that it matters but the rear of these pads are about 15" higher then the front to get them level. I now have a (more welcome) problem of getting rid of the extension cords. I have a 100' cord going to the trailer and a 100' cord going to my 955 for the smart chargers and at least one has to go across the road. I want to trench to the trailer but I sure don't want to use the hoe bucket. I wish I had like a single claw or ripper to install on the hoe or ag tractor. I might try renting a trencher but that didn't work out too well last time. :beatsme
I just had to post this. My service started on December 22 and I have been wondering when I would receive my first bill. Since the power companies changed midstream I figured it got delayed in the shuffle. Well...it came today, like Thor's hammer it did....$665.03 Of course it was estimated but I wasn't expecting this. Lets see, I'm up to a whopping 3kwh on the meter now, so 62 cents X 3 plus $4.37 meter charge and maybe some other fluff thrown in. Yep, I should probably call them. :Banghead
Any resolution on the power bill? Has the feel of the e-bills we get here in Ca.
Hi Bob, a phone call took care of it. They were billing it as a residence with the usage estimates of their service area during a very very cold winter. My figures that I posted were way off also. Adding all of the charges and taxes it's 14 cents per kwh and a little over $2 for the meter charge. The new bill was less than $3 but I sent $100 in so I wouldn't have to be paying small amounts every month. The meter reader has only been out once so far and I'm recording the actual readings through their website. I have all of the materials to run power to an RV pedestal next to my trailer so that will be one of the next projects. I didn't want to mess up the nice gravel area with a 12" wide trench using the hoe but it looks like that is my best option unless I want to dig 100' by hand.