I've dug through the threads here, a bit, and didn't see anything but can't imagine you guys haven't advised on this subject, so I apologize if I didn't find info already available. I just got my loader backhoe a few weeks ago, for personal home use around my 6 acres of yard. I'm learning how to use it as a (for the most part) brand new equipment operator. I have some experience driving forklifts, tractors, dump trucks, and a variety of small industrial mowers, but far, far from extensive experience (forklifts probably the most). It'd be nice to earn a few bucks here and there from neighbors that need an odd job done. I assume it'd be stuff like digging out stumps or moving gravel, all pretty basic. My thought was to just stick a sign out at the end of the driveway offering my services for anyone within a couple mile radius (since I don't have a trailer I'd have to drive the backhoe anywhere). How good or bad of an idea is this? I rented a backhoe about a year ago and a neighbor asked me to help dig a ditch to add some drainage tiles. I almost immediately hit phone line, that he ended up paying about a grand to repair. Uh, for real, call before you dig... I understand there are some liabilities that are likely involved, can you have people sign away that kind of stuff? What else should I be weary of? Thanks, as always, for your help and knowledge!
That "phone line" job coulda turned ugly if the customer decided not to pay u.?? I think I would "WAIT UNTIL" u were approached to do a job.. I don't think I would actually advertise.. especially if u don't have a trailer.. & no experience.. That way u could say, Hey, U approached/asked ME.. 1st time was a phone line.. what about "next time"??
If you tag the "right" phone line with no locate and no insurance, you can just give them the keys to the tractor when they get there... and your house. That probably won't cover the bill you will receive. This happened in the 60's in Washington and in case it is still sensitive I leave the location out. My father was installing underground phone in a very rural location. They moved to start a new run and hadn't been working for about 5 minutes when half a dozen black sedans showed up. Some representatives of federal law enforcement bailed out and ordered work to stop. Dad explained that he was in process of installing a phone duct run for the phone company. The agent replied that he wasn't installing anything there and to backfill what he had open immediately and that any continued work could compromise national security. He complied and left the area. He did find out later what the line was, it was for a defense system that has been now been removed. No harm no foul contract canceled and reissued after some routing changes. Be careful... no matter how pastoral it looks. I just finished a project between a electrical conduit and a 8"gas line with crossing drainage that needed to be removed don't be bashing through things that you feel unless you know beyond a doubt that it is one of natures finest. Really sucks when the bucket come out of the ground festooned with copper spaghetti! (I have made copper spaghetti before and the old saying that "one oh #$%* wipes out a thousand atta boys" (or girl's) leaps right to the forefront!)
I cut the cable line one time.. same senerio, about 6 cable trucks come screamin into my yard..lol. I had no idea what was going on.. so I asked. They said, u gotta about 15 old ladies about to rip ur head off cuz they're missin "their stories".. u cut the cable line.. They spliced it back together & off they went.. I never heard another thing about it.. no bill, no nuthin.. not even a nasty letter..
LOL It is just because the little old ladies weren't given your location!!
I helped a neighbor that rented a trailer mounted tree spade for a weekend. Goal was to thin out the white pines that were planted as border privacy fence. We moved 50 white pines that weekend and when we were done, his wife asked him to move a blue spruce from near the road to a spot closer to the house. Just as we finish setting the spruce in its new home, his wife comes out saying they have no telephone and no internet. He shrugs it off, says he'll check it out in a minute. We go to set the plug in the hole the spruce xame from and that's when we noticed the wire stub sticking out into the hole. That tree had been planted years ago directly over the telephone line that runs to his house. Moral of the story: call Miss Dig before starting work. And if the project becomes bigger and moves to a different area than planned, call them again. He never called them because he hadn't planned on touching any of the trees in that area. That was a last minute change that cost him a good chunk of money to fix.
Lol.. GOOD stories.. I sure hope aighead takes heed.. MD> can u just hear the "call center".?? lol.. 15 old ladies calling in at the same time & some foreign chick on the other end saying, "OK, tank u fer callin de cabllll company.. Have u tried unplugging the box from de wall?? I'll wait..." Lol..
I really don't think I would advertise.. not until your confident in your abilities as an operator. It doesn't look real good if u start the conversation, "I'd like to come help u out but I don't have a trailer".. "Neighborhood jobs" are still a REAL iffy situation.. IF u f-up on 1.. you'll never get another.. I don't mean to squash your dreams.. its just u have no operator experience.. Go out & spend a few hundred on fuel & get familiar w/ the controls.. Practice filling a 5 gal. bucket w/ dirt.. w/o knocking it over.. {seriously}
If you stick a sign out front advertising backhoe work then you are in business and should have all the appropriate licenses and insurance to perform such work. You got lucky with the phone line - what if it had been a 6" gas main or worse an electrical main? People get killed hitting unmarked utilities - this is not child's play nor weekend warrior territory in order to "make a few bucks". A few years ago a utility contractor was exposing a dead end water main stub in order to remove the cap and facilitate extending the main. All utilities had been marked or so we thought. UG power was marked coming up the street to the transclosure where it turned and went under the existing road that serviced houses across the street. There were no red power markings within 40' of the buried water main stub. Contractor proceeds to uncover the water main and finds the pipe and cap like we normally do - scratch with excavator, hand probe, shovel, rinse repeat until you find it. All was good or so he thought. He went 2-3' past the cap on the stub to dig out in front of the pipe, a couple of buckets and BAM! A blue fire ball shot out of the ground and we heard several transclosure's blow - he hit a primary electrical main that was not marked. By the Grace of God there wasn't a ground man anywhere close as it probably would've killed him. What kept the excavator from energizing had to be the fuses blowing in the transformers. Knocked out power for a dozen houses and power co had to replace 2 transformers. Of course no charge for hitting the line as it wasn't marked and also no apology from line locator even though his mistake could have cost a mans life.
Wow! Lots of good stories and warnings! I like the idea of filling a 5 gallon bucket. I'm not sure when I'm considered experienced (though I'm sure it's not yet), but the stories of hitting utilities are good enough to make me hesitant. My guess, if anyone comes to me, is I'll stay out in the middle of nowhere if I attempt to help out. Oh, and for what it's worth, the neighbor with the phone line issue didn't pay me, though he attempted to. I was being neighborly but probably not in the way he really wanted, when it was all said and done. Thanks again, y'all.
I wouldn't excavate until you have liability insurance. A lot of liability insurance. A lot of people have found every kind of utility in places where the markout people said there were none. If you had a $1 bill for every time, you would have a nice truck and trailer to haul that backhoe.
I guess I will save the story for another day about the 6" sprinkler water line that got pulled apart by a excavator on a hospital demolition job. The live end was in the main communication room that was underground and next to it was the main electrical service entrance room. Did I mention this was a major trauma hospital.
Holy Cow!!
Uh... That sounds terrible. 6" lines hold a lot of water.
It was a mess. The electrical and communication rooms were off limits to us contractors before the pond building exercise. The hospital had signed off that they had capped and disconnected the pipe inside the building and that it was just laying free in the sleeve and was cut off right at the wall line. Unfortunately they had cut and capped a sprinkler main going out of a different building on campus. Pissed of the gardener to. 8 hours later we had emergency cables, temporary splice boxes, generators, and switchgear from Peterson Caterpillar working and feeding normal power to the most critical portions of the hospitals. Fortunately all critical care functions in a hospital are on the emergency side and that switchgear was in a different part of the campus. Emergency communications' were by radio and all else was by runners carrying correspondence around the hospital. This was at the very beginning of the cell phone age when less than 1 in a hundred people had phones. The pagers were down also. When the mandatory investigative review was done after the chaos was over, my team and myself was very grateful we had the signed release from the facility. We were thanked for helping with the emergency work and got paid as well. The phone switch shut itself down as the water level rose and suffered no permanent damage. It was designed to survive water as long as it was shut off. They were thinking fire sprinkler damage when they designed them that way but it sufficed. It did take 3 heated days to dry out and be checked out. The switchgear had some minor short damage on the utility side and popped some breakers that had to be reprogrammed after flooding but it was up and running in a couple days.
With my new Bobcat E42, I’ve pulled up (on my property) two water lines one of which was the feed to the entire house, a 2” sewer drain from a lift pump and one unused electric conduit from our pump house to the house. I did however find the 4” septic line to the drain field and marked it when trenching, a huge victory. I’m happy to do work at grade for free or diesel for neighbors but going below grade is a different situation.
I recently had the town try to fine me for moving 6 buckets of dirt across the road with a 25 HP tractor. Make sure you know the rules about driving on the road and the rules for working in a Right of Way and the local definition of Right of way.
I'm going to take that as you knew the law and they didn't?
One little city in my area requires a separate land disturbance permit to move one shovel of dirt from one parcel of land to the other. Of course they have nothing better to do than ride around in city vehicles and fine offenders.
Power line + excavator boom = one hell of a bright flash.
I'm a quiet person. My neighbor went ballistic on them and made them see how stupid it was. On top of the fact that whoever reported me said I used a skidsteer when my little green tractor has a backhoe.... I had no idea what the law was and by legal definition, the Right of Way comes right up to my foundation. (33 feet from the centerline) which I know but they don't acknowledge and wasn't the issue. Does this mean I need a permit to mow my lawn since I would be "working in the ROW" ?
We have no such hassles from local government here in central Texas, it's basically live and let live. I did get fussed a little bit from county streets and bridges when I put in a 32' double gate next to our primary gate for semis to use. I was mowing and a county guy motioned me over to chat, they were going to chip seal our little road. That's when he mentioned the big gate like I was supposed to get approval or something. Since it was an occasional use ranch gate he had no problem with it - still scratching my head over that one.
They just want $$$ in the form of a piece of paper. He probably figured the revenue from the permit wasn't worth his time.
At the Nuke the Electrician shop has a sign, Kamikaze Cable Cutters, seems Every time they set a excavator to a trench they sheared some cable, EVEN with builders prints and maps. Have now come down to hiring a trench establishing super sucker company. Hydro Excavation for test slots prior to all out digging.
Starting at least 5 years ago Embridge stopped all excavator excavating in the Minnesota and Wisconsin jurisdiction at any of the refinery or pipeline locations. All excavation is done solely by suck truck. Gets expensive on a 80 by 200 ft building with footing at 7 ft. deep. One broken pipe results in millions in legal fees even if no spill so hydro vacuuming excavation is probably cost effective and no public outcry.
DM I've been contemplating getting into the hydroexcavation business as I only think it's going to be spec'd more and more beyond the utility, power and petrol markets.
10+ years ago we had one guy step his toes into the water with hydrovac around here. Now there's 3 or 4 guys running hydrovacs, the water/sewer authority has one or two and one of the larger contractors has started running their own. In our urban area there is so much underground in the highway right of way. Now with directional boring of about any utility, a contractor cant afford to hand dig, scoop, hand dig, scoop for 6-8 feet when the utility might be 20-25 underground. Suck a vac width trench across the MISSDIG width and your done. Do your research and get into it if there's not a number of folks in it already. It will take off once folks use it.
Currently six here at it, first up has nine trucks, oldest is a 2013 Newest is brand new. Trucks see the yard long enough for detail inspections then gone again. The other five are drawing straws for sloppy seconds and third place leftovers but are making a lot of coin.
The only company that I know of in my area is the big dog - Badger. There are a few UG contractors that have them for their own use but there is no other competition than Badger that I know of. The cost of entry is high at $250K for a single axle and $500K + for a larger rig. We'll see.
Now that you mention the name, Badger was the first here. Now the closest Badger truck is 3-4 hours away across the state. You give quick, prompt service and I think you will do well. Our situation is like DMiller's, they all appear to keep busy. I know the big operator is. I will tell you that once they have a load of water/mud on board, they are heavy. You don't have spring weight restrictions in AL but here in MI the trucks the big guy owns were too heavy empty on restricted roads. So where does he locate his shop - on a restrict road. He told me that the DOT enforcement officer stopped him and just checked his paperwork. I told him he didn't want to get into weighing you and all that BS on a cold day.
Not quite the same, but similar... Part of my job right now is managing a production line (or 4) and we are trying to move equipment around to increase efficiency. That being said I have the print of the floor layout (big concrete floor, lots of benches, equipment, and overhead utilities...) I'm going along rearranging on the computer and after a bit I find things don't seem quite right. Oh, just a simple thing like this aisle isn't really 8 foot, it's 6. I guess I'll be shifting everything over a bit. So while it doesn't involve digging it does involve prints and maps being way off. I use kind of a combination of building support columns, 20'x20' squares cut into the floor, and the aisles to measure off of, and I really didn't expect something as simple as an aisle to be off that much. 2 feet doesn't make a difference, right?
To the OP, don’t do it. Also don’t rent or lend your machine out. Doing side work, running illegal without permits and insurance is a gamble and those are expensive enough to be prohibitive on side work level of money. And once you start a job you have to see it through, including dealing with equipment breakdowns, weather, and other factors.
I did just help my neighbor move his new-to-him 1950's era bulldozer on Friday. He's not the litigious type. While the 'dozer doesn't run, he claimed it is about 30 tons, and man was it nothing for me to push about 20-30 feet up his driveway with my backhoe. It was so easy to move, uphill even, that I was disappointed it wasn't more challenging.
30T or 30K, most 50s era were the latter number. Had a guy trying to sell me on Scrap price for a machine, 24K weight, kept calling it 24T. Asked him weight of ton in pounds, then how many pounds of machine by type in pounds, he said "OH, guess I need to adjust the price down".
Yeah, I'm not sure, it seemed easy to move for 30T... It looks a lot like the TD9 seen here but I'm not positive they are the same model... Also, after a little looking around my guess is it's neither 30, but probably much lighter...
My old Allis weighs 24K and is roughly same size.
Doing a favor for a good neighbor is one thing. Doing work for a neighbor is the same as doing it for a friend and can be the biggest headache you ever had. Usually it's not worth it. Does depend on the neighbor though. If it's a neighbor that you don't really know, they'll expect you to do it for next to nothing, especially if they have no idea what equipment costs... Actually sometimes they do know and try to play dumb. I recently got my dump truck stuck and asked my neighbor if I could hire him to pull me out with his excavator. Cost me 150 litres of diesel ($175). Had I known beforehand I would have walked my Cat a mile from the other neighbors and tried to get it out myself. About 45 minutes after it was out one of the guys from the gravel pit came to ride. They also farm about 2000 acres. I'm sure he would have brought over a big tractor and pulled it out. I was happy the truck was out but a little shocked at asking for 150 litres of diesel for about an hour of his time. Nobodies litigious until something goes wrong. Good for you helping your neighbor move the dozer. If the dozer would have got away and rolled into a vehicle or building, you know it would be your fault.
Yeah, I'm with you WD. He's helped me in similar ways with his skid steer a few times, he's a good guy and while I can't (obviously) say for sure that he wouldn't sue me if something were to go wrong, it seems unlikely after the various stuff we've helped each other with. Though it may bite me in some random end I will continue living a helpful neighbor life, not charging for favors and not expecting things in return. That being said, I am taking stuff you guys are saying to heart, and likely won't be doing any digging for anyone, too scary! 175 bucks worth of fuel to get unstuck seems insane!