I need a little advice before i submit a bid. My neighbour wants to tile drain the farm next to me. There is a total 3308 feet of 10", 8", and 6" mains. The only way i have to install these is with my 30" bucket on my 240. Soil is mud over sand over clay. No rocks. I will be going anywhere from 7' to 3' deep on this tile. I have a grade computer that allows me to maintain a perfect grade without a stick man. I know i can clean a ditch to grade from the ditchbank at about 100'/hr. Trenching, I haven't done any before. I want to quote a buck a foot for installing the pipes. Is that high? Low? About right?
are you putiing rock around the pipe? how sticky is the material, do you have help to put the pipe in? with that kind of power you should be able to do 500' a day rocked and back filled. what i would do is look at how much is over 3' and howmuch is under, if they are close i would take them and average the depth of the job to 5' and you would gain production on the shallow stuff wich will make up for the deep. Take total time for ex and backfill + labour + materials + material handleing and divide back into your footage, + 5% total job cost for unforseen expences and you should be close. Another thing you can do is itemise your depth cost into diferent prices by doing the same simple math and going to the customer with that. What kind of system are you using on your 240 to check grade ?
Are you just digging or laying pipe and backfilling too ? jr
I'm placing the pipe and backfilling. But that goes pretty quick. You just lay the tile out on the ground along the side of trench. Once the trench bottom is on grade, you just walk along and flip it into the trench, and gently cover it. Backfilling can be done with tractor or hoe or whatever is handy.
So, how much to dig the ditch and backfill it then?
I have the an Ocala system. It works really well. We will bed the pipe with sand or whatever loose material is handy.
Thats a good way to look at it. And I think i would need $1.75/ft if i estimated it that way. But then the price starts to get really high. I really have no idea how this is going to go. I have done it before, so i have some experience. Just not recently, not with this machine. I guess what i need to know is how fast i can expect to trench. And lets say the average depth is 4'. What would you say from your experience? Ken
Now you guys got me thinking about this. If i dig 100' 4'deep, 30" wide, that is 37 buckets with a 1.25 yd bucket. If you said 45secs/cycle you get 80 buckets/hr = 216'hr. @125/hr you get $.58/ft. Just for the trenching. That leaves ample room for the guy to place the pipe, and backfill. Thinking about it this way, i should be covered. May even be high. However, he is going to want it done in the mud(he plowed the ground for me, thanks a bunch for that!) so we will have to clean the tracks every night to prevent freeze up. Its gunna be a challenge for sure.
the ocala system you have Is it fairly new or is it a older one like 2000-2004
no drain rock around the pipe? what about the pipe silting off in the sand and clay and at 1 $ per foot you are only making 3308 - materials , labour and oporating costs that seems like verry little to me for that job :beatsme
Well, that begs me to ask if you are doing this as a weekend hobby or a favor for a close friend, or if you are in the business and have to make a profit as well as pay overhead like the cost of insurance, office, utilities, advertising, machine payments, pick up trucks, taxes, and hopefully a paycheck for yourself as well.
:iagree
The Ocala was shiny new this spring. Works great. "and at 1 $ per foot you are only making 3308 - materials , labour and oporating costs that seems like verry little to me for that job " I know what you mean. The real problem is i am not equipped for this job. What you really need is a tile plow, and there are plenty of people around with machines that will pull in 10 and 12" tile. The problem with them is, they don't come for less than 100,000', mostly because the there are lots of jobs that big to keep them busy. I know i can charge a little hefty because i'm the only guy he can get. But i don't want to hose the guy, if you know what i mean. I have told him that he would be cheaper to get someone with a big plow, knowing full well they just wont come. What i could do is instead of telling him a per foot cost, just charge him $125/hr for the exc and whatever it costs is what it costs. That would be really safe for me. I do know that the local guy with the 12" plow will install pipe for as little as $.30 /foot (plus the cost of the tile)
Typically, on the mains we run solid pipe, or perf. They are deep enough so they don't draw much water. On the other hand, on the 4" stuff, we run sock almost everywhere. Unless you KNOW you are going to be in clay, we just throw sock on. I should add that the clay in our area has been approved for manure and hazardous waste storage. It is absolutely impervious to water. Typically we systematically tile where ever there is sand because the sand is always sitting on the clay, with a heavy layer of water sitting on the clay as well. On clay land, we just do random to the low spots. Water finds the tile that way the best.
What i could do is instead of telling him a per foot cost, just charge him $125/hr for the exc and whatever it costs is what it costs. That would be really safe for me. do it by the hr and get some good numbers to bid with in the future, all anyone is doing is making a educated guess if i dont know much about a job i usualy get another contractor to sub it from me and i will learn from them and if not i would only do it by the hr
Sounds good to me.
Good luck and take pictures!!
I just finished 5000 ft. and the cost was $1.08 per ft. for digging and backfill with rough grade. Pipe and installation was on top of that. jr
I've seen tiles clog from dirt seeping in, Pay attention that this system works..... it's better to take a loss and have something work than make money and have a dis-satisfied customer ''advertising'' for you.. bid high, estimate close but the fella above has good idea.......straight hour time.
If you arnt useing dual wall and your clay is heavy and wet be darn careful not to smash the tile a 30'' trench can cause you a lot of grief witth large chunks smashing tile. I have seen the slabs from the bedder knifes on a tile machine smash 4'' tile the 10'' and 12'' wont be much trouble. If you have a auger backfiller it would help chew up chunks and bed the tile a lot better. We have used a tiller on a skidloader to bed tile in nasty pond clay that had to be hoed in.
Laying Farm Drainage Tile The cost per foot should increase with the larger tile because it will cost more labor to handle and place the larger tile. Especially on these smaller jobs, I believe you also need to account for mobilization cost and the time spend getting materials. Is there any tile in the field that you will have to tie into? How much LF of each tile is it going to take and how much is each roll of 6", 8", and 10". Is the owner going to pay for the excess material? What type of outlet pipe is going to be use? Is there any buried cables in the field or ditch that you will have to cross? I agree that this would be a good job for a trenching machine. But as you stated, these guys do not want to mess around with the smaller projects. Do you need to put a filtration sock on the tile to prevent the sand from seeping into the tile? With the banks be stable enough to allow you to place the tile safely? I think $1/LF seems a little on the low side. I would think that $5,000 + plus material cost would seem fair, but I don't know how your market is.
i have not been doing it long with a local contractor but he does it for a living has a custom made bucket that is about 4 to 5 foot tall and about 8 in deep slight curve in it and works really well then he has a tile box that is ajustable for the pipe being put in dig your trench drop your box in run the tile through the box and then he has two disks on the back for loose back fill to cover it so it does not crush it with your backfill spoils and contradict what you are trying to do buy causing a dam or none flowing pipe because it is crushed. We backfill with a dozer with a 6 way blade on it. you may also see what a pipe trencher would cost to rent.
First off I put tile in and I get about 1.00-1.50 per foot and thats with a trencher not a excavator, if your planning on digging it with an excavator you'd better up your price considerably, your doing the work for less than anybody else would ever do it and making the most work out of there is, you have no boot to lay it automatically for you or blind it so you don't crush the tile back filling it. You also need to consider the labor end of handling the pipe by hand, I'd start at about 40 bucks an hour per person to man handle the pipe. At 5000 for the digging alone is cheaper than anyone would do it for with a trencher or plow, I'd do the job in a day without breaking a sweat and not handle the tile by hand, with an excavator and two people you'll do about 100-200 ft per hour at best just to do the digging, and then shut down to lay the tile by hand and its not as easy as just kicking it into the ditch with your foot, to do it right you need to pack dirt around under the haunch of the pipe, along the sides up half way and pack that so the tile isn't crushed later on from back filling and the dirt settling. I'd price it at 1.75 per foot and add the labor on top along with the tile and fittings and misc, make the farmer help and after a few hours he'll be glad to just pay the bill and leave you alone to do your job then, it works every time. If you do it by the hour you'll do it cheaper than anyone on earth, you'll figure that out soon enough when most trenchers can do 500-1500 ft per hour pretty easily and automatically lay the tile for you besides instead of by hand. Your figures are pretty close for production once you get going at it, thats the fast easy part the rest is where your time will be killed. As Clensing said what else is there to go through to get the job done, and what do you have to fix to do it, that really kills time and production in a big way, nobody wants to do those kinds of jobs, when your all done you don't make anything on it because of all the time you kill to do the other things. Best of luck but don't do it for nothing, nobody else will even show up at all to do it, keep that in mind, its you or nobody, don't underbid yourself.
The concensus is that $5000 is too cheap. I talked to a local installer and he said the same thing. I am not looking forward to this, but at the same time want to see how it goes. The farm is right next door. I talked to the farmer about my initial estimate, it may be 1/3 the actual install cost. He isn't worried, and wants to give it a try. He will give some help. His idea is to peck away at, and see how it goes. So that's what we'll do. I was thinking about welding a plate on the teeth to give a round bottom on the trench, to trap the pipe. I think that makes some sense. Also, since the pipe will be handled by hand, i am going to bring it in in 20' lengths. Trench 20', lay the pipe, backfill 20' and continue. That way when it starts pouring rain or snow or whatever, the stuff installed won't move or float. Right now the guy has me clearing a few trees on a new farm. Doing the same as last summer with the dump trailer. Big assed trees, tough as nails to get out. We are managing 2 trees/hour cleaned up and hauled to the bush, slower than i would like. But there is a greater proportion of nasty rooted monsters. And, we're in cleaning tracks season.
The rate guides are not a bad place to start: http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/ I used to use the cornell guide for backhoe work as a baseline.