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A recent job

AzIron

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Jun 14, 2016
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Az
They are charging us 260 an hour for there service coming and going plus dump fees and refill

My vac trailer has a 3.5 gpm pump badger has 10 to 12 gpm pump that's what makes them productive the number one thing I see is like anything else people they have really good guys and also not so good guys

But I have already dreamed up a system to mount on an old lowboy we dont use the trucks are ridiculous expensive tgats why badger builds there own and pattended them

I give it 5 more years and everyone who is anyone will have a vacume and it will get competitive there are 4 companies here that are serious in the service badger is the biggest
 

AzIron

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Az
Is there an hourly minimum?
I think its 3

They have about 20 to 25 trucks here and they are overworked there crew worked all night they were out of hours on there e log in the truck and headed to a day shift on a Saturday with no hours of service left
 

CM1995

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Joined
Jan 21, 2007
Messages
13,247
Location
Alabama
Occupation
Running what I brung and taking what I win
Not sure how many they have here but I've driven by their yard and there were 8-10 trucks.

Interesting business no doubt.
 

AzIron

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Jun 14, 2016
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Az
It sure beats running a shovel the buissness is not hard really the worst part is last minute availability I would bet 80 percent of there buissness is scheduled within 3 days of work

The biggest draw back is a muddy ditch and all material becomes 100 percent export in most cases dumping on site requires room and the ability to contain the slurry and dry it out

Also it becomes a challenge to maintain a dimensional ditch at 10 to 15 feet deep for shoring its doable just time consuming
 

hvy 1ton

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Joined
Jul 24, 2006
Messages
1,942
Location
Lawrence, KS
All of the contractors that do utility work seem to have at least one vac trailer. I've wondered how well a vac unit mounted on a small tracked carrier and hauled around in a dump trailer would work. We have a lot of backyard utility easements in town and I've watched them fight getting a trailer unit close enough to do the potholes.
 

AzIron

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 14, 2016
Messages
1,541
Location
Az
All of the contractors that do utility work seem to have at least one vac trailer. I've wondered how well a vac unit mounted on a small tracked carrier and hauled around in a dump trailer would work. We have a lot of backyard utility easements in town and I've watched them fight getting a trailer unit close enough to do the potholes.

Get longer hoses the vac trucks can layout 250 foot of 6 inch if your trailer was set up right I bet 200 feet of 3 inch is doable provided it's not all up hill
 

AzIron

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Just an arizona sunrise and some digging at one of the highest elevations in the entire valley the only thing farther north up the mountain is forest service
 

AzIron

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Just a sewer line good and deep at 14 foot in blue granite that rock is hard after 60 feet to go to make the tie in after 2 days and a rolled up point I made 12 feet and it was getting harder they didn't like my price to rent a 4000lbs hammer so they had another guy do it he spent 2 and a half weeks to get it done and he almost gave up

No worries they can have it I am busy anyway
 

AzIron

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Been working on kinder morgan property all summer on an ethanol line like I posted up thread about there pretty ruly about things taking pictures is one so when the inspector not around I sneak a few

All I am doing is excavating and shoring no install of pipe it's been interesting to say the least the contractor I am subbed to is from north Carolina I think this is the first job they have ever done this size and they are learning a lot on the fly but it's been good work for us
 

AzIron

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Jun 14, 2016
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Moved this pipe bridge over from the lay down yard and was asked if we would swing it in place I said we would try I suggested a crane instead cause we were near our limit of height and reach after 30 minutes of trying but we had to shorten the rigging to much for it to be managed by tag line and myself the welding contractor and kinder Morgan inspector agreed a crane was going to complete the job
 

CM1995

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13,247
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Alabama
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Running what I brung and taking what I win
Nice work AZ. The 314 is earning it's keep.
 

AzIron

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Jun 14, 2016
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Nice work AZ. The 314 is earning it's keep.
That 314 has only been to the yard 4 times since june 1st witch is surprising really I will never do that good on another machine again we had it bought 3 days after finding it beat out 2 other guys to get got it to Phoenix spent a week doing some stuff and then it went to work and has stayed consistent for a 15 year old machine I have only put 1500 bucks it after purchase
 

Jakebreak

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Joined
Dec 5, 2016
Messages
273
Location
Bakersfield Ca
Occupation
operator/pipelayer/mechanic
those 314 are a nice size machine we have one but with an offset boom on it and it is heavy and its slow cat had it for 5 months trying to figure out the hydraulics and why they were slow i wish ours did not have the offset boom and i think its gray market machine since cat did not seem to know to much about it by chance does yours have a grade control feature on it ours has one to where you can program how deep to go and it wont let you dig any deeper and it has a height alarm on it but no one can figure out how to program it and make it work. the work your doing is awesome
 

AzIron

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Jun 14, 2016
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Az
Mine is a c series it's pretty much mechanical the only electronics is the throttle control
 

AzIron

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Jun 14, 2016
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1,541
Location
Az
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More pipeline work we had to have badger hydro vac most of it 14 foot deep 6 lines and to sets of tracks in 87 feet the railroad required a schedule 80 sleeve for the pipe we set it all at once I was not able to get any good pics as I was running the excavator then slurry backfill all said it was 5 days from start to finish on the track shut down and we were able to reopen the tracks 6 hours ahead of deadline so it was a big success
 

AzIron

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Jun 14, 2016
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Basement dig no room for a ramp or a big crane either so we did it with the mini turned hard so a friend brought his machine and hammer to help out just a normal day fun fact crane company would not hook up happy to supply the rigging but wouldn't attach it
 
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