smallest hoe for utility installation

hougie · Oct 10, 2013

Hey guys,

Going to be buying a bigger excavator over the winter for next years digging season. I'm having to rent a backhoe for rural water line installs for cattle feeders and such. Bury depth is 8 feet to avoid freeze ups so i'd like to know what the minimum size hoe you would use? I wanted a cat 308 but it may be bigger then i need when i do 3ft gas lines and i considered a cat 305 but i'm not sure if it would be big enough for water/sewer jobs. Anyone have an opinion on my conundrum, I would appreciate it

spitzair · Oct 11, 2013

I dug a water line for a fellow near Okotoks with a John Deere 50. It was 8 feet deep and right about the depth limit for that machine, you could only dig about a foot in lenght and need to reposition again...

PlumberRob · Oct 11, 2013

Kubota, KX-040-4. BAD machine and a crazy reliable engine.

204saskman · Oct 11, 2013

I just dug 850 feet of water lines for a fellow rancher and it was 8-9' deep with my kobelco sk35sr. It took me 25hrs total to do it but mine has a oversized 24" bucket. I would recomend a bit smaller bucket to do it than I used. I am in the midst of buying a 12" and im gonna modify a 16" bucket this winter while I build q clean up bucket. I would say a 40+ sized mini would do you. A 305 I thijk is a good choice.

hougie · Oct 20, 2013

i've been looking over the specs of all the machines, The vertical wall depth of the 305 is like 8 or 9 feet which doesn't seem like enough. The 307 is over 11 feet and weighs 15-16000lbs which is managable so i think i'm going to buy something in the cat 307 size range.

Landclearer · Oct 20, 2013

Look into a Kubota KX-080. We have one and I really like the machine. Priced below a Cat as well. It is an 8 ton machine and will have no problem digging 8 feet deep.

Chris

ValleyFirewood · Oct 20, 2013

Kubota KX80, Cat 305, about the same.

Wall depth of the 305 is about 8 ft, though of course that is "ideal". Probably don't want to be maxed out.

Ritchie Specs is pretty nice for comparing machines...

http://www.ritchiespecs.com

joispoi · Oct 21, 2013

8' deep on a 5 ton machine is slow going. How many feet, yards, miles do you have to install at -8'? I'd look closely at the zero tail swing 8 ton machines. They give you a little more reach and grunt than the 5 ton class, and let you into tighter job sites than a standard machine where you have to worry about tail swing.....

204saskman · Oct 21, 2013

Its not that bad. By no meqns is it a race to the finish, but when u need a small machine to get into those places it does the trick. Mine is 8900 lb I think and I just did 850' of hard digging with a 24" bucket to 8-9.5' and it took me 26 hrs to complete. We did have a bit of slack time too but it was fairly go go for th3 most part.

smallest hoe for utility installation

hougie

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spitzair

Senior Member

PlumberRob

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204saskman

Well-Known Member

hougie

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Landclearer

Senior Member

ValleyFirewood

Senior Member

joispoi

Senior Member

204saskman

Well-Known Member