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Advice for my first big job

oceanobob

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 13, 2010
Messages
751
Location
oceano california
Occupation
general contractor
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.
 

OldandWorn

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2009
Messages
908
Location
Md/Pa
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.

P8230028.jpg
 
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OldandWorn

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2009
Messages
908
Location
Md/Pa
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.

P8130023.jpg

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OldandWorn

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2009
Messages
908
Location
Md/Pa
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.

P8130022.jpg



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.

P8130018.jpg
 
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OldandWorn

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2009
Messages
908
Location
Md/Pa
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.

P8130029.jpg


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.

P8130027.jpg

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forester

Active Member
Joined
Apr 20, 2011
Messages
30
Location
alberta
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.
 

OldandWorn

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Joined
Nov 12, 2009
Messages
908
Location
Md/Pa
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?
 

OldandWorn

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2009
Messages
908
Location
Md/Pa
Looks like your doing very well with your project, nice work!

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.
 

forester

Active Member
Joined
Apr 20, 2011
Messages
30
Location
alberta
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?

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.
 

OldandWorn

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2009
Messages
908
Location
Md/Pa
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
 

DGODGR

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 18, 2009
Messages
1,062
Location
S/W CO
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.

View attachment 82670
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.
 

OldandWorn

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2009
Messages
908
Location
Md/Pa
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.
 

Phill

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2011
Messages
52
Location
Nanaimo BC
Occupation
land Survey Assistant
hey guy, been following your post, and i must say you do great work ! hope you complete this project on time for you :)
 

OldandWorn

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2009
Messages
908
Location
Md/Pa
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.
 

OldandWorn

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2009
Messages
908
Location
Md/Pa
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.

P8210038.jpg


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

P8200016.jpg


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.

P8190007.jpg


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.

P8210023.jpg


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.

P8210035.jpg
 

OldandWorn

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2009
Messages
908
Location
Md/Pa
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.

P8210030.jpg



These are the only large rocks I have come across so far except for 1 HUGE rock that was in front of his shed.

P8210032.jpg



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.

P8210028.jpg



Another simple rope holder.

P8210036.jpg



I know it doesn't matter if the poly rope gets wet but what the heck.

P8210039.jpg
 

forester

Active Member
Joined
Apr 20, 2011
Messages
30
Location
alberta
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.
 

OldandWorn

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2009
Messages
908
Location
Md/Pa
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.
 

DGODGR

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 18, 2009
Messages
1,062
Location
S/W CO
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
 
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