Advice for my first big job

[DGODGR]

Wow DGODGR....not ignoring you. I'm still trying to soak info in from your first post.

I don't feel ignored. I was just being a smart ass but I did not use the emoticons to convey the sarcasm.

 

[DGODGR]

3/4" minus will be fine. I would not worry about the angular rock. You did say that you were using SCH 40 right? If so, don't worry. If both conduits were placed at the bottom of a 2' wide trench you probably won't have any static bleed off. Better safe than sorry for sure.
As far as the jumping jack goes, you won't feel the 150 lbs while you are using it. They are pretty well balanced while they are jumping. You will feel it when you are lifting it in/out of the ditch or truck.

 

[ijoker]

Hi Oldandworn. Yeah i have been following this thread the whole way. Pure entertainment! Been reading all the good advice you have been getting and marvelling at all the good pictures. You are doing a great job. I would keep that neighbor around as long i could. He is very handy. I like the, what i like to call, the pole reel jack. I have used a pair of ladders to hold reels of wire over conduit. But that would work a lot better. Next time i have to do that i will try to come up with something like that. I don't have a lot of advice for you on compaction. A lot has already been said. But from experiences i have had with this, in this area, they don't worry to much about it unless it is going under a street or otherwise a road. Just make a pile on top of the trench, (assuming you have enough dirt to do so), after you have ran over the backfill with your backhoe and call it good. The trenches going uphill, they just backfill by hand and use the foot method as they go. They don't waste a lot of time doing that. In fact i have seen them backfill the trench completely and just stomp down on top of it, and leave a mound of dirt on top for settling purposes. I can imagine with that much trench it is hard on the feet. And it seems the older we get, the more it hurts. If it were me, i don't think i would be worrying too much about compaction. When it settles you can always get back out there with the backhoe and fill it in. Or not. Depends on who is going to see it and who you have to impress. Yourself or someone else. Like myself, you are a perfectionist. I like to overkill rather than skimp on things. It doesn't hurt. And gives more confidence of fewer problems down the road. Keep up the good work. And the posts. Cheers :drinkup

 

[bill onthehill]

The big advantage to having good compaction on the uphill part of the trench is it will cut down on erosion and washout of the ditch. Consider hiring 2 young fellas to do this part of the job. I have run whackers enough to say they are tiring on level ground and on a good steep hill they are real hard on a fella. I suggest you backfill the whole hill and work down from the top tamping it. The cost of hiring some help will seem cheap if it does not wash your dirt down the hill.

 

[OldandWorn]

Hi Oldandworn. Yeah i have been following this thread the whole way. Pure entertainment! Been reading all the good advice you have been getting and marvelling at all the good pictures. You are doing a great job. I would keep that neighbor around as long i could. He is very handy. I like the, what i like to call, the pole reel jack. I have used a pair of ladders to hold reels of wire over conduit. But that would work a lot better. Next time i have to do that i will try to come up with something like that. I don't have a lot of advice for you on compaction. A lot has already been said. But from experiences i have had with this, in this area, they don't worry to much about it unless it is going under a street or otherwise a road. Just make a pile on top of the trench, (assuming you have enough dirt to do so), after you have ran over the backfill with your backhoe and call it good. The trenches going uphill, they just backfill by hand and use the foot method as they go. They don't waste a lot of time doing that. In fact i have seen them backfill the trench completely and just stomp down on top of it, and leave a mound of dirt on top for settling purposes. I can imagine with that much trench it is hard on the feet. And it seems the older we get, the more it hurts. If it were me, i don't think i would be worrying too much about compaction. When it settles you can always get back out there with the backhoe and fill it in. Or not. Depends on who is going to see it and who you have to impress. Yourself or someone else. Like myself, you are a perfectionist. I like to overkill rather than skimp on things. It doesn't hurt. And gives more confidence of fewer problems down the road. Keep up the good work. And the posts. Cheers :drinkup

Thanks ijoker! Yeah, I told him I was going to post a pic of the holder on the net and he got a kick outta it. The second conduit is becoming a PITA concerning backfill and I may give the 24" bucket a try so I can place them both in the bottom of the trench as DGODGR suggested. For example, the last pic in post #38 is how I left the trench on my property before moving to the neighbor's run. At the time I was just going to lay the wire in with the caution tape so I didn't spend much time on compaction. I hand compacted real well to about 10" above the power conduit then pushed another 12 to 15" in with the hoe bucket from the side of the trench and roughly leveled it out. Well, it doesn't look nice and flat anymore and it has some pretty extreme level changes because of settling. Granted, it's an open trench and we have had a few real good rains but even a filled trench with a depression from settling would channel extra water in also. The good part is, with a little fill work that trench should be good to go for the phone conduit as most of the heavy settling has already occurred.

 

[OldandWorn]

The big advantage to having good compaction on the uphill part of the trench is it will cut down on erosion and washout of the ditch. Consider hiring 2 young fellas to do this part of the job. I have run whackers enough to say they are tiring on level ground and on a good steep hill they are real hard on a fella. I suggest you backfill the whole hill and work down from the top tamping it. The cost of hiring some help will seem cheap if it does not wash your dirt down the hill.

Erosion is a big concern Bill and there are some pretty deep ruts in the hill already. I'm seeing a lot of rock in the ruts so it should be interesting digging. Agreed on the help. After I'm done I think I should build a few water bars.

 

[OldandWorn]

3/4" minus will be fine. I would not worry about the angular rock. You did say that you were using SCH 40 right? If so, don't worry. If both conduits were placed at the bottom of a 2' wide trench you probably won't have any static bleed off. Better safe than sorry for sure.
As far as the jumping jack goes, you won't feel the 150 lbs while you are using it. They are pretty well balanced while they are jumping. You will feel it when you are lifting it in/out of the ditch or truck.

I made an effort to use 4" schedule 40 as many suggested here. I found 1000' of 4" in 20' sections for 50 cents per foot on Craigslist. I had the seller send me detailed pics to make sure it wasn't weathered or damaged and I noticed how thick the walls were. I went to a big box store and lifted up a 10' section, the longest they had, and determined I would not be able to easily handle and glue 20' sections by myself and I didn't want 10' sections. The local industrial supply had miles and miles of 3" DB60 in 20' sections and they told me that is what the electricians use. 3 or 4" schedule 40 would be a special order so I went with the DB60.

 

[ijoker]

Yeah Oldandworn, Speaking from experience, seperation of the conduits is an important thing. You will get noise on the telephone if the condiuits are laying against each other. Not always, but in some cases. But if you lay the conduits in the bottom of the trench, keeping them pushed to opposite sides of the trench, you will be fine. Not all jurisdictions allow this. I have worked in areas where the power company does not allow conduits of other systems in the same trench. And i have also seen where they require a foot of fill over the power conduit, basically the way you were doing it. But if the power company doesn't care, why not make it easy, right? There are ways of keeping the conduits seperated. I understand what Bill is saying about making sure to compact on the hill parts. It makes sense to not have washout in those areas if you can prevent it. Thats good advice. :notworthy It would probably be worth it to hire a couple of young guys to tamp that down as they backfill. Maybe you can get away with a couple of hours for 2 guys? :beatsme

 

[OldandWorn]

I found a use for the blue clay.

The DGODGR water diversion method worked very well and the blue clay held up for 3 days without a single leak. I could only get the felt paper slightly under the culvert pipe because of clearance problems and some of the water was trying to get under the paper but a little clay on the bottom lip stopped that also.

 

[OldandWorn]

I originally didn't care for the idea of having an extendable dipper because it added more looseness to an already OldandWorn machine, thus my name on HEF. Also, the extra long hydraulic hoses are horribly routed and needs to be looked into because of kinking. Now that I have needed it a few times I'm glad to have the extendable option.









I almost made extra work for myself moving spoil piles around when trying to connect the trenches. I thought about machine and spoil placement before hand but I miscalculated the size of the hoe and how close to the machine it could dig sideways. Once again the extendahoe got me out of a bind by finding a spot farther away. It was quite a chore hand shoveling the last bit of rocky dirt out of the trench because there was nothing left to push against.

 

[oceanobob]

Sometimes we use a compaction wheel in lieu of a whacker (eg jumping jack). Another problem is the correct moisture to meet the soil engineers curve for optimum compaction - eg pre-conditioning of the material.
Trench compaction on slopes is 'next to mandatory' (imperative) with documentation due to the possibility of entire content sudden migration due to water moving under the surface or following the trench.

 

[OldandWorn]

Rocks and gravy

The area had large amounts of rain which is why I didn’t work the previous weekend. An empty 5 gallon drywall bucket that I had outside was filled right to the top. I had about 30’ of open trench in the field because I had run out of time during the last work session and it was filled 2’ deep with water. I pumped it out before I started working in the culvert.

There was some blue clay on the outside edges of the culvert but the middle was bottomless muck with lots of rocks. Before I could swing the bucket back for another scoop the sides of the trench would slide into the abyss. I'm sure diverting the water from the culvert pipe was a help but it seemed to only be a small percentage of the source. Water was bleeding from everywhere including parts of the trench I had just dug up on the higher ground.

The next morning I had about 100’ of flooded trench. I’m not sure how this happened but it even got high enough to re-flood the part I had pumped out in the field. I would swear that field is way higher than the culvert. Maybe it was filling on its own and running down into the culvert? All of the trench bottoms were smooth and ready for pipe so I hope it will just be a matter of draining the water and making sure no large rocks fell into the ditch. However, the bottoms are very mushy now and the conduit could sink into the many rocks that are hidden below the muck. I could shovel gravel into the trench bottom to firm it up but this is getting very old and expensive.

We did get the bottom of the culvert filled in with gravel and man did it take a lot of it. I was stepping the gravel in but it never got nice and firm like the first culvert. It was like standing on top of a water bed or pumping soil. I would step in one place and the gravel would raise 3’ away from where I was stepping. I wish we would have pushed some of the larger rocks back into the sides of the trench to make it narrower before filling with gravel. I may do this when I fill the rest in with gravel after laying the conduit.

I made an effort to get the trench dug and covered before I had to leave but like the first culvert it just didn't happen. I was going to take today off but it started raining Monday afternoon and they are calling for rain everyday this week. As a side note, the company that I work for never recovered from the meltdown and it was sold a few weeks ago. I had been saving leave for 15 years and I lost 380 hours in a single day. I did get paid for some of it but I need the days off for this and future projects.

 

[OldandWorn]

Sometimes we use a compaction wheel in lieu of a whacker (eg jumping jack). Another problem is the correct moisture to meet the soil engineers curve for optimum compaction - eg pre-conditioning of the material.
Trench compaction on slopes is 'next to mandatory' (imperative) with documentation due to the possibility of entire content sudden migration due to water moving under the surface or following the trench.

Thanks, I need to pay close attention to this for sure.

 

[OldandWorn]

Some Wildlife

When I arrived Saturday morning I heard noises in a large tree about 100’ away. I looked over and saw 3 bear cubs making their way down the tree. Not knowing where mom was I climbed up into the seat of the backhoe. She finally made an appearance in the field along the woods line and was looking straight at me. I slowly reached for my camera and just as I was getting ready to snap the picture she took off. Bummer, it would have been a nice clear photo.

It looks as though I might have a friendly buck now. When I got back to my property there was a buck at my trailer eating away at the bushes. I got my camera and actually had to make noises and wave my arms so he would raise his head and look at me. A little history, when I bought my property a friendly doe that hangs out at my barn came along with the place. There is a load of deer around but they will always run from people like normal except for this doe and she will usually bed down within sight of my trailer. I have seen 3 fawns from her so far and of course they do as their mother does and not run away from me. I can almost approach them but not quite. They don’t run, but simply walk to another bush and continue eating. I’m wondering if this buck is one of her first fawns?

If the eyes look a little strange it's because I photo shopped them. The flash was on and their eyes were as bright as flashlights.

 

[powerstroke]

good luck and have fun

 

[OldandWorn]

Tic Tac Toe Anyone?

Busy looking worksite. See the traffic cone at the end? That is the point I was aiming for and I kept the cone dead center in front of the hoe while trenching. When I started to get close I noticed I was off and had to adjust over towards the end. The same thing happened to me with the trench up on my property and I can’t figure out why although I didn’t have any problems keeping the trench in the center of the flat grassy road. Could it have something to do with the unlevel ground? The trench on my property sloped just like this and I had to correct to the left also. I level the hoe while digging, maybe that is throwing my aim off?





There is about a foot of gravel under the conduits. Last weekend it was mushy and pumping but sitting for a week allowed it to become very solid and I couldn’t feel any give at all.





The price of gravel is sending me to the poor house so I killed two birds with many stones (pun intended). A perfect opportunity to loose some of these rocks I have been digging up. The outside teeth on my poor bucket are all rounded off now and my trench is getting narrower.







I’m pretty much finished in the culvert other than muck cleanup and I want to contour some areas with more rocks. I think I might also place a row of large thin rocks on top on the gravel.

 

[OldandWorn]

This was as close as we could get with the rocks and gravel and there are a lot of shovelfuls of gravel in two of those buckets.





All this work for a silly pipe sticking out of the ground. I was so relieved when I saw my yellow pull rope come out of the sweep and there was even some left on the roll at the other end.





Phone conduit. I’m mounting a sealed splice box on the post and another sweep will take it to the next run. It was getting hard to pull towards the end of this 500’ length and I’m wondering if it will make the 900’ run, it’s much straighter and downhill though. If not, I will pull till it stops and install another junction box. As with the pull rope I was overjoyed to see that I still had wire sticking out of the sweep at the beginning.

 

[OldandWorn]

I’m still trying to get the 60’ or so piece of trench backfilled between the culvert and end of the run. Lots of rain this month and it always seems to come late in the week so working conditions have been bad. Saturday, I was able to use the backhoe for the first time since my last post and I pushed the spoil piles closer to the trench but the rear tires were sinking into the grass and making too much of a mess. The ground is so saturated that the tire depressions filled up with water from the underground springs in this area.

It’s a 5 hour round trip to my property so when I get there I want to work but I don’t want to start another run until this one is completed. So for the past 3 weeks I have been taking the quad down and working with hand tools only. The wet clay spoil piles have glued themselves to the ground and it takes a lot of hacking and chopping with a rake or garden hoe to get that last few inches separated from the long grass that is underneath. Sometimes I think I'm taking more soil out of the trench on the bottom of my shoes then I'm putting in. Today was a “bad handle day” with the handle pulling off the hoe and the wooden handle breaking off of my tamper so they came home with me for some repairs.

I took the backhoe down the steep hill for the first time on Saturday and I will tell you all about that little seat sucking adventure on my next post.

 

[JS580SL]

String lines and spray paint are the best way to stay on target. The more trenching you do the better your aim will get without any guidance. Practice makes perfect.

 

[OldandWorn]

String lines and spray paint are the best way to stay on target. The more trenching you do the better your aim will get without any guidance. Practice makes perfect.

I agree with what you say but since I can hold a good line on flat ground I have been thinking about what the difference could be. Looking from the rear, since the ground slopes heavily to the right and the right stabilizer has to be extended much further to make the machine level, it will kick the pivot point and bucket to the right also. The further you travel from your last dig and the more you have to extend the hoe to meet the trench the more exaggerated the error becomes. Since I was sighting the cone when the machine was traveling and tilted with the ground I wasn't taking this error into account and ended up having to correct to the left. This is second nature to you experienced guys but I think this may be the actual reason behind it. If the ground sloped to the left I'll bet I would have had to correct to the right.