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What's the worst trench you've had to dig?

digger242j

Administrator
Joined
Oct 31, 2003
Messages
6,628
Location
Southwestern PA
Occupation
Self employed excavator
The curent thread about the fatal accident got me to wondering--what's the worst trench you've had to dig, or worse, work in?

About five years ago I did a sewer job in Pittsburgh. It was right at the edge of Mt. Washington, which is the hill that overlooks downtown Pittsburgh from across the Monongehela River. It has a great view of the downtown area. If you're visiting friends in Pittsburgh and you've never been here before, the chances are they'll drag you up to Grandview Avenue to gawk at downtown.

Anyway, this sewer averaged about 14' deep and ran about 800'. On one side there was an existing building, and a retaining wall, and on the other was the edge of the hill, so there was very little room to stack the dirt. When I first looked at the job I was worried that I'd run into rock that I wouldn't be able to dig. I was wrong. It seemed like the whole length of the job was nothing but fill that had just been pushed over and leveled out. It showed no sign that anything had ever been done to compact it. We used a trench box, but the dirt was so loose that most of the time I didn't have time to pull the box forward before one side or the other collapsed into the ditch. At other times I'd get the box pulled forward just in time to have one side collapse against it and knock it cockeyed. More than once I had to dig outside the box to free it up enough to be able to pull it at all. I did this job with my Case 680G. It probably would have been a whole lot better suited to about a 150 size excavator, but even then it would have been a real headache.

Some jobs have a really bad spot or two, but that one was bad from one end to the other...
 

Taylortractornu

Charter Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2003
Messages
481
Location
Iuka, Mississippi
Occupation
Privvate landfill operator/manager
Digger, I worked for a company from Mo that dd a jobabout 40 miles from here over in the edge of Alabama. I was 21 and had agood pit of experience. My boss gave me a 300 Komatsus over aonther operator that had run a loader his whole life in a coal pile. He couldnt run the hoe 3 hours with ought diggin himself in a corner. He took up with the trackloader and that was that for a while my other friend was i na new 300. Its pure limeston under that part of Alabama My friend Jerry nand I would take turns running a breaker on our machines one would break the other dig. We didnt have a trench box we just tapered the banks. The loader man would have to move it further back but h would be trying to grade a haul road. or off doin something dumb. I had a crew in the trench trying to get a 24 inch pipe to bell up and a 5 foot diameter rock i had set about 5o feet away from the trench rolled in there with them broke the pipe and the liner in another. The loader operator wouldnt get the smaller rocks by crowding agains the big ones hed get the big ones and chase he little ones. It was a wonder noone ever got killed on that job. Id get agravated trying to dig out an underground water tank when we had the one 300. Jerry would run it and Id either be on the weeled or track loader taking out jeers pile run up the ramp and dump and the Loader man was supposed to be on the top taking it to the spoil pile. hed be off chasing a little rock. Id get so pissed off I couldnt stand to look at him. When the other hoe came Jerry would swing me the spoil then Id swing it out as far as I could reach. I hate to rant lol but several days Id think about just swatting him off the Catwalk of the loader after work lol.
 

bigbucket

Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2005
Messages
13
Location
USA
Occupation
Operator
I have run excavators, but not with a trench box, I sloped the sides back. My question to the guys who have is, when you have a trench caving in like digger had, do you ever lift up the front of the box, as you pull it ahead and dig inside it?
 

dayexco

Senior Member
Joined
May 21, 2005
Messages
1,224
Location
south dakota
we always dig inside of our box. we run 3' spreaders on our box for the most part unless laying large diameter line, digging outside of box with a 4' bucket.....we cut all but last foot with a 4' bucket, pull box ahead, swing around, grab the 30" bucket, and make our final trim passes with that. amazing how much bedding material/aggregate you save in a job doing it that way. plus, if you run your box immediately on the bottom of the trench, once the pipe is laid, and after you put your granular bedding material on, you have a possibility of the box rolling your aggregate and pulling your pipes apart. we have had that happen to us several times. if you're going to run box on the ditch bottom, make sure your pipelayer jams a bar in front of the bell of the pipe to prevent it from coming apart when you pull your box ahead
 
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