Construction work

[bluedog225]

I’ve got this pet theory these construction work will keep me fit and healthy.

Jury is still out.

Starting my trench for water. And maybe for the high voltage DC power line. But I’ve got some research to do before I put them in the same trench. Seems wrong.

Would have been a lot easier before the road base. Oops.

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[CWSmith]

Starting my trench for water. And maybe for the high voltage DC power line. But I’ve got some research to do before I put them in the same trench. Seems wrong.

I'll bet someone says it's fine, but it scares the hell out of me, especially if you have metal pipes.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

That which does not kill us, only makes us stranger?

[Paul Pless]

dude

rent a ditch witch

shovels, spades, and picks are the devil's tools
all that can be done with them is back breaking work

[McMike]

It's been keeping me more healthy.

[Canoeyawl]

Around here, electricity and water need to be separated by 3 feet.

[Too Little Time]

There are building codes. Feel free to ignore them or to find one you want to follow.

[Paul Pless]

There are building codes. Feel free to ignore them or to find one you want to follow.

texas y'all

[bluedog225]

It was a glorious day for ditch digging. Think I’m going to limit this trench to water. 12” deep. Pex in pvc.

I’ve got some 2” rigid metal conduit for the high voltage DC. Won’t have to go too deep and I’ll encase it in concrete.

About half way there working off and on. The clay beneath the base is much slower.

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[Jim Mahan]

Be the ditch.

[John B]

I have the same theory although not with ditch digging particularly.
It hurts quite a lot.

[Henning 4148]

Any chance of serious frost where you are? If yes - you may have to empty the pipe in winter. 12" does not sound deep enough if there can be serious frost.

[MushCreek]

At age 60, I lost 40 lbs. building our house. I find climbing scaffolding dozens of times a day is particularly effective. I suppose ditch digging is, too, but I rented a machine for the 150' out to my shop. It was still really hard work.

[Jim Mahan]

Shortly after I moved into this house, which was built in the early fifties as part of a development providing starter homes for the baby-boom makers after WWII, the drain started running slow, and we deduced that it was due to the drain line to the city sewer becoming clogged. The sewer tech at the time the house was built, before ABS and PVC, was a product called orangeburg. It was long sections of tar paper formed into four or five inch diameter tubes with joints at something like twenty feet. From the sewer cleanout to the city sewer just this side of the public sidewalk out front is eighty or ninety feet. The thing about the orangeburg is that it has a functional service life about fifty years. It gets pushed around by tree roots and gets crushed due to subsidence of the ground over the decades, and a roto-rooter device won't clean it out as much as tear out those irregularities making the problem worse. So once it collapses and gets clogged at some point in the run, the only fix is to dig it up the entire line and replace it with ABS.

Now a plumbing company can run a device that will excavate the orangeburg and insert replacement ABS without needing to dig a trench, but they don't it do it for cheap, so of course I took it on myself to dig the trench to do the R and R myself. And of course renting or hiring a ditchwitch is also not cheap and would've required taking out the pair of gates I had just built, and fifty feet of perfectly good wooden fence, said fence being only a foot or so from the ditch, with a concrete walkway abutting the stucco house on the other side for that length.

The good news is that our ground is mostly sandy ancient river bed and the digging was mostly just shovel work. The bad news was that the line, on the necessary slant, started at the clean-out about two or three feet deep and ended something like five feet deep where it ends by the sidewalk. I didn't have to break up or cut the sidewalk. By the time I was down to that end, climbing in and out of the deep ditch was nearly as much excersize as swinging a shovelful of ground up out of it. The pieces of broken and collapsed orangeburg, weren't exactly clean after fifty years of service and being recently clogged, and had to be leveraged away from it's rooted-in position. The pile of sandy dirt next to the constricted space needed to be negotiated, and the entire length of the ditch walls on both sides were penetrated by tree roots of various sizes which needed to be cut and the cut ends would attack my legs as I worked. And all the while the project was going on the need for a functional sewer abated not, so there was some urgency. This reminds me of an old saying, 'pressure makes diamonds.' But I was only forty-five at the time and still up for long days of that sort of work.

It gives me a little schadenfreudish pleasure when I see someone else in the neighborhood whose orangeburg has managed to survive this long and has only just now given up the ghost, and they have to go through the same discovery and options and work versus pay choices. Which leads me to the satisfaction in remembering my work and realizing that the new ABS will last way longer than either the old orangeburg or me.

So I reiterate, my Texas friend, be the ditch.

[bluedog225]

Orangeburg. Ugh. That was an ordeal. Mine was from 2’ to 6’ through 75’ of rock and clay. It had all migrated over the pipe over 50 years. The plumber had a new kubota mini excavator. It was still miserable.

No frost line here. Coverage is just to prevent mechanical damage.

The trenching shovel is a big help.

After this little stretch, it’s 800’ to the next vault. Then 200’ to the road.

We will see if it breaks me down or builds me up. ��

In real life, I’m going to hire a trencher. But I wanted to do the area around the cabin first myself. So there is a clean start point.

Back up the scaffolding today. Feels great on the shoulders and back. It’s nice to switch it up. I’ve often felt that adults need a jungle gym.

Do we stop doing this stuff because we’re old; or get old because we stop?

I am the ditch.

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[the_gr8t_waldo]

depending on soil type/ph levels, galvanized pipe/conduit might not be the best choice. and then there's the cutting/threading involved in terminations to be delt with. plastic has proven it's self to be alot easier for the home hobbyist. "schedule 80" has the thickest wall in electrical trade talk.

[John B]

Operating a trenching machine isn't exactly easy in itself. I used one to go 100 metres up our driveway through the gravel and base course for fibre cable. Needed a big lie down afterwards.

[Jim Mahan]

I am the ditch.

You de man!

[Rich Jones]

The Orangeburg pipe at my house gave up the ghost three days before our daughter's baptism when we were about to give a party for fifty people.

Luckily I was in the construction business and knew guys that could come at a moment's notice and fix it.
On the day of the party, the line had been replaced with PVC but the backhoe was still sitting on the front lawn.

As for water lines, now that I live in Vermont, the water line is 6' down to avoid freezing.

[bluedog225]

I give up. Been up here since Wednesday. Longest continuous stay.

Out of gas. Nothing left to give. Ditch 1; blue 0.

Now I’m just sitting here enjoying the beautiful afternoon.

There’s work needs doing. What a waste.

[Steve McMahon]

High voltage DC? You have my interest. What use do you have for 13,000 volts DC?

[bluedog225]

Nope. Just 450-600 volts. Enough to have me very concerned.

Still hoping to find an off-grid microinverter solution.

[hawkeye54]

When we moved to Houston ( in the early 1980's ), we bought a boarding stable in the 'Bend of the Brazos' (Richmond / Rosenberg area) .
I started a project to bring water to each stall (17 of them ), with the main water line under the central (dirt) walkway. After a full day working with a pick and shovel, I had a shallow trench about 8 feet long - that caliche had been packed down over the years and was like reinforced concrete - renting a trencher completed all the work in another day. 'Props' to you, Tom , for putting in the effort !



Rick

[chas]

Put an extension ladder up to the higher platform. Save your energy for working, not climbing. Otherwise you’re just a poser! / Jim

[gypsie]

Around here, electricity and water need to be separated by 3 feet.

So many puns, but how to take the first step?