Oscar80's guy came, looked, then stopped by a couple days later with his machine to to a test run. Too much rock.
Plumber is aiming to try to do it with his new trencher and mini ex. I was out doing some work Monday, and figured I'd try and see if I could do the line from the house to the shop with my Kubota L2501 - BH77 backhoe. Went down the road a bit, but on the same ridge. Got down about 2' easy, then as I started the trench, I was running into 6-8" irregular rock. Could chip away at it, but i'd guess my spoils pile was 1/4 to 1/3 rock. Very slow going having to scrape and chip out individual footballs. This was with a 16" bucket. Figured at best, it would take 40 hours at the rate I was going (about 10' per 45 minutes-ish).
Bigger machine definitely needed. Too easy to flop the L2501 around. Narrow trench bucket might make it better, but a lot of $$ just to try. Don't mind so much using a backhoe or excavator on the road to the shop, because it isn't graveled yet. The main driveway though, is in great shape. Even trying to keep a backhoe trench off the side of the road, I'd would still screw up the road way, and it would take quite a bit of cash to get it back the way it is now. Need a big trencher with the carbide/bullet teeth for that run.
I've called 7 or 8 trenching companies....only had 1 call back. Most of them look at where the area is, and know what they'll run into.
