What would you pay for trenching.

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I will double check when I get home but I think the NRCS price is about $1.75 a ft. and that is usually an average of their contractors. How picky do you have to be with the backfill? That is really the harder part if you really have to be neat and minimize settling although a 6" ditch is easier than a 4".
 
Around here prices would range from $1.50-$2 a foot.

If you have the time or have an employee operate a machine, rent a ride on trencher. The time to dig 500' with no rock is only determined by how much the operator crowds the machine, but I'm guessing a couple of hours digging at the most. Then to backfill, the trencher will have a backfill blade which is 10 times faster then a tractor with a bucket because it has power angle. You just line it up and the crumbs fall it. Take half an hour to backfill. Tip: always start backfilling from the end of the trench where you finished, pushing to the end you started!
 
power company buried my incoming power to my house it was 110' from the pole and it cost me $5,600
Wow, That's a lot. I built a house 6 years ago. About 1200 feet from the power line at the highway. Co-op's new service connection fee of $300 gets you a transformer up to 175 feet from the house with underground line between them. They gave me two options for the additional distance - overhead on poles or underground. If you get a pole line, they cover several hundred feet at no additional cost. In my case, it would have cost me about $1500 additional for the long (1025 feet) pole line. For the underground option, they charged $5/foot. He told me that he was a little lenient on the distance if you were nice and not demanding. So, he "measured" my distance as 1000 feet and I paid $5000. No poles or guy wires through the pasture to look at or dodge with the tractor and sprayer booms. That $5000 was for material and installation. This is the high voltage line off the highway buried 3 feet deep in a poly tube, dug with an excavator. I thought that was very low cost. I guess they make it up on KW-Hours down the road.
 
Wow, That's a lot. I built a house 6 years ago. About 1200 feet from the power line at the highway. Co-op's new service connection fee of $300 gets you a transformer up to 175 feet from the house with underground line between them. They gave me two options for the additional distance - overhead on poles or underground. If you get a pole line, they cover several hundred feet at no additional cost. In my case, it would have cost me about $1500 additional for the long (1025 feet) pole line. For the underground option, they charged $5/foot. He told me that he was a little lenient on the distance if you were nice and not demanding. So, he "measured" my distance as 1000 feet and I paid $5000. No poles or guy wires through the pasture to look at or dodge with the tractor and sprayer booms. That $5000 was for material and installation. This is the high voltage line off the highway buried 3 feet deep in a poly tube, dug with an excavator. I thought that was very low cost. I guess they make it up on KW-Hours down the road.
Yea I wasn't happy
 
Around here prices would range from $1.50-$2 a foot.

If you have the time or have an employee operate a machine, rent a ride on trencher. The time to dig 500' with no rock is only determined by how much the operator crowds the machine, but I'm guessing a couple of hours digging at the most. Then to backfill, the trencher will have a backfill blade which is 10 times faster then a tractor with a bucket because it has power angle. You just line it up and the crumbs fall it. Take half an hour to backfill. Tip: always start backfilling from the end of the trench where you finished, pushing to the end you started!
Ahmmm.....maybe that, but the biggest problem with rentals is sharp teeth....I've seen rental machines with teeth so dull it wouldn't cut. Makes a huge difference. Second most irritating problem is the cleanout shield is missing.
 
It's pretty easy to make a call and ask some questions. and look at the machine before signing or loading it.

You can ask them is there is any carbide left on the teeth, and ask if the crumber is on the machine. They often remove the cumber because folks don't know what it's for or how to use it. They try to turn too sharp or dig too shallow and it becomes a problem. If you insist on one they probably have one laying around, and probably have employees who have never seen one on a machine!

If one is digging in dirt with no rocks and it's not a footer for a building any crumbs are not a problem usually.
 
Yes $1.75 is about average around here. Not sure it would make difference but that's usually a 4" trench 24-30" deep.

If you have to rent a machine a ride on trencher is better than a walk behind or a skid steer attachment IMO. If your friends with an electrician or plumber in the area they will often rent their machines for cash fairly cheap since they tend to sit a lot. At least around here they will if they know you.
 
By the foot.

Say 2' deep x6" wide. 500' average distance. No rock.

Thanks
I would do it myself. If you are sure there is no rock then rental would run anywhere from $110 to $220 for walk along and compact tractor trenchers. If you run into rock and have to go slower then add 50% to the rental cost. I did my own line a couple years ago for $160 for a mini excavator since I was almost all rock. The original builder direct buried 1" sch 20 PVC for the water line and the fracking earthquakes made sure it failed a few years ago.
 
I built a pipe plow this past year out of an old single shank subsoiler... so it just costs me time and fuel! Buried about 400' of satellite cable for my son-in-law this fall with it, will be installing shallow buried water lines this spring for water in the pastures. Made it so it could handle up to 1 1/2" (2" between boot sides). Not so good in rocks though of course.

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Trenching doesn't work here. I have 2' rocks 4" down. When I rebuilt the corral I dug the post holes with a mini excavator. I found rocks that didn't fit in a 16 inch bucket. Even using the thumb on the excavator I had problems getting some of them out of the hole.
 
I've often wondered how you guys get by with fencing in all that rock out there! Love the west... but you've sure got your challenges! I'm about 120' to bedrock. :) That doesn't mean that we don't have rocks though... glaciers dropped all kinds of granite that came from you guys out there! Had a big trackhoe out in the field a few years ago burying them, had one hole about 20' deep to get one of them entirely "below frostline" so it wouldn't heave back up. Spent over $5000 getting rid of all of our collections!
 
I've often wondered how you guys get by with fencing in all that rock out there! Love the west... but you've sure got your challenges!
Lots of variations of posts not set into the ground. This is a rock jack on the southeast corner of my property. There is plenty of juniper trees. A lot of these are made entirely of juniper with some wire to hold them together. All you need is a chain saw and some wire. There is always plenty of rock available.
 

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