Burying Drainage Pipe & Digging About Buried Facilities
 

I have a spring in my yard and have long periods of soggy/standing water
and am finally getting about installing some drainage.

I have about 300' or so of pipe run and am going to use 6" perforated pvc.
I would like an 8" wide trench which 1) gives me a nice gap to back fill
with gravel and 2) gives some 'wiggle' room to try and align pipe runs to
angled fittings. The problem is I am having a very difficult time here in
the Phila. area finding an 8" trencher to rent. I've only found two places,
one with no trailer, and both are very expensive, about $350/day. I was
traveling in Ohio recently and saw one of those Rent All places that are
co-located with some Lowes stores. They had exactly what I wanted and only
$200/day. Of course there aren't any of those store around here.

So, what are thoughts on 6" vs. 8" trenchers to bury 4" pipe?

Also, what's the opinion on the orientation of the holes? I was thinking of
having the pointed upwards but now am not sure. I plan to bury the pipe 2'
'deep.

Now for the buried facilities issue. I called what we in PA have known as
"PA One Call" and asked for whomever to come out and mark my underground
services. Electric came out and marked, nobody else did. I checked back in
and was told that the cable and telco people reported back that they had no
facilities present, despite the fact my marked excavation area runs between
the service boxes and my house and right next to a cable and telco box and
I do indeed have cable and telephone service and there are indeed no
overhead wires.

The electric markings were strange. The lines wandered all over the place.
I would expect a straight run (or almost straight) from the box to the
house (about 200' away), but the marks are very serpentine, about 10-20'
off the 'centerline' from box to house. The lines are also roughly parallel
to each other, there is no 'head-to-tail' connection of mark to mark, that
is the extension of one marking line does not project to the beginning of
the next line.

Can anyone comment on how exact the marks are put down? Does the guy come
out and eyeball the box/house then spray lines or do they attempt to detect
their underground service and mark accordingly? How deep is a typical
service? Hand digging is going to be a pain as the soil here is extremely
rocky and I have to dig manually 3 feet wide centered about each service.
__________________________________________________ _______________
JG... Jeff Givens


"My hovercraft is full of eels."