Berniep
Platinum Member
This is how I spent my fall vacation the week before Thanksgiving.
My parents were taking out the old above ground jet pump and well house and putting in a submersible pump. It was way overdue, you should have heard the noise that old pump made. Dad said he was going to just rent a trencher but heck this is half the reason I bought my BX in the first place, to help them out on stuff like this, so I borrow the neighbors trailer and take the BX to the farm.
Now I have dug a few short trenches around my place but nothing over about 10 feet long. We have had a VERY dry summer around here and their soil has a high clay content. At my place I can dig ten feet in about 20 minutes or less so I figured maybe a day to dig the whole thing. Wrong!! It took a good 4 hours just to dig the ends then probably another eight to dig the trench between them. This is by far the hardest I have ever worked the tractor. I couldn't use the scrape method to fill the bucket it would either just skip right over the top or it wouldn't pull it through. What I ended up doing was, if I can explain it, dig the teeth in, curl, uncurl while moving the boom and dipper back, and curl some more. The clay came out like gravel and just as hard. All I could think of was the old timers having to dig this kind of stuff by hand. When I got done digging I asked my uncle how they would have done it back then he said "wait till spring when the ground is softer" Anyway this is the first relatively big backhoe project I have done and it turned out pretty well. I didn't take many pictures but in this one you can see the blue water pipe. The electric line is already in the trench with some dirt on it
Dad:
"to keep it separated from the water line, I don't want the wire rubbing on the water line"
Me:
"but it won't be moving enough to rub"
Dad:
"if we do it right this time you won't have to replace it in 30 years"
Ok so you got a point there.
Can't argue with him, his stuff never breaks.
My parents were taking out the old above ground jet pump and well house and putting in a submersible pump. It was way overdue, you should have heard the noise that old pump made. Dad said he was going to just rent a trencher but heck this is half the reason I bought my BX in the first place, to help them out on stuff like this, so I borrow the neighbors trailer and take the BX to the farm.
Now I have dug a few short trenches around my place but nothing over about 10 feet long. We have had a VERY dry summer around here and their soil has a high clay content. At my place I can dig ten feet in about 20 minutes or less so I figured maybe a day to dig the whole thing. Wrong!! It took a good 4 hours just to dig the ends then probably another eight to dig the trench between them. This is by far the hardest I have ever worked the tractor. I couldn't use the scrape method to fill the bucket it would either just skip right over the top or it wouldn't pull it through. What I ended up doing was, if I can explain it, dig the teeth in, curl, uncurl while moving the boom and dipper back, and curl some more. The clay came out like gravel and just as hard. All I could think of was the old timers having to dig this kind of stuff by hand. When I got done digging I asked my uncle how they would have done it back then he said "wait till spring when the ground is softer" Anyway this is the first relatively big backhoe project I have done and it turned out pretty well. I didn't take many pictures but in this one you can see the blue water pipe. The electric line is already in the trench with some dirt on it
Dad:
"to keep it separated from the water line, I don't want the wire rubbing on the water line"
Me:
"but it won't be moving enough to rub"
Dad:
"if we do it right this time you won't have to replace it in 30 years"
Ok so you got a point there.
Can't argue with him, his stuff never breaks.
Hard to tell from the picture, how long and deep was your project??
