Dirt Moving Just dont do it.

[luckyme2010]

I've been reading on here off and on about using a subsoiler and middle buster for installing 4 inch pvc sewer lines. I bought the little TSC subsoiler and ordered a 18" furrowed. The big day was yesterday slapped my subsoiler on and went to ripping it tore up that 150 feet in minutes I went 3 passes in 5 minutes. Then I attached the plow and that's when it all went down hill. I tried several times and different depths to roll the dirt from the ditch with no luck. I ended up hand digging the ditch 2 feet deep and installing the pipe and making tie ins. Heres what I learned for someone who may wanna try it and save 200 bucks. DONT DO IT!!!!! Just rent the trencher itll save you a days work and alot of body aches. I could have rented the trencher for 400 bucks. Instead I only saved about 175.00 in the long run not to mention the 9 hours of my time. Some things i can understand trying to save a buck but when it comes to moving dirt and alot of it just bite the bullet and do it with equipment that's made to make life easier.

 

[fried1765]

I've been reading on here off and on about using a subsoiler and middle buster for installing 4 inch pvc sewer lines. I bought the little TSC subsoiler and ordered a 18" furrowed. The big day was yesterday slapped my subsoiler on and went to ripping it tore up that 150 feet in minutes I went 3 passes in 5 minutes. Then I attached the plow and that's when it all went down hill. I tried several times and different depths to roll the dirt from the ditch with no luck. I ended up hand digging the ditch 2 feet deep and installing the pipe and making tie ins. Heres what I learned for someone who may wanna try it and save 200 bucks. DONT DO IT!!!!! Just rent the trencher itll save you a days work and alot of body aches. I could have rented the trencher for 400 bucks. Instead I only saved about 175.00 in the long run not to mention the 9 hours of my time. Some things i can understand trying to save a buck but when it comes to moving dirt and alot of it just bite the bullet and do it with equipment that's made to make life easier.

Thank you for this post!
I was thinking about it......now I will not!

 

[Diggin It]

I've been reading on here off and on about using a subsoiler and middle buster for installing 4 inch pvc sewer lines.

The only mention I've seen of that process is for small conduit a few inches below the surface.

 

[Texasmark]

I've been reading on here off and on about using a subsoiler and middle buster for installing 4 inch pvc sewer lines. I bought the little TSC subsoiler and ordered a 18" furrowed. The big day was yesterday slapped my subsoiler on and went to ripping it tore up that 150 feet in minutes I went 3 passes in 5 minutes. Then I attached the plow and that's when it all went down hill. I tried several times and different depths to roll the dirt from the ditch with no luck. I ended up hand digging the ditch 2 feet deep and installing the pipe and making tie ins. Heres what I learned for someone who may wanna try it and save 200 bucks. DONT DO IT!!!!! Just rent the trencher itll save you a days work and alot of body aches. I could have rented the trencher for 400 bucks. Instead I only saved about 175.00 in the long run not to mention the 9 hours of my time. Some things i can understand trying to save a buck but when it comes to moving dirt and alot of it just bite the bullet and do it with equipment that's made to make life easier.

"Size Matters"..........On 4" I'd use a trencher too. I didn't have problems with small diameter water lines and electrical cables.

 

[luckyme2010]

I'll use it on a 1" pipe I have to bury for a cable line. But anything that's gotta be deep or anything over 2" gets the trencher

 

[RjCorazza]

I’ve subsoiled small water line also, but never tried anything larger. I rented a beast trencher 20 years ago, and it did the job but it was a pain to handle.
My neighbor recently rented a tracked trencher that was all hydraulic powered and man was it nice!

 

[sd455dan]

Ha Ha- me to
bought one and used it for a power line to a barn,
multiple passes and added weight to it trying to get a decent trough,
ended up doing a Whole Lot of hand digging , it sat for 2 years and I finally craigslisted it.

 

[luckyme2010]

Only good thing was the subsoiler buried itself up to the lifting arms of my tractor. It's a 55 horse 4x4 mahindra 5530. So the ground was loose the roots were popped but the dirt stayed in the ditch. Oh well lesson learned dont be a cheap *** on everything. Main reason for the post though was to let some other poor soul know to just rent the trencher. And theres alot more to this story. My oil filter came loose gasket buckled lost all my oil got that fixed with some permatex black gasket maker then the battery died got that charged and the clutch pedal had rusted under the step up so the whole arm fell off. Geez I had my *** handed to me this weekend. The tractor only has 92 hours on it it sits at my farm it's a 2008 model bought it brand new.

 

[LukeDuke30]

I used a middle buster for 4'' corrugated drain pipe off the gutters. It took about 3 passes each trench. I did 8 trenches with it, and it was in some tough clay. It worked great, and saved me hours of work. The key for me was having the right angle, and making deeper passed each time. The middle buster was on sale at Rural King for $110. It was the older yellow king cutter version, and they were switching to the red RK by King Cutter version. Below is a short video of the first pass the day I first used it.

 

[luckyme2010]

Maybe the plow head shoulda went first with no subsoiler to loosin up the ground. I dunno. My ground is clay and sand.

 

[Jstpssng]

I'm sure that it depends on your soil. My father used a subsoiler to bury about 300 feet of phone line and it worked great, but he was going out across his lawn, then an old garden. He welded a piece of pipe to feed the line through and it buried itself as he drove along.

 

[LukeDuke30]

Maybe the plow head shoulda went first with no subsoiler to loosin up the ground. I dunno. My ground is clay and sand.

Maybe a subsoiler head to break it up, then switch to a middle buster to get the trench? I bought the subsoiler shank/shoe for mine in case I needed it.

 

[luckyme2010]

That's what I did I used the subsoiler first but the dirt just rode over the plow head afterwards it didn't pull it out of the ditch. Either way if theres a next time and I'm hoping there wont be there'll be a ride on trencher waiting to do it the easy way.

 

[shooterdon]

I used a middle buster for 4'' corrugated drain pipe off the gutters. It took about 3 passes each trench. I did 8 trenches with it, and it was in some tough clay. It worked great, and saved me hours of work. The key for me was having the right angle, and making deeper passed each time. The middle buster was on sale at Rural King for $110. It was the older yellow king cutter version, and they were switching to the red RK by King Cutter version. Below is a short video of the first pass the day I first used it.

Not sure how deep you could go with it, but it sure looks a lot easier than hand digging a trench. I paid $250 to have a guy with a BH on a Kubota come in and put in a 2 ft dep trench about 75 yards long for a power line.

BTW, I have read of guys who only go down a foot for a power line, but that will not pass codes here and I would not do it anyway. OK for a sprinkler line.

 

[flusher]

You're right. 24" is way to deep for that TSC subsoiler. When a I was digging trenches for my new house in 2005, I rented a walk behind Ditch Witch trencher from Home Depot for $125 per day. Dug about 1100 ft of 24" deep trench in 9 hours.

Good luck

 

[LukeDuke30]

Yep, I was able to get about 9-10'' which was fine for drain pipe and probably other smaller cable.

 

[RSKY]

I used a subsoiler to bury 1/2" PVC water pipe for about 220' with two gentle S-curves. The pipe was attached to the subsoiler and I was walking back and gluing four 10' sections at a time on the end. Depth varied from a foot to four inches depending on roots. This was with a 22-hp tractor. I couldn't feed the pipe thru at the tractor but had to put the entire run thru. At the end I was pulling the entire 220'.

 

[Oldpath05]

They say a picture is worth a 1000 words but I say a video doubles that and more. This thread has all the ear marks of not enough youtube research. After seeing "Just dont do it." several times I had to click on it and find out what I'm not supposed to do and after I clicked on this thread I still had to go to youtube and find out what I'm not suppose to do, then after I watched a couple youtube videos I now know why what where. A subsoiler is just a shovel in hand helper at best, maybe if they had higher fins on them to move dirt up and out of the way might help, certainly room for some redneck engineering improvements.
How to Use a Subsoiler - YouTube

 

[zzvyb6]

I've done deeper trenches when I leave the tongue jack down on my hay mower. Seems like this unit would benefit from some wings added to lift the soil out of the trench. Or some other method of lifting the dirt (like a trencher does).

 

[Diggin It]

I got down about 6" or more with one of these ... enough to do what I needed.