Cleaning A Trench.

Chuck (CA)

Well-known Member
We're running electric service to a trailer behind our house. We ran a trench out and in the process of laying out the wire and conduit, walking over it, etc., some dirt fell back in. My wife and I were killing ourselves scooping out the loose dirt. (I have arthritis in my hip), SWMBO said we should try a shop vac. Man! That worked slick. Is this something you folks have tried before? Or is there a better way you want to share?
 
Cut a round point shovel down on each side to fit the ditch. shovel should be around 4 inches side to side that will help.
 
You could use a tile spade. They are narrow longer. Unless it is a large amount of dirt I wouldn't do anything. Won't hurt the conduit any.
 
The narrow shovel with the bend is made just for that job, some people call it a "spoon". I'm sure it has a real name, like trenching shovel or something. Really saves your back. Where i worked for 13 years had 2 trenchers but no spoons. Went out on my own and bought one in 3 months. No idea why you would ever trench without one.
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I've got both of those, Greg, but they're wider then the trench. We use them more for irrigating than anything else. However, I also like Ditchwitch's idea and maybe trim them down a bit narrower. Anyway, the shopvac worked great and didn't wear out my hip. I hope I don't have to do it again anytime soon. The trench runs 150'.
 
Lol. I sure know what you mean about not wanting to do it again anytime soon. I actually had to trim about 1/4" off each side of mine the first time I used it, now I wish it was wider. Very interesting idea with the shop vac.
 
For a shallow trench, a trenching shovel works well. But for a four foot deep, six inch wide trench, I use a pair of post hole diggers. You can easily get an extra six inches of depth just by cleaning out the loose dirt at the bottom.
 
Tile scoop-similar to a piece of thin wall pipe split lengthwise with a long handle fixed across the open top. Slides along the bottom of the trench to remove loose dirt and form a radius for laying clay tile (back in the day), etc. Google for a picture.
 
I really envy you guys. Just the other day I tried to dig a post hole. Figgered I could get away with 3 ft depth, but hit a rock at about 10 inches. Moved over half a hole width and continued on, hit another rock at 2 ft. These are nice hard granite rocks, can't power thru 'em with a steel diggin' bar. Once you hit one, you pretty much gotta move on and try another spot. Normally I just stick to t-posts, because when I drive those I can get them to bend around the rock. Takes awhile, I've taken over an hour to drive a single t-post, but once it's in, it's there to stay. Can't imagine what it'd be like to just be able to dig a hole or a trench wherever you wanted without resorting to a backhoe.
 
We have plenty of rocks here in Michigan, although they tend to be spread apart. I still pull rocks out of my garden every year when I rototill, even though it was broken up over fifteen years ago. If it's any consolation, Fred, our Michigan clay makes up for the rock deficit. When dry it is nearly impenetrable, and wears out the cutting edges of post hole augers at an alarming rate. When wet, it can instantly suck an auger down so you have to unscrew it with a pipe wrench.
 
(quoted from post at 12:35:35 07/28/14) We're running electric service to a trailer behind our house. We ran a trench out and in the process of laying out the wire and conduit, walking over it, etc., some dirt fell back in. My wife and I were killing ourselves scooping out the loose dirt. (I have arthritis in my hip), SWMBO said we should try a shop vac. Man! That worked slick. Is this something you folks have tried before? Or is there a better way you want to share?

Just did the vac thing thurs with sil and where some of the dirt was left in trench or fell back in I suggested vacuuming it out and it worked great. Thanks for the tip. PS I posted in the other forum.
 

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