Digging a Trench for Utility Lines the Mini-digger Way

Take a look around a neighbours garden and front yard. The garage is lit from within by electrical cables snaking out from the house. The sprinklers are coming on as they’re meant to, and the conduits of pipes and plastic hosing connecting these projecting surface parts are all concealed. It looks good, like a professionally smoothed area of ground should, but the truth is there was a time not six weeks ago when trenches were running from the home to the garage and all around the property. The star of this scenario put in an appearance those few weeks ago, the mini-digger dropping on to the open ground to cut out precisely widened trenches.

The explosion of mini-excavator models from numerous high-end manufacturers delivers Swiss-knife flexibility, the capability to snap different tools into place and get them into the most claustrophobic spaces. Trench digging is one of the more spatially exhausting activities undertaken by the operator of one of these tiny diggers. Why should this be? Well, the layout has to be planned and coordinated with electricians and landscape workers. The route is going to come close to the home, unlike the tough but basically simple extraction of a tree stump or the spreading of soil. And even when all of those straight-to-angled lines have been cut into the earth and widened, there’s the backfilling task to finish before judging the work as finished. It’s a tough old job, but it’s also one that this class of digger is intelligently designed to undertake.

Getting Down to Business

Before ever turning the starter key and manoeuvring the digger on to the property, take care of the grunt work. Get the plans for the area to see where all of the utility cables run. Do the same with the building, checking for where cables and plumbing enter and leave the structure. Don’t stop there. Use a dedicated ground-scanning device to locate metal and rock obstructions, using a marker spray to create a ground-based image of where gas, electricity, and plumbing lines are running. No one wants to trigger a nightmare scenario where a septic line is punctured and the ground is covered in toxic liquid. Having done the tough planning and laying out stage, the next stage should be relatively easy.

Bring on the Digger

Check the maximum digging depth of the excavator against product literature and get to work when satisfied. The digger now takes on every role, removing earth, placing the small-diameter pipes, aiding in laying cables, before replacing soil and compacting the ground. The short-swing radius of the bucket combines with a narrow width to make the digger the ideal heavy tool for this operation.

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