Trenching questions

Craiger265 · Oct 4, 2015

I have a few questions for the more experienced BH operators out there. I have the BX25 with the BT602CA BH. I'm getting pretty good at trenching (IMO LoL) and have been doing quite a few trenching jobs. Here are my main questions...

1) when starting a trench say from a garage to the house, how do you guys finish the trench when you run out of room by the house so you can keep the trench straight? I find it hard to trench on angles because you don't get a nice straight line (important for laying pipe)

2) Friend told me about carrying couple of sheets of 3/4" 4x8 plywood and lay it over the trench, position tractor on and over it I guess and keep trenching.

I've had a few where I started at both ends of the trench (house first then move to garage) and had a roughly 4' spot in the middle to join up. It was sickening getting off the tractor to move it around to trench it together...plus it looked crappy IMO

So if you guys have some suggestions on how to join up a trench and how to use the plywood, I would appreciate it thanks!

85Hokie · Oct 4, 2015

"couple of sheets of 3/4" 4x8 plywood and lay it over the trench, position tractor on and over it I guess and keep trenching"
^^^^^^^^^^
that does work!

sometime the last part needs to be done by hand.....not a perfect solution either!

the plywood idea works well - given that you have a couple of good 3/4" sheets. Lay them across the ditch , not WITH the ditch .....placing them with the ditch will give you more length, the structural stiffness is far better across the ditch.

Diydave · Oct 4, 2015

A good BH operator can drive the front wheel over the trench, with the bucket down, and rolled back, then swing the back end of the tractor over the trench, with the hoe down, and lifting the rear end over the trench... Not as easy, with a narrow gauge, like Kubotas have, but still do-able...

Tooljunkie · Oct 4, 2015

Dont tell me there isnt any youtube videos for trenching?
I cant offer suggestions but am interested nonetheless.

Craiger265 · Oct 4, 2015

Oh there's YouTube vids but nothing showing what I'm asking. I seen vids how the operator uses the bucket loader and stabilizers to cross the trench but I don't trust myself with trying that yet.

ShaunRH · Oct 5, 2015

Crossing the trench is something you'll need to learn if you have a bound in start and end point that are less than a couple of tractor lengths apart. If one side is open, then start from the bound in side and dig towards the open side.

The simplest way to handle this is to stop about a tractor and a half length from your end position, drive the hoe out and turn it around then start from your destination point and dig back to where you left off.

Lay in whatever you intend to lay in, move the tractor over a laid in part, keep laying in and then bury it back. The tractor never left the trench and is all lined up for some wheel packing.

redfernclan · Oct 5, 2015

One more trick is when you pile the dirt, make sure it's not right next to the trench. Then you have room to drive up and down the trench with out driving over your piles and possible sliding into the ditch. Don't ask how I figured this one out and no, I don't have pictures. ;]

Craiger265 · Oct 9, 2015

Thanks for the advice guy's, I appreciate it!

zippyslug31 · Oct 9, 2015

redfernclan said:
no, I don't have pictures. ;]

Well then, here's mine!

A little backhoe porn for ya'll; had to do a total of 400' for this project.

Can't tell you how much it sucked craming the pipe to the bottom of that trench with all the roots sticking out.

Eldubya · Oct 9, 2015

Good question, and good tips! Here's one related:
If I'm doing a fairly long trench, it's a pain in the arse to jump from seat to seat on my B7800 every time I need to move the tractor. So what I do is leave the brakes off, FEL slightly raised. After digging whatever the BH will reach, I lift the stabilizers a bit, push the tractor forward by pressing the BH into the ground and extending it. Re-set the stabilizers and dig another section. Saves a LOT of time and energy.
Q: am I doing any potential harm to the machine doing this?
(Yes...it's always on level ground, nice and stable)

ShaunBlake · Oct 9, 2015

zippyslug31 said:
Well then, here's mine!
...

My, my, what a nice, straight line. That's truly awesome!

Eldubya said:
...
Q: am I doing any potential harm to the machine doing this?
...

If you are, I can't imagine how you'd ever see the result. Your hydraulics would surely stall before anything broke. Seals have a finite life, but you wouldn't leave the machine in the barn and dig a ditch by hand to preserve the seals. It really comes down to cost vs. benefit. As you note, frequently switching seats is something to be avoided if at all possible.

Oh, and there should be a lot of backhoes broken down on construction sites; some of those operators do some pretty "interesting" things!

zippyslug31 · Oct 9, 2015

Eldubya said:
Good question, and good tips! Here's one related:
If I'm doing a fairly long trench, it's a pain in the arse to jump from seat to seat on my B7800 every time I need to move the tractor. So what I do is leave the brakes off, FEL slightly raised. After digging whatever the BH will reach, I lift the stabilizers a bit, push the tractor forward by pressing the BH into the ground and extending it. Re-set the stabilizers and dig another section. Saves a LOT of time and energy.
Q: am I doing any potential harm to the machine doing this?
(Yes...it's always on level ground, nice and stable)

Seems I've heard from other, experienced operators that this is what you're "supposed" to do, so probably not doing any harm per se.

As an alternative, get a "driver" while you trench. May not be an option if there's only one of you, but I found that when I was doing long runs, it's super handy to have somebody sit up front while I dig. Once a section was done I tell them to move forward by 6 or 8 feet and I'd start on the new section. The seats on an L3901 and BH77, for instance, do touch in this configuration, but they are plenty usable. The first time I did this I was surprised by how much faster the process felt.

ShaunRH · Oct 9, 2015

Zippyslug and Shaun B are correct, you aren't doing any harm and this is common BH practice. If you're doing it correctly, you never leave the BH seat to adjust tractor position at all.

One of the mistakes operators make is to totally 'lift' all the wheels off of the ground. This actually reduces stability and in an experienced operator, they are either showing off or intentionally trying to torque off the boss. It puts a lot of stress on the hydraulics that doesn't need to be there, raises the CG of the unit and gives fewer contact patches. The front wheels aren't a big deal as they don't really provide stability, so lifting them slightly with the front bucket is common. It's the rears that shouldn't leave the ground.

So you're doing great, push the unit around with the hoe, it's done all the time, but careful of side to side pressures. It's where the hoe is weakest and you can do damage when you side shuffle a BH improperly.

seanbarr · Nov 1, 2015

Sometimes the alternate can be something entirely different.

I have a backhoe but elected to plop down $140 to rent a trencher that can cut a long, clean 6" wide, 4 ft deep curving trench in a few hours. Laying my water lines and back filling in the same day makes this a cinch.

I save the backhoe for other tasks. There will be plenty.

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Trenching questions

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