Putting in ground sprinklers in the yard. I have two sidewalks to go under. I’ve seen a product at the home center that uses water to blast a hole under, also read somewhere about using a pvc pipe cut like a hypodermic needle and banging on it to take out cores a little at a time. Any experience with this or other methods?
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Replies
I've heard of just using a garden hose, but haven't tried it. Last time we had to put wiring under a sidewalk, we dug a hole on each side, angled toward the center, and pounded a wrecking bar in from each side. But it was tedious, and hard to guess the angle so the "tunnels" meet.
I've done something similar with my pressure washer wand..messy but quick.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
Depends on what is under sidewalk.
Had a job with drainage install that went under the sidewalk to curb (two holes under sidewalk). When I started going under the sidewalk, I found that the concrete guys must have had a stone fetish... compacted 314 went 15" deep!!! That spud bar and sledge were mighty heavy by the time that one was finished.
If I had it to do again (hopefully never again), I would have spent the bucks to rent a boring machine. I found out after 3 days of hammering that it would have cost only $150 for 4 hrs... two holes would have been no problem in four hours. My rental rep laughed so hard that I thought he was going to hyperventilate.
If you are going through dirt... those things (either one) might work. If you start running into gravel or 314, go get the boring device of choice and bite the bullet on the rental... you'll be happy you did.
Edited 7/30/2004 8:39 pm ET by Rich from Columbus
The easy way http://www.tttechnologies.com/products/gmat/index.html :~)
I watched a landscape contractor do this in maybe ten minutes. Y'know those gas-engined post-hole diggers -- the ones with a big auger? He had a small diameter auger (2"?) from one of them which he drove with a Milwaukee Hole-Hawg.
Gee thanks... the back pain from those three nights is starting to come back....
Good idea.
You could drive a galvanized pipe under it, large enough to put your sprinker pipe into ( this sounds so hoooootttttt).
Scribe once, cut once!
I alway just turn the water hose on and keep poking it under.
Put a male mountain beaver on one side, and a female on the other.
They'll waste no time getting to each other.
And your cat could liesurely stroll through the resulting burrow.
; )
"Criticism without instruction is little more than abuse." D.Sweet
Tomorrow I'll call the local rental center and see if they have any mountain beavers. :-)
If they do, they're probably still sitting there. Those things are pretty durned ugly, and have a nasty temperament.
They put badgers to shame. Come out of that borrow full tilt right at you. With you even ten feet away...
"Criticism without instruction is little more than abuse." D.Sweet
In some other forums folks have reported a fair amount of success with the water boring technique. (But then some of these guys were pretty good at boring, period.) I think most said they put a length of plastic pipe on the end of the hose to do the boring.
Of course, it depends on how much crap in under the pavement. You may have to combine it with some pounding.
You've posted profile info, what geocline/location are you in; as others have said, the soil under is a big deal.
Where I am, a pipe on a garden holse would jus' fill the hole with water, 3000 psi pressure washer would loosen stuff but you'd still have to dig out the cobble by hand.
Just did similar the other day for a conduit, used a $10 HF diamond blade in skilsaw to cut 2-1/2" thru walk, busted out a clean 4 in. wide strip, dug, then re-concreted the walk.
Hopefully you have no rock, then the pressure washer will do good, but get you plenty dirty.
I live in Chicago, when I dug the piers for the deck, the first two feet was nice black dirt. No rocks around here, luckily.
I water bored under my driveway in front of my three car garage. I attached 3' of sharpened galvanized pipe to 30' of PVC and attached a hose to the end. A 5' starting trench was dug. The flexible PVC allows you to point the steel pipe parallel to the cement instead of boring deeper and deeper.
Well, how long did that take?
The boring took less than a half hour. There was maybe two encounters with rock. It took all morning for the 2 end trenches and soldering in the new water service.
I used to keep a 'drilling rig' on my truck. 3/4" coupling, nipple, T-fitting, another nipple and a solid end cap. The perpendicular leg of the T-fitting gets a nipple, brass ball valve anther nipple and a female fitting designed for taking a 3/4" male hose end.
To this I attach a 10' stick of rigid conduit with an end cap with a 1/4" hole drilled in it to make a jet nozzle. A eight foot ditch at the depth I want is dug perpendicular to the road or sidewalk. A hose is attached the pipe is laid in position and the valve opened. The pipe is fed in smoothly in sand but in a heave-ho back and forth motion through clay.
If moderately sized stones are met the 'T' structure on the end allows a hammer to strike in-line with the pipe. The ball valve allows the water to be stopped conveniently. Making adding sections of pipe faster and a bit less sloppy.
So far I have used this basic rig to 'drill' in a run as large as 2". I used adapters to fit to my rig and a booster pump to up the pressure. I have made runs as long as 40' at 4' under a road with 3/4" pipe. Accuracy, with a fair bit of luck I suppose, was within a foot of depth and direction at that distance.
My general plan is to jet the hole shoving the steel conduit in place and leave the galvanized conduit in place as a support for the earth and protective sleeve to other, typically PVC, conduit pushed in place through the steel conduit.
The variation I have used to get under sidewalks uses a bent piece of conduit. I measure the sidewalk and add two feet to the width. I use a hydraulic conduit bender to form ####wide arc with a radius half the measurement. This is hammered or jetted into place, depends on soil condition. Picture a large curved needle threading cable under the sidewalk. The fixed radius makes placement and the location of the emerging end quite predictable. Once in place this is used to pull in a cable or cut off and left in place and used as a sleeve.
In sand I have threaded cable hundreds of feet by placing it 12' at a time using a 20' stick of 3/4" galvanized pipe sequentially bent to a rough 20' radius. Dig a small hole. Sight the shot. jet through. Dig around the emerging tip to the minimum acceptable depth and repeat after pulling the cable through the pipe to avoid wear. Reminded me of sewing and went in a lot faster than trenching once we got a rhythm going. Not sure how well it would work in tougher soil conditions.
I just call our gas department. They show up with a Kabota backhoe and a pnuematic punch. Dig a 4" long hole on each side of the street or drive at the rrequired depth. Insert the punch, aim it at the opposite hole and turn on the air. 35 feet in 20 min. through dense clay. When the punch reaches the other hole, we tie the pvc pipe to it an reverse the process. The punch backs itself out and pulls the pipe with it.
I love those things. I put in the piping for the ug security and and gate control system at a couple of our facilities. Jan. and Feb. are not good months around here to be using water jets:)
Dave
Yeah, I remember when I was a kid watching the water guys use a hydraulic punch to install water lines under the street. Close as I can recall it was kind of like a standard hydraulic bottle jack (hand operated), only horzontal of course, and they had sections of steel rod that threaded together that the pushed through. When they got to the other side they'd somehow reverse the punch and pull the rod back, after attaching a coil of soft copper pipe to the far end.
I also remember the miraculous drill/tap rig they had for installing the water main taps in the CI pipe while pressurized.
This thread is getting real boring.
Yeah, that happens any time old farts start reminiscing.
was thinking about this post today. I have a slab that I park my boat on, no footer just 4 inch concrete. I want to put a carport on top over the boat. Light weight metal carport. so got my hose, wash under the slab on four corner about two feet by two feet, foot thick. tomorrow going fill with concrete. took all of thirty minutes
Use air pressure to remove the dirt rocks etc. 100psi at 185cfm should do it just fine.
Boy Dave, I hate to call anybody a liar to their face but.........
I absolutely don't believe you could actually get a public utility to come out and help you with your own non-utility related project. Around here it takes many months of calling cajoling, begging, threatening, bribing, and usually finally the intervention of God himself, just to get them out there to hook up a gas line. :-)
Dave works in the electric department of an Electrical/Gas utility.
It sounds like the work for for one of the electric departments properties.
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if utility crews will do the work (for $$) in some parts of the country, especially smaller utilities. I know, for instance, that many fire departments will rent out use of their cherrypickers for private use, and I think I've heard of electric utilities doing the same.
Well, a lot of good advice. I've got a pressure washer I can borrow free so I'm going to try that tomorrow.
Pressure washer worked great. Huge mess, but it went fast.
Rich. I did exactly the same thing at my sisters place this summer.
I made a "water drill" by hooking up a 4' length of pipe to the garden hose, dug a hole on either side of the sidewalk, turned on the hose and pushed it through. It took all of ten seconds to "drill" a hole big enough for a 2" pipe to fit through. Then I just sucked the excess water out of the hole with the shopvac. I imagine the pressure washer idea would work even better, and would probably enable you to drill a much bigger hole.
Of course, this method wouldn't be nearly as interesting as a visit to your local "mountainbeavers -R- us" store.
moutainbeavers-R-us must be a northern store ,. arout here they called
badgerrent.
I have a request in with bosch to see if they have sds max extentions? But I was hunting around and found this site which has some stuff that would help for tunneling. Go to page 4, some good stuff.
http://www.ams-samplers.com/Catalogs/Defender_flyer.PDF
Now I'm finding some good stuff for this job. Check these millwakee bits out with extentions,will do the job.
http://www.nphpowertools.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=800
i did it that way last summer... took me about an hour, but i had a really sticky clay soil, and a bunch of rocks...
i would shoot the water for a few minutes, working the pvc back and forth, then i would pound a breaker bar through as well...
depending on the soil, it could be really simple, or a big pain in the butt.
also.. you may want to think about sleeving the sprinkler pipe. the hole i bored was my main water service, but i sleeved the 1" copper with 2" pvc. just in case anything happens in the future, you have the sleeve under the sidewalk and dont have to redig..
just my couple of pennies..
oak