[TowerTalk] Updated: How to dig tower base hole effortlessly

[Big Don]

The true beauty of this water-drilled excavation method is it can be done
to a large extent without damaging any underground services or structure.
You could see in the video what appeared to be unaffected hardware(?) in
the excavation footprint.


We are an original owner in a 50-year-old suburban development with
underground power, water, natural gas, phone, TV cable, and sewer
connection utilities. Locations of all this underground stuff were not
well-documented.  Over the years, the underground locator folks, prior to
any serious digging, would arrive with their detection equipment and mark
“locations of utilities” to support some repair or upgrade. Some of these
“locations” appeared to be off by up to a few feet from where we knew them
to be.  Fortunately, all the above utilities were in front of our home and
our tower base/anchor excavations were in the back, so never had to
personally deal with any of this complication.


Even with some original included redundancy, after 50 years, the
neighborhood electric power wiring needed complete replacement.  This was
all done using water-drill equipment similar to what appeared to be in the
video.  The crews would dig holes every 75 feet or so, and then drill
horizontally and insert the new underground cables, all done with water
pressure and filtering-out the removed soil to truck away.


It was amazing.  In our immediate area at least, they did this with zero
utility disruptions except for a planned one-hour or so at each home the
power was off to permit connecting the replaced system. There was one hole
that went right through a very fragile phone line area that had required
repair/replacement a few times over the years.  After that hole was
completed, the underground phone line (an insulated cable about half-inch
on diameter) was visible dangling across the span of the hole. They did all
this, and refilled all the holes, without killing any trees or shrubbery
either, AFAIK. The only thing there was to complain about was all the
noise, the water drilling machines make a heckuva racket.


Don  N7EF

On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 7:23 PM, <john at kk9a.com> wrote:

> It seems pretty slow, even in the sandy looking soil.  I cannot imagine it
> working in my rocky / shale clay soil.
>
> John KK9A - W4AAA