Decided to build a garage. Now the fun begins.

[South VA]

Still not much progress. The trench slopes downhill to the garage, and the lower stretch still has standing water in it. We've had just enough rain to keep it a bit too wet, and often flooded. But the upper part of the trench finally dried out enough, to the point where we were (actually my GF was) able to excavate beneath the water and power lines to the barn (I'm recovering from abdominal surgery, so she's doing the manual labor for now).

The electrician says to run the conduit underneath the existing lines at the crossing, which means some more hand digging to slope the trench to the crossing point and allow the conduit to bend enough and not strain the existing lines. It's awkward digging, as the ditch is only 6" wide but 24" deep on either side of the crossing.

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Also, I'm beginning to think that I don't really need a water hydrant at the outside corner of the garage. I can run a hose from the barn or the house without too much trouble. Widening the hole enough to easily tap into the buried water line and install three new valves plus a valve box, may not be worth the effort for something I'll use only occasionally. We'll see. If we forego the water line, the conduit should be ready to lay in the trench in the next couple of weeks, providing the rain holds off. Then the apron can be put down and all three bays will be accessible.

It's been about a year since this project started. I'm ready for it to be done.

 

[Orpedcrow]

I had some awkward digging inside the water shutoff box. It was a ball valve, the pressure regulator thing and I’m assuming an anti-hammer device. The ball valve was the only piece exposed inside the access box, the rest was buried but it went right under the wall of the box and the skirting for the house.

Anyway, it wasn’t obvious where the leak was, and difficult hand digging with very limited space. I ended up spraying everything with the water hose and vacuumed the mud out with a shop-vac. That was a life changing idea . Not only did it increase productivity by at least 20x, everything was clean and easy to service.

Just remember to remove the filter, and dump the vacuum before it gets full. Mud filled shop-vacs are heavy

 

[South VA]

I had some awkward digging inside the water shutoff box. It was a ball valve, the pressure regulator thing and I’m assuming an anti-hammer device. The ball valve was the only piece exposed inside the access box, the rest was buried but it went right under the wall of the box and the skirting for the house.

Anyway, it wasn’t obvious where the leak was, and difficult hand digging with very limited space. I ended up spraying everything with the water hose and vacuumed the mud out with a shop-vac. That was a life changing idea . Not only did it increase productivity by at least 20x, everything was clean and easy to service.

Just remember to remove the filter, and dump the vacuum before it gets full. Mud filled shop-vacs are heavy

It never would have occurred to me to use a shop vac as an excavation tool!

As it turns out, I have an old one in a barn that would probably do the job.

Are you suggesting to remove the filter before vacuuming, or once it’s done?

If I do decide to tap into the water line for a hydrant, the hole at the pipe junction will have to be doubled in size, in order to to get enough room to put in the tee with the three ball valves. In this dirt, that’s a fair amount of digging.

We’ll see how it goes. In any case, that’s a great idea!

 

[Orpedcrow]

Are you suggesting to remove the filter before vacuuming, or once it’s done?

Before, it’ll just clog with mud.

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[PlayingWithTBI]

Most shop vacs come with a plastic ball in a cage up top inside where the filter goes. Remove the filter for "wet" vacuuming. The ball is supposed to float when the tank is getting full and plug off the suction so you don't burn up the motor.