# Trenching rates



## dronai

Includes backfill, and compaction ?


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## Cletis

*$3-$4*

I charge $3-$4


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## Southeast Power

$12 for my sub, $16 for the customer.


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## TxElectrician

I rent any equipment I need, and charge a minimum of 700 to trench (up to 100'). If I need to use a rock saw minimum charge is 1300.00.

Wish there was someone around here that I could sub the trenches to.


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## MHElectric

jrannis said:


> $12 for my sub, $16 for the customer.


Serious?!!

A sub for my old employer, who would provide a backhoe, 2 men and himself was in the range of $8/ft and they would raise cain too no end about his rediculous prices. 

I know prices range dramatically around the country, and I am not sure if op was talking about trenching with a ditch witch or a backhoe, but geez......that sounds really high.


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## wildleg

see what other people in your area are charging and charge more or less depending on how much work you want.


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## md11739

That includes backfill. No compaction. I would never get away with anything over $4 per foot. Everything is so competitive. We make good money at $2 especially if we are vibrating. My machine clocks in at 20' a minute in good ground conditions. How about locating? I always felt like its time well spent on my jobs. But I'm curious what you guys would pay to have someone locate for you. Not a b/s locate either, we give our contractors depth and can gaurentee the locate inside of 6". We have located feede that are thousands of feet long. Any thoughts?


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## hardworkingstiff

md11739 said:


> That includes backfill. No compaction. I would never get away with anything over $4 per foot. Everything is so competitive. We make good money at $2 especially if we are vibrating. My machine clocks in at 20' a minute in good ground conditions. How about locating? I always felt like its time well spent on my jobs. But I'm curious what you guys would pay to have someone locate for you. Not a b/s locate either, we give our contractors depth and can gaurentee the locate inside of 6". We have located feede that are thousands of feet long. Any thoughts?


I think the comment about what others charge for locating is a good one. I also don't see a problem in raising your prices every year starting now and stopping when you get resistance (or the amount of work you want). Your thoroughness should command a premium to the locators that tell you hand dig within 2' and we don't know the depth.

I do have a question though, what locating equipment are you using? Ground Penetrating Radar?


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## HARRY304E

md11739 said:


> We have several trenchers and trench about 4-5 times a month for our shelfs. We also trench for a few other electricians. I have been charging $2 per foot for my own trenches and $1.80 for other contractors. Are these reasonable rates? We also locate underground utilities. I've been charing $125 per locate and $200 per underground fault locate. I've been getting little resistance to these prices however I want to try to market these services harder and want to make sure that I am competitively prices and not under priced. Your thoughts?


The best way to find out is to get estimates from excavators that will give an idea of where you are on pricing.


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## Southeast Power

MHElectric said:


> Serious?!!
> 
> A sub for my old employer, who would provide a backhoe, 2 men and himself was in the range of $8/ft and they would raise cain too no end about his rediculous prices.
> 
> I know prices range dramatically around the country, and I am not sure if op was talking about trenching with a ditch witch or a backhoe, but geez......that sounds really high.


Big City prices. They are welcome to get anyone else to trench but my price includes both underground bore, hand digging or anything in between.


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## Magnettica

md11739 said:


> We have several trenchers and trench about 4-5 times a month for our selfs. We also trench for a few other electricians. I have been charging $2 per foot for my own trenches and $1.80 for other contractors. Are these reasonable rates? We also locate underground utilities. I've been charing $125 per locate and $200 per underground fault locate. I've been getting little resistance to these prices however I want to try to market these services harder and want to make sure that I am competitivly prices and not under priced. Your thoiughts?


Seriously? That seems real low to me. I always quote high and ask them if they want to save money they can trench themselves. This is mostly for residential with GFCI protection. I hate trenching so if I have to do it myself I quote high, rent a ditchwich from HD, and make money.


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## MHElectric

jrannis said:


> Big City prices. They are welcome to get anyone else to trench but my price includes both underground bore, hand digging or anything in between.


Big city pricing.....ok, Ill buy it. That probably means the majority of your undeground work is being done on busy streets and intersections, with lots of concrete and asphalt demo. I can see this creating much more of a headache.


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## MDShunk

My trenching sub charges around 100 bucks to show up (depending on distance; could be less, could be more), then a dollar a foot. Backfill only. No compaction. I never sell compaction or seeding. If it's a parking lot job, I use a different sub to trench that can also compact, AC-20 the seams, and replace the blacktop.


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## wildleg

we do location once in a while, but I never locate any better than +/- 2' (same as miss utility). why take the liability ?


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## md11739

wildleg said:


> we do location once in a while, but I never locate any better than +/- 2' (same as miss utility). why take the liability ?


The miss utility thing is b/s. We have a very accurate locator, the same style they use. I want to accomodate my contractors the best I can and I am certain about the service I am providing. I located a farm the other day with chicken houses, grain tanks, barns, probably about 12-15 feeders comming out the the MDP. We pin-pointed everyone of them, right on. I know all of the guys that locate for Miss Utility around us and they will tell you the same thing. If they mark something wrong, it's humon error not the locator.


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## md11739

hardworkingstiff said:


> I think the comment about what others charge for locating is a good one. I also don't see a problem in raising your prices every year starting now and stopping when you get resistance (or the amount of work you want). Your thoroughness should command a premium to the locators that tell you hand dig within 2' and we don't know the depth.
> 
> I do have a question though, what locating equipment are you using? Ground Penetrating Radar?


No ground penetrating radar, I wish. My salesman told me $18k (realistically $15k). That stuff is big money. We've just purchase a Metroteck, the thing is the cadillac of rf locators. I would highly recommend it. We were using an old Rycom. I was confident in it, however this new one is so simple, and it's got a 3 mile range.


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## md11739

Magnettica said:


> Seriously? That seems real low to me. I always quote high and ask them if they want to save money they can trench themselves. This is mostly for residential with GFCI protection. I hate trenching so if I have to do it myself I quote high, rent a ditchwich from HD, and make money.


All of our equipment is paid for and I pay an apprentice $12/hour to sit on a machine. $2 a foot doesn't sound like much untill you do a 2000' trench by 3pm and all I did was put a little bit of fuel in the thing. I wouldn't let the customer trench for me. Any time you get them involved it is a mess. You tell them 24" and they hear 10. I guess my price may be a bit low, however I am with the competition. I have an old Vermeer 3550 that refuses to quit on me, 5000 hours. We make big money vibrating. I have an Vermeer LM-42 that can pull a peice of 2" just about as fast as you can walk in decent ground conditions, no backfill. Word to the wise, if your plowing, make sure you know where everything is in the yard. We pulled a peice of 1" to a pool a few weeks ago. When we were pulling the blade out the ground, a piece of irrigation came out with it from a few hundred feet back. OPPS. man i wish you could easily locate plastic....


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## wildleg

md11739 said:


> The miss utility thing is b/s. We have a very accurate locator, the same style they use. I want to accomodate my contractors the best I can and I am certain about the service I am providing. I located a farm the other day with chicken houses, grain tanks, barns, probably about 12-15 feeders comming out the the MDP. We pin-pointed everyone of them, right on. I know all of the guys that locate for Miss Utility around us and they will tell you the same thing. If they mark something wrong, it's humon error not the locator.


say what you want. I've dug up all kinds of mystery laterals that weren't marked, for whatever reason, and I've seen crossing laterals where it was impossible to follow them properly. sooner or later you are going to wish you didn't tell them it was 6" from your mark, cause it is going to cost you money. call it what you want - operator error, ground reflectivity, doesn't matter, until your little eyeball is on it cause you dug it up, you don't know where it is IMO


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## md11739

wildleg said:


> say what you want. I've dug up all kinds of mystery laterals that weren't marked, for whatever reason, and I've seen crossing laterals where it was impossible to follow them properly. sooner or later you are going to wish you didn't tell them it was 6" from your mark, cause it is going to cost you money. call it what you want - operator error, ground reflectivity, doesn't matter, until your little eyeball is on it cause you dug it up, you don't know where it is IMO


Were they private laterals that you have seen unmarked? "_until your little eyeball is on it cause you dug it up, you don't know where it is"_ Maybe you need to get some better locating equipment. Todays stuff is very accurate. I'm locating small private stuff for guys. It is understandable for Miss U to have their policy when you have a $1,000,000 peice of fiber in the ground, or you have a 1300kva feeder to a hospital. But when your on 240v pier line, my locate is spot on and I would put my pay check on it.


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## BBQ

md11739 said:


> But when your on 240v pier line, my locate is spot on and I would put my pay check on it.


I see, I think I see the difference.

Wildleg knows he is human and will make mistakes once in a while, you apparently are not human.


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## md11739

I am a machine cloned out of the remanence steel that made up superman with special electrical powers. I can smell underground faults. Hell I could even guild you directly to the fault over the phone.... "Little to the left, no wait... back, back. There it is, now dig down 1 meter 13 centemeters."


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## wildleg

md11739 said:


> Were they private laterals that you have seen unmarked? "_until your little eyeball is on it cause you dug it up, you don't know where it is"_ Maybe you need to get some better locating equipment. Todays stuff is very accurate. I'm locating small private stuff for guys. It is understandable for Miss U to have their policy when you have a $1,000,000 peice of fiber in the ground, or you have a 1300kva feeder to a hospital. But when your on 240v pier line, my locate is spot on and I would put my pay check on it.


ok, sorry, I didn't know you were just locating rinky dink stuff. who care's if you mismark a piece of uf and have to splice it. (you can get within 6" with an AM radio, but I still wouldn't bet my paycheck on it.)


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## backstay

I sub out the trenching when I can. Soil around here is rocky, so the ditch witch doesn't cut it. We use a mini hoe. I wouldn't load one up for less than $500 plus $40/hr to run it. I still get my time on top of that.


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## D&MB Electric

We try to get our regular hourly rate. Don't forget that you should be getting payed to load the equipment, as well as transport it to and from the site. I don't know about you but my truck doesn't run on air.


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## md11739

backstay said:


> I sub out the trenching when I can. Soil around here is rocky, so the ditch witch doesn't cut it. We use a mini hoe. I wouldn't load one up for less than $500 plus $40/hr to run it. I still get my time on top of that.


What does it rent for? Our soil around here is very loose. Some sand and gravel, doesnt make for good grass growing but easy digging. Like I said before, my plow can pull a pipe at around 20' a minute. Maybe $2 a foot is low in general but we can get a lot of digging done quick. My family is up in PA. I have an uncle thats a plumber and he hates digging up there.


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## drsparky

While stationed in Europe and Okinawa we always had to be mindful of unexploded bombs left over from Word War II. Nothing like unearthing a live 500 lbs bomb with a excavator. I think that would deserve a surcharge and a clean set of underwear fee.


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## md11739

wildleg said:


> ok, sorry, I didn't know you were just locating rinky dink stuff. who care's if you mismark a piece of uf and have to splice it. (you can get within 6" with an AM radio, but I still wouldn't bet my paycheck on it.)


 Right, the electricians that we dig for are smaller contractors, they still want everything marked in the yard. The big digs around here probably wouldnt get subbed out. All of the big underground stuff is normally utility owned around here. There is not much industry. Our economy is strong as far as privitate residences go b/c we are so close to Washingto DC. Just curious, what do you charge to locate small stuff like that? Do you dig for any other electricians or plumbers? I have 4 or 5 that I dig for and it usually works out well for me.


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## wildleg

we don't do it, but once in a while we locate crazy stuff for people with deep pockets. It's just because of that that we won't claim to locate any better than the same that miss util says on their locates - and just for the same liability reasons. I don't like locating for anyone else just because of the reasons you stated also - we do NOT have fancy equipment, and don't need the liability. If I'm gonna dig, though, I always make a pass so I can find stuff that miss util missed or mismarked, just to make less work and less hassle for myself.


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