anyone ever “pound” a pipe under asphalt
A friend “jetted” a 3/4″ galvanized pipe under a 15 foot concrete driveway.
Pounded for the first 1-2 feet and then connected to a garden hose. 40 psi water jet.
All depends on the sub base.
A friend “jetted” a 3/4″ galvanized pipe under a 15 foot concrete driveway.
Pounded for the first 1-2 feet and then connected to a garden hose. 40 psi water jet.
All depends on the sub base.
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Replies
Depending on what kind of soil, or the size of rocks in it, you can easily push a pipe through using water to drill your hole.
Flatten the end of a piece of pipe a bit to make a wider nozzle. Hook a hose to the other end, turn on the water and push it through. Turn it back and forth as you go. Messy, but works well.
You'll need a hole at each end, and maybe a trench to allow the pipe to follow the surface rather than heading for the center of the earth.
Joe H
The local rental yard has a machine that uses the water pressure approach and adds some "push power" - can go ~ 40 feet.
Water jetting works as other have suggested.
Your profile dose not say were you live, but if in a large enough urban area, your local utility (gas) may use pneumatic punches for the same type work. They dig a hole on both side of a road or driveway and punch from one to the other using a compressor and special punching head. We have our own rigs were I work, but I noticed some of our contractors are using the same setups now. You may be able to locate someone in your area that can do it for you.
These things are to neat. With only an entrance and exit hole to excavate, they can go a long way (I've seen 100') without any trenching. Once the punch comes out in the exit hole a plastic gas line or water line is attached to it, and it is reversed to the starting hole, pulling the line with it.
I have put in 1" and 2" PVC conduit under asphalt with them. I just glue up the pipe well before and let the compressor and punch pull it all in for me. Saved a bundle on excavation cost and wear on my old back.
I have know idea what they charge, ( my jobs have have been for the company I work for) but it may be worth investigating. Trenching and backfill cost either subcontracted or by using rental equipment may be about equal. Plus you won't have the expense on grading and seeding yours and your neighbors lawns.
Dave
My utility lines were installed that way (pneumatically) under a neighbor's driveway. I had to provide a small hole on each side, and the 2" pipe. Took all of 45 minutes for 3 penetrations, including setup. Been a few years, but my bill was $150 and they drove almost an hr to get here. It was a deal. The third pipe was a spare, just in case.
Took some calls to find the machine.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Along a totally different line, Is your friend willing to put this permission in writing as a permanent thing? (Probably should be notarized and maybe recorded with the county too.)
I've been involved with a few shared wells/septics and they can be a bitch if the parties later have a falling out.
Don (formerly Hammerlaw)
Unbelievably easy here in sandy South Georgia. I jetted a 2" PVC pipe under the State Highway many years ago, and did 1" under my own driveway a few years back. The tw0-lane road took a few hours, my driveway took about 10 minutes.
I just "rodded" with a water hose, and it washed it's way through.
Greg
My son does irrigation (lawn) and he said the same thing once. Depending on your soil you may undermine the drive a little or maybe even a lot. The pneumatic is much better. He had a boring attachment for his plow to bury flex pipe. Might check with sprinkler installers.
Checking on your profile location in PNW probably no sprinklers needed {:-).
Edited 8/17/2005 8:58 pm ET by rasconc
might also look into telephone/catv contractors , they go under roads, sidwalks driveways all the time
Subsidance is a definite concern. Less so with concrete and its ability to span a void, but with asphalt, you'd want to fill any void, ideally.
That could be down by pressure grouting with a neat cement (cement and water, no sand or aggregate.
Water as described. Then pull conduit. Water jet again, but go half way. Grout it as you extract. Some will squirt in both directions.
Jetting it in works fine so long as you don't hit a rock too big to push aside, or gravel too big to wash out. Those are the cases in which you might undermine and damage the driveway.
Doing this vertically works great for ground rods. A friend of mine has done ground rods as much as 60 ft. deep for TV transmitters this way.
-- J.S.
I remember reading somewhere that this was a bad thing for ground rods. The soil would dry and contract, not providing full contact with the rod. But at 60', there is probably lots of contact.
It turns out that's a myth. The soil settles in nice and tight to the rod. The weight of the soil above crushes the soil below, kinda like trying to dig a trench 40 - 60 ft. deep without shoring. After a few weeks or months, they test about the same as driven rods, by the fall of potential method.
-- J.S.
A friend of mine did the water jet method to run a water line under a private road. Took away way too much material, and a season later the road had quite a sink in it. Didn't do a cave-in, but the sag was noticed and had to be repaired.
See if you can rent a Ditch Witch 255sx pipe and wire plow with a boring attachment and some boring rods. Done in no time.
If the water jet doesn't work, there are two companys borit.com and borzit.com which sell a device which includes a bit and an attachment which spins the pipe that you supply. You need a heavy duty drill like a HF ____ or evil HoleHawg to power it and a hose. About ~$200~$250.
~Peter
Glacial till will be the problem -as other have said, water jetting as described works well in areas where there is less clay and few large rocks. It's the 2"+ rocks that will prevent the jetting. Another solution I have used 40 to 50 times for getting new copper or poly water services in when replacing old ones is a pneumatic hammer - I rented it and the compressor from Nations Rent. Bad part about the hammer is if you hit a rock you can't get around or push it out of the way you have to back the hammer out and try again. On more than one occassion (usually with wet clayey soil) I have had the hammer get stuck and had to dig it out of the street. Another option would be to contact the folks at power mole and see of they have someone in your area with some different equipment. They have some stuff that will just push the rocks out of the way - http://www.powermole.com
They each have a website. They sent me info. They seem pretty similar. Never tried either. Google.
~Peter
Go to your local rental supply center.
See if they rent out the trenching equipment ( up here called Ditch witch )
for underground sprinkler systems.
The tail end has the trenching apparatus... but on the front they have an auger attachment just for those purposes... boring under driveways... sidewalks.. and what have you.
That might work.or maybe not
Good Luck
I have used the "borit" tool to bore under an asphalt drive. I was able to bore a straight hole across the 40 foot drive. I started out at 3 foot deep on one side and found the other side at about 4-1/2 feet. If I had paid more attention to keeping my boring pipe perfectly level I might have had a more level bore. Over all, I was impressed with the simplicity of the design and the ease of use.
What's the "issue"? I had an issue with mine, thought the water level dropped, the pump was fubar, the pressure switch, etc. It turned out that the foot valve and jet body had corroded into corn flakes and so my pump was trying to suck a shower's worth of water through a straw. Plumber yanked the well pipes, replaced the valves that had never been serviced and now my pressure is better than ever. Check these before boring across other peoples' land and into their well. Whats to stop them from cutting your lines if they get irked with you or just feel like it?
My dad had a water main replaced about 35 years ago. What they did was get an "arrowhead" for a 3/4 rigid pipe, and pushed it in, in 4ft pieces, from a hole with a 2x6 and a pipe wrench. When they got to the other end, they just removed the arrowhead and used the rigid pipe as the new water main. Worked quite slick.
locolobo, Edmonton, AB
Sorry to take so long to get back to you. The power supply went out in my computer and I have been off-line. I kept the tool, because it paid for itself with one use.