3m excavation with 1.5t digger

[Southlondonguy100]

Hi all
Is it possible to dig a 3m hole with 1.5t digger? I know they can go down about 2m from ground level but Is there a way of digging out a step in order to dig deeper? Excavation would be in the road so ground conductions are stable.

 

[stevie888]

In principle yes you can but the massive hole you create has to be properly backfilled behind you and the surface reinstated. You're digging in what sort of road: private or public?

Why not just get bigger digger: you might just about get away with 3tonner if it had a long boom/dipper but I'd go to 5 and do the job properly. You will need ground support at 3m: "stable" is a worrisome word in the circumstances.

 

[noseall]

Hi all
Is it possible to dig a 3m hole with 1.5t digger? I know they can go down about 2m from ground level but Is there a way of digging out a step in order to dig deeper? Excavation would be in the road so ground conductions are stable.

We've done about 2.3m (trenches) with a 3 tonn'er. It depends on the excavation and how tough the ground is at depth.

Deeptrench2

• noseall
• 11 Sep 2016

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

By the time you've dug a trench deep and wide enough to sit the smaller machine in, in order to achieve the required depth of excavation, for what it would cost you in additional reinstatement, the bigger machine would be cheaper in the first place I'd say.

Factor in support for the excavation, and you are going to want something able to move the box/sheet piles in and out too, so bigger machine is again required. Assuming you have necessary permissions and qualifications to excavate in the Highway.

 

[JohnAnderson1]

The looking at the specification sheet of this excavator for example, the maximum digging depth is more like 1.5m. So you can probably do it by digging a 1.5m deep hole but longer than you want with a gradient up rather than a step, then digging another 1.5m deep afterwards where you want.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

We dug to about 2.5m here, had all kinds of cave-ins going on. We were just beyond the limit for digging without props.

Presumably someone capable of digging in the road up knows how to do what they're doing?