We always take two weeks off over Christmas so this will be the last post of a while. The tradition is to pack up early and go down the pub at lunch time. It’s always fun and normally someone has one too many, so stay tuned to hear the gossip in the new year, on second thoughts maybe such tales should stay ‘in house’....
Another working year in over for me, so the only thing left to do is to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Thank you for reading the Mudhound, I will be back in 2012, but now I’m off to the pub!
The last post reminded me of these photographs I took a year or so ago, then the blog was not even thought of. Here are trenchers are laying a drain in the middle of what was to become the A5. As you can see the tarmac is just about to be laid.
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
This is not what we normally do....
As I have said before, we’re drainage contractor but we’re not fussy, if a job comes along which we think we can do, we do it. We spend our time trenching, so perhaps it is not surprising that a client asked us if we could lay a water pipe, the only problem: it had to be laid in the middle of a tiny country lane. After thinking about it we thought we would have a go.
We partnered up with Gammonds, a company which operates rock trenchers, brought in a suitable machine, our client organised the road closures with the council, and we started to trench.
The rock trencher is very similar to the plant we operate, it has a continuous chain and produces an open trench, however it is larger and more powerful. The chain its self is wider and of a different design, the idea is that the rock, or highway in this case, is crushed rather than cut. The pictures below show the machine and the chain and explain it far better than my words.
The picture below shows the trencher, as I took this photo once the machine had stopped working the glass in cab is protected by shutters
Here is the chain
The trench is fitted with a conveyer and the excavated material is lifted and can then be taken away by tractor and trailer. The material is then crushed and used as backfill, rather than removing it from site and bringing in something else.
One problem we had to deal with was the lack of space, nothing can get past the trencher which means the tractors have to back up and down the lane one at time which requires a little co-ordination. Another problem was getting the recycled material back into the trench. When dry, the material ran through the conveyers on our gravel carts, but once wet, it stuck together causing blockages. On wet days we were forced to use modified trailers with plenty of banksmen to guide the operation.
Overall the job was on budget and more importantly, bearing in mind the strict deadlines on the road closures, on time.
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk
Open trench drainage being installed on a dank, misty december day.
www.farmservicesltd.co.uk