Hi Doobin,
The trencher was hired from FTH hire, they have a depot in Guildford. Sure it was around £350 for the week - cost nearly the same again in bloody petrol! Speak to my mate Jonathon Hawkins who is depot manager at Farnham, he will sort you out with a decent price. Tell him I sent you.
The trencher was good and simple enough to use, it suffered from lack of weight to be honest and if it hit a flint, it tended to drag itself forward until it finally got the obstacle out. There didn't seem to be anything it couldn't dig through, and I pulled some monster flints out with it (not in the sports pitch bit in my photo but in the rougher dig areas). Obviously the deeper you go, the slower at digging it is but I would say you should get 100m/ day out of it from what you describe. In sand/ softer ground it would romp along!
Personally, if you can make a mess, a 5t excavator would probably be my choice of machine to price in. Narrow bucket, enough power and a nice warm cab. Standing by that trencher all day did become a bit dull. But it made a very neat job and that was more of a priority for me. To be honest knowing me, I would price for a bigger machine, based on 100m digging a day and have a hack at it with my 2.7t and see how she gets on. You own it, even if it takes half a day longer than you allow you would still be £££'s in and with some teeth on a nice narrow bucket, I don't think you would be that far behind the bigger machine. Or hire a bloke with a 3cx? Perfect sort of work for it and you don't have to even do the job!
The reinstatement part of mine became a ball ache mainly due to all the rain we had in October. I had to compact the soil in the sports pitch, but the trench rammer kept sinking in the wet clay rather than compacting it. And the mud stuck to the grass rather than brushing it off like it should have done. I actually achieved a pretty decent result in the end and only had a couple of patches that sunk, which I topped up when I was last there. Also, you forget that you are working over such a large area that whatever you need will no doubt be at the other end of the trench, so I miscalculated the time spent walking to and from various items of kit! They want me back in the summer to do another irrigation install so it cant have been too bad!
And
@V8Druid I used a turf cutter and just rolled the sods up. Good bit of kit and they went back down very nicely too.
Or use one of these and have it done in about 20 mins!
