Hi, I’m hoping I can get lots of ideas here on how to do various things. Our farm contractor passed away suddenly and his son-in-law is running the equipment. I gather he has lots of experience. He did mention that he’s never run a water line under asphalt. Is there any easy way to do this?
Out of my own curiosity, there are power and gas lines in our pasture. Will the utility company let me know how deep these are or what are the standard contract practices when it comes to these? The lines have been marked by the various utilities.
Is there anything else I need to be concerned about? Thanks in advance for all your help.
We had to get a water line from our house under the attached garage to put a waterline to the barn. What our contractor did was use a tunneling machine which dug from the outside access to the basement wall opening at the house. How deep the line needs to be depends mostly on your climate. The depth is greater here in a northern border state than I would expect you to need in Georgia.
The phone company needed to put in a new line for the region which went across our pasture. They used a special plow and installed at around 3’ depth which I was told is standard. They still want to flag the line whenever we are going to do any digging.
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In TX, it is the law that you have to call 811 and get someone to come mark any lines before you dig anything, anywhere:
You don’t want to dig into some optic cable that will cost you thousands of dollars to have fixed.
Or a gas line that blows all up half a mile around where you hit it.
I would think your contractor knows whatever regulations you have in your state?
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To get under a building, road, river, or other pipelines/infrastructure, you’d use a HDD (horizontal directional drill) also called a boring machine. Those are expensive to bring in, you’d only use if it was impossible to trench, or if you had to go really deep for some reason (for example, there was a giant buried boulder in the path of one of our projects, so we bored underneath it. Since your driveway is just asphalt, I can pretty much guarantee it’s cheaper to just trench right through the driveway and repair the asphalt afterwards.
In my work, we do construction that both involves burying electric lines, and also performing construction around other companies’ existing pipelines. Typically buried gas and electric lines that have been installed by professionals will be at a minimum 36" depth. However, you have zero assurance of that–crews make mistakes, and ground cover changes over the years, leading to lines that are more shallow or more deep than that. So the standard practice is to have the lines marked on the surface. And for any work in the immediate vicinity of the marked line, you have to do some potholes (small test holes to physically locate the pipe/conduit), and then hand dig to fully expose it.
Modern utility installations will generally include marking tape in the trench—a bright nylon tape that’s buried parallel to the pipe, about a foot above it. So if you’re ever digging somewhere and come across a weird tape like that in the ground, that’s a warning that you’re very close to a pipeline.
Get the lines marked for each project-- do not rely on flags from last year, for example. The locating service is free* precisely because no one wants cost to be a disincentive to getting the locates done (*well, it’s not really free-- utilities and companies like mine pay into a fund to finance it).
If you have pipelines in your field, then you have easements that govern that land, and those contracts spell out restrictions on what you can do in the easement area. Generally you can’t build anything there, and any pipeline crossing (putting your own underground utilities across theirs) requires permission. Check your easements and the state laws, pipeline rights vary. There are good reasons for this-- for example, when underground electric is installed near underground gas pipelines or other metallic conduit, something called “induced current” can occur, and it’s very dangerous. Easily prevented by making sure your two pipes cross at 90deg angle or as close to that as possible, but it just requires coordination and advance review of any construction plans.
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my company cut a trunk fiber optic cable that was major route north out of Dallas. Cables were marked by 811 but the company that installed this cable had gone outside the easement by some 75 feet so it was missed. .
Southwestern Bell was trying to charge us $750,000 for the damage.
Ranch owner steps in to confront Bell telling them to remove their cable from His land and back pay him for the use of his land since it was out of the easement. Bell dropped their “charge” and paid the ranch owner for an easement and left everything where it was
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Our plumber who ran water lines in MN used a tunneling device as well to go under our paved drive from the well to the house. Call before you dig is required in every state and you have to call and have every underground line marked by the utilities .
I would think they can/ will tell you how deep they are. Might be the contractor should hire an experienced person to install the water lines to eliminate the possibility of hitting a power or gas line .
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We ran new water lines and it involved tunneling under our asphalt driveway. They had a cool device for that and it worked great.
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Hi @Bluey , You have such great recommendations. Fortunately, in this case, we’ve had the county mark all the lines. I may need to check with them on depth. Thanks!
Need to tunnel, eh? Well, here’s your mule!!! 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kv9x8bAWVM
Here’s your supply point:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Orbit-Walkway-Tunnel-Kit-53333/100127846
Enjoy!!!
G.
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That was neat, will remember it next time we may need to do that!
Hope that may help the OP.
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A bit of a jest, here. 
Reminds me of the old days in CA where “hydraulic mining” was done with large “water monitors” melding away cliff sides was common. This is depicted in the Clint Eastwood flick “Pale Rider.”
This has the potential to leave a pretty good sized hole under the walkway. That might not be a big deal around a house but under a driveway may be a real problem.
I wonder what would happen if you did a “pipe in a pipe” method? If you wanted to run a 2" pipe you set your “nozzle” on a smaller pipe and run it through the 2" pipe. As the water carvesd it’s way through the dirt you push the 2" pipe along. That would limit the size of the hole you’re “drilling.” Maybe somebody with more engineering expertise has an idea.
G.
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My husband used a high pressure water hose attached to a ridged pipe to blast under our concrete driveway (3 car garage) to run a mainline for irrigation directly from the water line from the street instead of going off the house. He then put a pvc sleeve for the mainline pipe in the trench so Incase a repair was needed on the main line it was easy to get to. In regards to depth of existing lines, building codes require minimum depths of gas and electric lines.
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Really fantastic ideas! Thanks everyone - so much! Right now, they’re scheduled to arrive next Wednesday. Hoping everything works out great!
that displaces the sand bedding under the concrete, no such thing under asphalt
.
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