Trenching

A trench is a type of excavation in the ground that is generally deeper than it is wide and narrow compared with its length. 

In Hydrovac operations it is a long straight continuous excavation hole in the ground. It is used for line crossings, electrical line installs, areas with congested underground facilities, soil contamination sampling, viewing windows for directional drilling, or simply due to regulations or policies. 

We do “slot trenching” which is a thin trench only the width of the digging wand so that less material has to be removed for the excavation to typically verify that there are no unknown existing underground facilities. 

Some soil conditions do not allow for trenching as they will slough in or crumble as excavated. These situations require one of two things. First is to slope the trench until it stops sloughing or crumbling. There are many regulations & policies both industry standards & government regulations that require different sloping regulations. The second way is to use “shoring” which is as complex as an engineered structure all the way to some plywood against a trench wall so that water doesn’t get workers feet wet.

​

​