I need some education, and would appreciate it here rather than the harder way of figuring it out on my own!

I need to run a water line about 1,000 feet through pretty sandy soil. No rocks at all that I expect.

I can rent a wall behind trench digger for 8 hours of run time for about $200. I'm looking at renting a Vermeer rtx250

Is this going to be a train wreck for using something like this to cover such a distance?
How much distance can you cover with one of those in an hour?

Otherwise, I figure with a shovel, i can be finished by October and probably drop about 40 lbs…
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Better rent a ride on with a blade

Just rented this exact machine a couple weeks ago. I did 300' in about an hour in some really rocky soil in my yard for a new water line I had to run to my barn after the septic company destroyed my previous water line feeding my barn.

I have sugar sand in East Texas Texas. I dug 500 ft using rented ditch digger in less than two hours.
Be sure and pull extra pipe past connection when working with pex and resist filling in until all connections are made!

How much will you be dealing with tree roots? If little to none, a walk behind is probably OK. If you expect a significant amount of roots in the path, I would recommend a ride on Ditch Witch or equivalent. Personally, I would go with a ride on anyway as it just makes the whole process so much easier, especially for that length of trench. It will also be significantly faster than the walk behind.

In my younger years I put in lots of sprinkler system pipes in the rocky and root filled soil in northern San Antonio with a walk behind trencher. It did the job fine.
Ride on is nice if you want to spend the extra $$$ but in your soil and distance either will work.
I'm old now. I like riding stuff.

Trencher should work just fine.

Be sure to put some expansion joints in about every 200' or so.

Backfilling spoils from a walk behind would be a back breaking exercise, do yourself a favor and spend 500 and rent a ride on with a blade for backfilling. 1000' of hand backfilling is like swimming the English channel, you don't realize you aren't gonna make it until after you are too far from shore to turn back.

I am an electrical contractor, we are installing underground utilities all day long. Rent a ride on.

The RTX250 I rented had the back-fill blade attachment. It made pretty quick work of the 300' I trenched. Took maybe a half hour to get the line covered back up.

If he is in the wide open with not lots of tight spaces to maneuver between or around, ride-on is the way to go. If he has some obstacles to go around, this is a very serviceable machine, I was impressed with it. Best walk-behind trencher I've ever used.

We usually have to use ride-on rock saws in the pasture to lay our poly water lines, trenchers usually don't cut it in Tom Green county.

Gunny456 said:

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In my younger years I put in lots of sprinkler system pipes in the rocky and root filled soil in northern San Antonio with a walk behind trencher. It did the job fine.
Ride on is nice if you want to spend the extra $$$ but in your soil and distance either will work.
I'm old now. I like riding stuff.

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We must be kin.

My stepdad had a landscape company and I was more or less slave labor until high school when I started making a staggering $4.00 an hour. I've been behind one of those trenchers/ditch Witches cleaning rocks out of the trenches for what seemed like miles.

OP, I would lay out the pipe ahead of time and when you get enough of a trench started, start putting it together and laying it in the trench. If you have any "cave in" your pipe is already there and you wont have to do it again.

TexAgs Outdoor Board....We lay pipe.

EliteElectric said:

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Backfilling spoils from a walk behind would be a back breaking exercise, do yourself a favor and spend 500 and rent a ride on with a blade for backfilling. 1000' of hand backfilling is like swimming the English channel, you don't realize you aren't gonna make it until after you are too far from shore to turn back.

I am an electrical contractor, we are installing underground utilities all day long. Rent a ride on.

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This man has the experience. The trenching part in sand is going to be cake and it wont take you all that much longer than walking the 1000' at a leisure pace. The backfilling is where it comes time to get kicked in the nuts. This was actually my high school job and we did farm irrigation. You would think with all of the space I would have had other tools than a shovel and a clean out shovel, but maybe that experience is why I ended up renting equipment for a living ha.

I am not sure where you are at in the state, but if whomever is going to rent you the walk behind for $200, that means their ride-on should be around $500-$700. Maybe $450 if you sweet talk them.

For me, double your daily rate and save the doctors visits on your back.

Where are you located? Have a kubota 7200 be glad to let you use

Great advice everyone. Thanks.

For the backfilling part, we'll have a tractor and a skid loader on hand. I'm not exactly sure how we'll use those, but I'm sure we can figure that out.

Good advice from Taco. I'm also in the equipment rental industry and have a tree farm so I do my fair share of irrigation. Over the years we're seeing customers pivot from walk behind trenchers to stand on skid steers with a trencher attachment. This is more so commercial contractors and landscapers. Google the model number Vermeer s925tx or Ditchwitch sk800. The rental will also come with a 42"ish bucket that you can do the backfill and grading. This seems to be the trend lately. Probably costs right between a walk behind trencher and a ride on trencher to rent. I'll guess $400, I can check our actual rates when I get to the office if you want.

Yes sir. I worked two summers while going to school for an irrigation company putting in sprinkler systems like you.
My first lesson was cowboy boots, which was what I always wore since a kid, do not bode well standing in a six inch wide ditch cleaning rocks out.
I felt like I had a major promotion when my boss started letting me run the walk behind trencher instead of cleaning ditches out! I was in high cotton!
Wish I had $1 for every foot of trench I dug with that walk behind trencher…..but it beat doing it with a pick and shovel like we dug every ditch at our old home place cause no way we could afford the luxury of a walk behind trencher.

Oil company here doesn't care about irrigation or water waste. Been like this for weeks. No one will fix it.

chris1515 said:

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Great advice everyone. Thanks.

For the backfilling part, we'll have a tractor and a skid loader on hand. I'm not exactly sure how we'll use those, but I'm sure we can figure that out.

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Then you will be golden. It wont be as fast as having a blade that will rotate and push the tailings in, but if you wanted to save some money, it would definitely get the job done.

Gunny456 said:

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Yes sir. I worked two summers while going to school for an irrigation company putting in sprinkler systems like you.
My first lesson was cowboy boots, which was what I always wore since a kid, do not bode well standing in a six inch wide ditch cleaning rocks out.
I felt like I had a major promotion when my boss started letting me run the walk behind trencher instead of cleaning ditches out! I was in high cotton!
Wish I had $1 for every foot of trench I dug with that walk behind trencher…..but it beat doing it with a pick and shovel like we dug every ditch at our old home place cause no way we could afford the luxury of a walk behind trencher.

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You are not lying, Gunny. The day the normal operator didn't show up and I got to run the trencher instead of a shovel, I thought I had made it. Then that third summer I operated the ride-on and you could have convinced me to keep that job forever, or at least until I figured out how expensive life was.

Gunny456 said:

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Yes sir. I worked two summers while going to school for an irrigation company putting in sprinkler systems like you.
My first lesson was cowboy boots, which was what I always wore since a kid, do not bode well standing in a six inch wide ditch cleaning rocks out.
I felt like I had a major promotion when my boss started letting me run the walk behind trencher instead of cleaning ditches out! I was in high cotton!
Wish I had $1 for every foot of trench I dug with that walk behind trencher…..but it beat doing it with a pick and shovel like we dug every ditch at our old home place cause no way we could afford the luxury of a walk behind trencher.

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Can verify. My boots at the time were Justin Ropers which were cool at the time, but sucked for standing in ditches.

Roger that!!