Erosion Control: Learning the hard way.

We installed erosion controls this weekend to keep all the dirt from washing away and running into the streams and water supply.  Along the driveway we covered the exposed dirt with straw (about 17 bales).  For the home site hillside, which is a gentle slope, we  installed silt fence along the uphill side of the driveway, then up the west side of the clearing to form a "U" or "V" shape to catch anything that's washed down the hill.  Since we really aren't in the rainy season yet, we'll hold off on spreading more straw and get the the basement is excavated.  This was the recommendation of the grader, as the basement excavation would just remove all the straw, and we'd have to do it again. 

To install the silt fence, which needs to be buried about 6 inches, we chose to rent a small loader/trencher (Boxer 320) from Home Depot.  It rents for about $105 for 4 hrs or $150/day.   It's important to note that the one we rented was equipped with a loader, but also had a trencher attachment that we'd need to connect once with got to the property.

I took Friday off, as we had an appointment with Rhonda over at Southland Custom Homes at 1pm to get all our "Red Line" changes into drafting and our contract, and I knew that would take a while.  That meant, we only had about 4 hrs to keep the trencher in order to be able to get cleaned up and over to Southland Custom Homes.   The rental guy ran over how to run it while on the rental clock: choke, throttle, how to steer, how to make it go fast/slow, how to engage the trencher.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Rabbit means fast, turtle means slow.  I got it.   We're on the clock!  We get over to the property, unload the Boxer, unhook the bucket, then attach the trencher and the hydraulic hoses.  Easy enough.  Here it is in all of it's glory:

In our haste, we were not properly informed by the rental guy at Home Depot, that the "Rabbit" only means fast driving speed--NOT fast trenching speed.  Look how slow that thing runs.  We were also hitting rocks and roots.  A root would get jammed about ever 10 minutes and stop the trencher blade.  The trencher "on" lever did not appear to have a reverse, so it took some serious work to get the roots unwedged.

After 3 hrs of slow trenching, we had trenched about 150ft of the 300ft needed.  That's when I accidentally discovered "fast" trenching mode, when I forgot to set the speed to "Rabbit" and left it on "Turtle".   In "Turtle" mode, that trencher really flew!  Sorry, no video of it working properly, but I laid 50 ft of trench in 20 minutes, then we had to pack it up to get it back to Home Depot by noon (our 4 hr cutoff).  I was convinced that they had the stickers installed backwards on the machine.  It all made more sense, when I returned it and a different guy was running the rental desk.  He explained that the wheels are also driven by hydraulic fluid and "Rabbit" mode only meant that the wheels went fast (diverting most of the hydraulic pressure to the wheels for driving, rather than the trencher for trenching.  Not really something you need to know, if you are only using the bucket.  They said they'd cut me a deal on the next day's rental, since they failed to explain this--hey, I'll take it.

The next day (Saturday), we got up bright and early and brought little Max along to help.  Since it was sprinkling and threatening more rain, we went directly to the property, where we already had about 200 ft of trench, to start laying out the silt fence.  After unrolling the 80lb rolls of 100' of DOT approved (lasts longer) silt fence ($38/roll from Robert Hood and Sons off of exit 13 on Hwy 400) and explaining how it needed to be installed, I left Dylan to it, while Max and I went to pick up the trencher.  When I got back, Dylan had almost 100' of silt fence hammered into our hard, compacted ground (remember the 38,000 lb loader?).  He looked pretty worn out, so I gave him a break, and I hammered in the last 2 stakes of that run.  I told him to take a break from hammering and start filling in the trench with dirt, while I trenched the last 100 foot run.  Finish the remaining trenching in about 30 minutes, I left Max to help out and ran the trencher back to Home Depot and get my $30 "discount"...grumble, grumble.  Here's Max setting the silt fence in the trench to get it ready for the hammering.

Dylan's walked about 30 feet and Max already setting the next post:

Max really wanted to give the 3lb mini sledge a try, so we let him:

Here's the wind up:

Perfect connection!

With Dylan on the big sledge, and Max on the mini-sledge, these guys were in perfect sync, like you see in those "Chain Gang" movies, where two guys are hammering the same spike:

Backfilling the silt fence:

All done.  300ft of silt fence: $114.  Trencher could have been $105, but ended up costing me $180 for two days.  20 bales of wheat straw: $90 at Home Depot.  Labor for Dylan: $80, Max: $5.  Total cost: $469.  Not bad, considering $85 stayed in the family.  We'll need some more wheat straw later, but I'm sure it will be less than the $800-1000 estimated to have someone else do it (and that was just an allowance, so overages would apply).  Besides, it feels good to feel like you have a part in building your own home.