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Project Offgrid - Days 3-4 - Playing in the Mud

Day 1 left off with about 300 ft of ditches dug in the front yard. This post documents the next couple of days — digging the remaining ~300 ft, running cable, and tunneling under the sidewalk (round 2).

Finishing Trench

Currently- I have ditches dug to the shop, and the front-gate. I still need to dig the trench which will be supporting my solar install.

Trenching machine cutting the trench out to the solar field

Must be nice not having rocks

Oh, I know many are saying this. I can assure you, there are rocks.

This machine, just does not care.

Trenching machine cutting through buried rock

Thankfully, its mostly sandstone.

Sandstone exposed in the trench

Which- this machine gladly converts to sand, and gravel.

Trencher spoil — sandstone reduced to sand and gravel

Solar Ditch Dug

After oh, about an hour or so, I had all 300ft of ditch dug for my solar panels.

Completed 300ft trench out to the solar field

View from the field.

Trench seen from the solar field looking back toward the house

A nasty problem

While digging the ditch, I did manage to skim two of the lateral lines.

Since the top lines were near full..... as it has been raining heavily here.... This did turn my beautiful trench, into a poo-alance...

Trench fouled after skimming a septic lateral line

And, of course, I had to dig up the lateral lines so I can repair them a bit later on... This will happen another day..... using more suitable equipment.

Septic lateral line exposed for repair

Drilling Holes

As we only had this hardware rented for the weekend, I went ahead and used the auger to drill out the holes where the solar racking will be installed.

Augering the post holes for the solar racking

There, isn't a lot to see- the auger makes extremely quick work.... Minus- the part where 9 of the 10 holes, hit rock about a foot and a half down. I will.... be working on this again when I start installing the rack.

Conduit, Cable, and Pipes

Adding Conduit

The next job was pretty simple. Layout the conduit, and start gluing.

Gluing the 1\" PVC conduit joints

There- really is not much to see here. Apply primer to joint. Apply cement to joint. Stick joints together. Twist. Done. Repeat.... 30 more times.

Conduit laid out and glued along the trench

The conduit is just 1-inch schedule 40 PVC.

Did, need to bend the conduit around the corner, where the ditches meet in the yard.

Conduit bent around the corner where two trenches meet

All said and done, I now have 300 or so feet of 1" conduit ran out to the site where the solar racking will be built. The end is capped, for now to keep water out. You can also see four of the holes which were dug.

300ft of 1\" conduit run with the end capped, four post holes visible

While- the electrical & ethernet cable going to the gate, and the shop was already in the ditch- I did also install two runs of PEX-B between the garage and the shop. I will likely use these to run a water connection to the garage, AND.... running compressed air from the shop, to the garage for airing up tires, etc....

Don't worry.... PEX-B is RATED for 160 psi at 73F. It will be cooler than that 18 inches in the dirt. Based on test results- pex-b will usually burst somewhere between 500-1000 psi. My compressor pushes 150psi max. It will be ok.

And, if it does burst, oh well.

All said and done- the ditch now contains....

  1. 2/2/2/4 URD. Good for safely carrying 100 amps out to the shop.
    • Also- the only aluminum cable I used for this entire project.
    • Is rated for direct/wet burial.
  2. 10/4 SOOW.
    • While this is 100% overkill for the gate, The price... was unbeatable (free).
    • This is sun, oil, weather, and water resistant cable, rated for direct burial.
  3. 2x 1/2" PEX-B
    • Two runs of PEX-B between the shop and the house. Will likely be used for compressed air from shop to house, and water from house to shop. Undetermined.
  4. 3x Direct-burial rated cat5e.
    • Again- had a really good price tag.
    • No. Its not going to do 10g. But, it doesn't need to.
    • I did a run to the shop, the gate, and the future solar panels.
    • Network/NVR connectivity to Shop. NVR/Gate Automation for the gate, and Solar/PV monitoring for the field.
  5. Fiber Optic Cable
    • Remember when I cut through my fiber connection? My ISP dropped a new run in my trench for me.
  6. 1" Schedule 40 Conduit.
    • Empty right now. But, will contain the conductors for my solar array, and EGC (Ground).

Tunneling under the sidewalk

If, you recall from the previous post, I had used my pressure washer to "drill" a hole under the sidewalk.

Flooded trench from the previous attempt

BUT.... I did run into a lot of pre-existing tubing under the sidewalk. There is, a 1" water line running parallel down the middle of the sidewalk. There is a 3" pipe, running near the top. So.... it was time to resolve this problem.

I started with, this-

Half-dug sidewalk tunnel with cable partially pulled through

That is, a half-dug hole, with about half of the cable ready to go through.

New Pressure Washer

In addition- the pressure washer I was using, decided to kick the bucket. Upon investigation, it had also vibrated out all of the engine mounting bolts... and- it was pretty old anyways.

I'll eventually salvage its remaining components. BUT, since I wanted a more powerful washer anyways, I decided to go visit lowes, and pick up a new Simpson PS61371, which is a 4000 PSI, 3.5GPM washer.

I WAS hoping to instead pick up a Simpson PS608321, which is a 4400 PSI / 4GPM washer, however, they were out of stock, and I was on a tight schedule due to the ISP already being at my house installing the new fiber run.

And.... since I really did not want to get my new pressure washer dirty.... I used this Harbor Freight Pressure Washer Quick Connect Set to connect the old hose / wand to the new pressure washer.

Sidewalk Tunneling

The new pressure washer was able to completely blast out the hole.... in about 5 minutes.

Sidewalk tunnel fully blasted out with the new pressure washer

And, daylight was easily visible.

Daylight visible through the sidewalk tunnel

Since the pressure washer, uses.... water... Inevitably, the ditch will fill up with mud.

Trench filling with mud during pressure-washer tunneling

I used a sump pump to pump the mud slurry out into the yard.

Sump pump clearing mud slurry from the trench

And....... after a while, I had most of the cable ran under the sidewalk, avoiding the multiple pieces of 3" PVC running both ways.

Cable and conduit pulled under the sidewalk past the existing PVC

SPEAKING of PVC.... I needed to dig out the flowerbed more to properly locate, and bury the conduit and cable coming in..... And, I found....

Unused buried PVC conduit with an open 90 found in the flowerbed

This piece of conduit, with an open 90. After digging around it, making sure it was not connected elsewhere, I eventually cut it off using my sawzall and found, it was unused and full of dirt.

Old PVC after cutting it open — full of dirt and unused

Would have been handy to know there was a piece of unused PVC already in place!!!!!!!!!!

But, regardless, with the end cut out of the way, I did get all of the conduit and cable ran into the flowerbed area. I did put a few hundred pounds of sand here to assist with drainage.

Conduit and cable buried in the flowerbed with sand for drainage

Also- visible- is the new fiber termination. I added a piece of conduit to the side of the house to help secure it, and prevent the fiber from being accidentally snagged/cut/etc...

As- I will be adding dirt/concrete/etc back under the sidewalk to help support it, Everything running under the sidewalk is encased in pipe/conduit.

Again, I added some sand here, to also slightly help with drainage.

New fiber-optic termination at the house

That being said- I am ready to start terminating cable at the house.

The water leak!

If you do recall in the previous post, one of the many things I cut in half, was a water line, which runs to my shop (with no water, that I know of).

The shop water line that was cut while trenching

I did- repair the pipe using a piece of standard 1" PVC and a few couplings.

HOWEVER..... as soon as I applied pressure, I discovered it was also leaking upstream of the repair, AND downstream of the repair in a location still buried.

Water still leaking upstream and downstream of the patched section

As, I really needed to get the pipe re-pressurized to fill the pool back up, For the time being, I cut off the affected section upstream, and capped the pipe. I will be repairing this again, sometime later this week when the rain dies down..... Along with repairing the laterals I nicked.

Next Steps

Thankfully, the majority of the important work outside is done. All of the cable has been ran.

I did quite a bit of work over the weekend for a reason!

The weather is not going to be very... helpful for the next few days.

Weather forecast showing rain and unfavorable conditions for the next few days

Thankfully- from here on out- MOST of the work will be in the garage, which should be one of the interesting parts of this build.

I have been doing quite a bit of planning- I intend on the install being extremely appealing to the eye. I might even toss in some PLCs.... for the fun of it.

Related... there is also, a very interesting shipment on the way here.... which should make the remaining trenching work, much much easier....

Incoming equipment that should make the remaining trenching much easier

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