New Gas Installation - Digging trenches

chem14346777

My girlfriend and I have just bought our first house, and one of the first jobs we would like to do is get GSH installed in the property.

However, there is no Gas piped to the house. I have had a quote for this, and am told that it will be £450, or £199 if I dig my own trench.

I have requested more details on this (under the premise that if someone offered me £250 to dig a trench, I'd say yes), and have been advised that it needs to be 18" deep, 12" wide, and if it is back filled I need to install yellow perforated ducting, in a straight line, with no kinks and a draw string at both ends.

As I've always lived in rented accomodation until now, I'm not the most DIY-minded person, but am willing to get my hands dirty if it means I'll save a few bob.

Can anyone offer any opinions or handy links before I go ahead with this, whats the deal with the draw string's on the ducting, and is backfilling necessary?

Thanks in advance.

Lemoncurd

Don't know the details on the ducting (how about asking in a DIY store?) but we had to dig a trench acroos our back garden to lay an electrical cable.
The distance was about 30ft. OH and my dad who is used to manual labour tried doing it by hand to start with but didn't get anywhere after 1/2 a days work so OH then hired a mini digger (£112) did as much as he could but that still took a day and there were some bits he just couldn't get through. Was advised to hire a h-breaker to get through some concrete and buried walls (£40) another days work for both OH and my dad and eventually we had a big enough trench!! In hindsight if someone had said they would do it for £250 we would have jumped at the chance!

chem14346777

*gulp!*

thanks for your reply, but does anyone have any more positive, inspiring advise?

the trench will be about 5m long, and I'll have about 3 weeks to do it, I was thinking if I offer a few friends beer and curry, hopefully many hands will make lighter work...

caveat_emptor

chem14346777 wrote:

*gulp!*

thanks for your reply, but does anyone have any more positive, inspiring advise?

the trench will be about 5m long, and I'll have about 3 weeks to do it, I was thinking if I offer a few friends beer and curry, hopefully many hands will make lighter work...

I dug a similar trench, but about 3m long when I had the mains water pipe burst under my garage floor. Not being a navvy it was hard work and took about a day. Backfilling is the process of refilling the trench after the pipe has been laid.
A neighbour had the same problem under his garden and used a digger.

coolagarry

I've dug lots of trenches and it's not a problem. The mates and a curry sounds like the right idea. The problem comes with digging through tarmac, concrete etc... grass and soil is a piece of cake. I recommend a shovel. a spade and a pickaxe.(you can probably borrow most of that)
These may help with the ducting http://www.europipes.co.uk/duct.htm

neil4842

hi mate i work for national grid gas and dig these trenches everyday you would be best leaving the trench open to save the ducting its not hard to do in the grass.

Nile

Hello neil4842


Welcome to the MSE site.:wave:

chem14346777

Hey all, thanks for the replies, I appreciate all your help.

I'll chack your link coolagarry,

Neil4842 -- by this, do you mean leave the trench open, just have them lay the pipe and throw all the soil back in after?

do I not need to do anything to protect the pipe, or will it be OK?

I thought the ducting would be necessary for any future digging anyone may do, but if this is not the case, then thats great.

thanks again.

neil4842

we never put a duck in just make sure that you cover it with some sand or soft soil so that the pipe doesn't get pierced

chem14346777

gotcha, thats what I thought originally, thankyou!