putting in Conduit under driveway

so in the latest episode of my garage build, I needed to run conduit from the house to the garage for the electrical. I had rented the Mini-Ex (bobcat 331) to do the digging for the plumbing and the electrical trench.

I get the trenches all dug and now it is time to get the conduit under the existing driveway. I prep up the 1" conduit with fittings so that I can attach a garden hose to it. turn on the water and start ramming it under the driveway. Yeah, tough going, I start hitting rocks about 2' in. I had about 12' total. then the fitting blows off, so I start hitting the end of the conduit with the sledge hammer, and then alternate with the water. After hitting myself with the sledge a few times (Dark, wet and miserable), I support the conduit with the excavator and am finally able to tap it to the other side. Of course, then I can't see it on the other side.... more diggin--there was water trickling out on the far side...

I finally find it--it's about 6" to the side of the trench. Then I need to get a couple of 2" conduits and the 1" in.... OK, I have the 1" in, so I hooked a chain to the end that popped thru, then hooked the other end to the bucket and pulled the chain back thru. Now I have a chain in the hole, so now I connected a 2" conduit and brought the 1" with water back around so they can both be dragged back thru... whew, skipping forward thru a lot of tedious details, but I eventually was able to use the mini-ex to pull in 2-2" conduits and 1" conduit..... Yikes! I finally finished up at 1:30am last night (actually this morning). then I was back up to go get diesel fo rthe mini-ex before the rental place came to pick it up......

Now I just have to continue with laying the rest of the conduit.....

let me know if anybody needs to do something like this....I learned a few things and if it can help somebody else.....

BTW--a directional line boring machine would have been much quicker, but cost would have been a bit much (I already had the mini-ex rented to do the plumbing, so this was a bonus...)

Good golly....what a mud pie! Glad you got it in. You can wad up a Wal Mart bag and tape a string to it , and **** it thru the pipe with a shop vac. Most of the time that works better than those spongie things that are made for that task. Good luck.

How'd you attach the conduit to the chain, etc?

That is nuts seeing green grass and you are doing dirt work! We have had snow for a few weeks here and no way you are digging anything in frozen ground with that little machine at this point!

yeah, it was a mud mess. I was covered in mud when I came in....

Here's a few more pics of the side where the conduit was pulled thru. In it you can see how I attached the conduit to the chain.

I wish I had had the special fitting that the pro's use for line boring, but I didn't and Lowes wasn't open at the time of night that I was doing this or I would have bought a couple of fittings to make it easier....

So here's what I did: took the chain and made a small loop so that the hook was connected about 1' from the end. Then I drilled a 3/8" hole about 2-3" back from the end of the conduit. Then I stuck the end of the loop (so the one link end had clearance) and pushed it into the conduit. THen I just put a bolt thru the whole deal and snugged a nut on.

The hook on the chain helped to widen the hole out before the end of the 2" conduit plowed in. I was worried about the end of the bolt snagging, but it did not. I was also concerned about the bolt shearing out of the conduit, but there was no problem there either.

I couple of times, I had to thread the chain into the conduit while it was under the water--I could not see it at all--had to do it blind.....

I've done something similair with a drain pipe under a sidewalk, it sucked!

I have the rest of the conduit run and the inspector signed off on it this morning!!!!

what a fuggin mess. Ive got a buddy who wants to run his gutter drains under his driveway into a small creek and weve been contemplating how to get pipe under it. Thanks for the inspiration

I bet your wife was impressed with your muddy clothes. lol

I hate to state the obvious, but putting "stuff" under existing "stuff" will ALWAYS be a problem.

yeah, the wife says she should get a new washing machine out of the deal...........

Oh yeah, I new this was going to be a "fun" time... I had been thinking it over for a number of months. I could have easily just cut the asphalt (I have a concrete saw) and dug a trench, but I didn't want to have to patch the asphalt and have a big patched area..... that was my plan "B" if the DIY line boring had not been working....