The 3rd most expensive hole we will dig . . .

Last week we dug a really long trench - approx 125mt.  Actually our electrician did the digging, I watched and took photos :) 

Our #1 most expensive 'hole' is for the house, #2 is for our water tanks & hstp, and this is #3... water, power & phone.  It's really strange to dig a trench, lay some cables, fill it in, and pay thousands for it.  It's like pouring money into a hole.  Except it will actually do something for our home.

It was a lot of fun to watch and really exciting that FINALLY something is happening!

Our trench

Our neighbours had a lot of rock on their site, one is almost as tall as me and several times wider!  Fortunately for us, there was only a few small rocks in our dig, only about 2' wide.  The excavator got them out no problems.  Yay, because big rocks = more cost.

He did the electrical next door, and because of his experience there, he thought it would take a day or two to dig the trench.  He started Wednesday afternoon expecting to to lay the cables late Thursday, with plumber & phone line men coming Friday.  Turned out the trench was done in a couple of hours, and the cables all in by sunset Wednesday!  I was really impressed.  He was so fast and I wish we were paying by the hour :)  The plumber and phone guys were really flexible and came a day early, at very short notice.  By early afternoon Thursday, it was all done!

The 3 phase cables were laid our along the driveway before they went in the trench.

The cables get covered in conduit to protect them.  This gets fed over the cables - the electricians made a
lot of trips up and down our driveway!  They should pay ME for the workout :)

Conduit getting fed over the cables

The lengths of conduit are joined together

Once we're hooked in to this... we'll have power!

Once the power cables are laid, the trench is half filled in and a bright tape is laid down to alert anyone digging that there are power lines below.  The pipe on the left of the tape is a poly pipe in conduit we've put in for future connection to town water.  We may not connect for some time (or not ever if we get enough rain), but we don't want to dig another trench if we do decide to connect in.

We also had the phone line put in - the skinny cable on the left. 

The phone cable is fed through to the Telstra pit.  The line installers will come back at rough in and again at completion to connect up the phone.  It's a 10 pair cable direct buried because of the distance it has to run.  10 pair means there are 10 pairs of cables (normally 2) protected by a copper casing, so if one phone line is damaged there are more that can be used.  Well that's what I understand from the installers :)

 And then it's all buried!

Extra length of power cable, phone line & water pipe were left away from the house pad and out
of the way until required.  About another 10m of trench will be dug to take the power
and phone to the house.  The water pipe will go to the water tanks.

The excavator makes a bit of a mess of the driveway.  But I'm sure there's more to come of that!