Pipe & Excavation Contracting

Pipeline contracting can be rewarding work - or a profitable sideline for any excavation contractor. But not everyone who owns a backhoe is ready to start bidding water, sewer and drainage jobs. This practical manual can help you develop the skills needed to succeed as an underground utility contractor.

Getting the Job: Finding work you should bid, dealing with the contracting authority, reading plans and computing quantities (for both trench and surface excavation), figuring realistic crew and equipment productivity rates (cycle times), estimating unit costs, bidding rock work, adding your overhead and profit, keeping the errors out, and getting the bonds you need. A complete sample estimate is included for your reference.

Doing the Work: Following the surveyor's reference stakes, checking grade and line with an optical level, transit and pipe laser, clearing the site, the best ways to remove asphalt and rock (with splitters and explosives) and handle steep slopes or high groundwater (including dewatering). Separate chapters explain how to install all common types of water and sewer pipe.

Using the Equipment: How to choose the right equipment and use it to best advantage: track and wheel backhoes, loaders, dozers, graders, scrapers, trucks, compactors, shoring and trench boxes.

This book is filled with pictures, drawings, charts, checklists and examples to help you build a career as a successful pipeline contractor.

The Author:

Dave Roberts has been in heavy construction for over twenty years. He has worked as a laborer/pipe layer and heavy-equipment operator for several companies, later moving into positions as estimator and superintendent. Now he operates his own heavy construction contracting company, working on projects in the northwestern states.