by Dan Empfield
9.30.02 (www.slowtwitch.com)
Projects competing for my time brought my Endless Pool project to a screeching halt, but three weeks later I'm back at it, having just trenched from my garage to the poolsite. My garage/workshop is about a hundred feet from where the pool sits, and I've got to run electrical wiring between the two.
When I bought this house it had an old electrical sub-panel that served only about 70 amps of electricity, and I had it replaced with a new 125-amp panel that would incorporate the new pool requirements. That cost me about $300, half of which was for the panel and new circuit breakers, the other half for labor to have it installed.
It is likely to cost much less for most people, because more modern houses already have capacity in their electrical panels for the extra pair of 220-volt, and single 110-volt, circuit breakers that the pool hardware requires. Furthermore, your pool would require less electrical capacity if you choose a gas heater, but my pool is electric through and through.
Our county code requires underground electrical wiring to be submerged 18 inches and for that depth, and for the distance I needed to travel, it was simply not an option to trench by hand. What you need for this operation is a trencher. There are two kinds: the bigger machines atop which you sit, driving it like a backhoe, and the smaller "walk behind." All you need is the latter.
I called around, and my calls included those to trencher manufacturers. One name kept popping up: Ditch Witch. Even one maker of trenchers said, "For what you need, our machine isn't suitable. Get yourself a Ditch Witch."
You don't have to buy your Ditch Witch (the model I used costs about $8000), you can rent it. I trenched with a model 1230 (which I'm standing behind, with the pool frame behind me), and while it's termed a "walk behind" it would actually be more aptly called a "walk in front of." It rather looks like a very large chain saw, with a bar and a chain that operates more or less the same way, but at a much slower chain speed. You properly trench with the machine in reverse, and you go first, slowly walking backward with the machine following.
For the man who has everything, a trencher like this one is a must. It is simply one of the most fun tools to play with, and it's easy to operate. After a 5-minute lesson I was trenching. I enjoyed my trenching because, like a dog, I get a primal thrill from digging holes. I only have to cook up the meagerest of excuses before embarking on another trench. Like Dali's drooping clocks all over his landscape, after two days with the Ditch Witch 1230 I've got trenches criss-crossing my property, on the flats and cresting hills, all of which threaten to trip up my dogs and my wife. I've got deep trenches and shallow ones, trenches for projects on which I may or may not ever embark. Each of these trenches has a purpose, whether I need it or not.
Not to be shut out of the fun, Monty (pictured above) trenched as well. He would've hogged the Ditch Witch if I'd let him. You might be able to make out our trench to the pool in the photo adjacent. The pool walls are barely visible just over the berm, with the Ditch Witch just visible to the left of the picture, at the bottom of the hill.
Like some of you, the Ditch Witch doesn't climb steep hills well. I had to drive it around to the top of the hill and trench down. Altogether, the trenching took about four or five hours, with the rest of our time spent trenching for fun.
The going rate for renting these things seems to be about $150 per day. They're fairly heavy—several hundred pounds—and the rental yard will tell you you need a trailer (which they'll supply), and that you can't load it into a pickup. That's not entirely true, I discovered. As it turns out, on my regular route between the old Empfield compound in San Diego and the new one in Valyermo, I pass by Ditch Witch of Southern California.
This operation is owned by one Paul Rogers, and I dropped by to look at all the models. This Ditch Witch locale is in Corona, California, at the intersection of the #91 and #15 freeways. I noticed "my" model of Ditch Witch being loaded onto a standard pickup truck with the use of two lightweight aluminum rails which, when hung from the back of the pickup's liftgate, serve as tracks on which you can "drive" the Ditch Witch in and out of the truck's bed.
While you may not technically need to buy or rent a Ditch Witch for your Endless Pool installation, it would not be a bad idea to rent one for a day anyway, if you admire power tools as much as I do.
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