Comment by alistairSH

3 years ago

A friend did this at his farm in central VA, but for power line instead of fiber. It was previously above ground, unsightly, and occasionally damaged by trees. He dug the trench from the road and had the power company lay the wire in it and make connections at each end. I don't remember the total numbers, but he saved thousands by doing the dig himself (with rented equipment) vs paying the power company to manage it.

Of course, this assume you're comfortable with heavy machinery and can work around other utilities (most counties have a "Miss Utility" service that will mark existing services).

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alistairSH

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bombcar  3 years ago

Yep, depending on the lay of the land doing the grunt work can save thousands or tens of thousands - if you have the company do it they'll almost certainly bring in a crew of 4 or 5 with a underground "hog" machine that's supposed to work perfectly but doesn't actually so the backhoe appears and then they cut into a buried utility line that was marked but backhoes can't read and then you wait for the power company to come out and then they fight over whose fault it was while the freezer slowly drips onto your floor.

Or you can rent a ditch witch and do it yourself and dig by hand near anything remotely marked by the marking crew.