Comment by bob1029
4 days ago
I was observing an army of 20-25 men struggle to resolve a broken main the other day. They had to bring out a gigantic vac truck to pull the water out of the work pit fast enough to get back in there.
If you offered them the use of your robot, you would probably be at risk of bodily harm.
Also, fun fact about Boston (MA?) construction laws. Per block, a crew is only allowed two steel plates...
In the past year, the gas line and water main on my street has been replaced. Which has resulted in 6 excavations of the street at excruciatingly slow and loud pace with the vac truck. They excavate once to transfer each finger connection (to the houses) and attach the feeder to a temporary pipe, refilling their progress each day. Once a segment (about a city block or two) been transferred to the temporary line, they excavate again to remove the old line, refilling each day. Finally they lay the new line and connect the finger lines to it.
If you can only cover two steel plates worth of trench overnight, there isn't a chance for the gas team to coordinate with the water team.
With better laws this would have taken a 1/3rd of the excavation, possibly a 1/6th of the excavation. Since excavation and refilling were most of the work in any day, this should also have led to the same cost decrease.
I don't know the exact law or regulation, but I have heard about it from multiple sources, and do intend to being it up with city council.
There might be "reasons" it's like that (more hours=more money) and Fat Tony will not appreciate you bringing it up to city council.
The giant vac truck generally is for safe digging around other unknown utilities. Sometimes this is combined with a water jet that loosens soil, and the vac sucks up the soil and water.
If they wanted to just drain an excavation, they would use a regular trash pump (capable of handling solids/sand) and run the discharge hose to a nearby stormdrain.
Why?
I'm struggling to follow that too. Maybe because they're all getting paid?