Cable trenching — operated hireBury the cable properly instead of slitting the lawn with a spade.
Trenching for low-voltage lighting, irrigation and service cable — clean line, backfilled behind, locates cleared first.
Sheet A-513Trencher
Spring through fall, frost-limited.
- Overall widthTo confirmNot published — we measure it against your access before we book.
- Overall heightTo confirmNot published — we measure it against your access before we book.
- Operating weight5,685lb· 2,579 kgWhat it puts on a finished lawn. Soft ground, a septic bed or new sod is a conversation before we book, not after.
- Rated lift capacity1,500lb· 680 kgWhat the arms lift at the plate. The dump box behind carries 2,000 lb again.
Figures published by Bobcat for the Toolcat 5600. Width and height are measured against your own access before we commit to a date.
Sheet A-513 — The work
Cable trenching
Every low-voltage lighting run and every irrigation line has to get from the transformer to the far end of the property somehow. A trencher cuts a clean, consistent line at a consistent depth, the spoil sits beside the cut ready to go back, and the lawn recovers in a week instead of a season. This is the highest-consequence dig we do, which is why it never starts before locates are cleared: a struck gas or fibre line is a dangerous day and an extremely expensive one.
Who buys this
- Landscape lighting and irrigation installers
- Homeowners adding lighting, a pump line or a service run
- Contractors who need one clean trench and no crew day lost to it
Sequence on site — in order
- Locates filed and cleared. Nothing turns before they are.
- Route walked and marked with you — around root zones, not through them.
- Trench cut to the depth the cable or line calls for.
- Cable or conduit laid, then backfilled and firmed behind.
- Surface put back and the route swept clean.
What cable trenching costs
Sheet A-513 — Operated hire — the machine with an operator
What a trenching visit costs
Quoted per job
Operator included
You are hiring the machine with him on it. He runs it, it stays on his insurance, and nothing about the work transfers to you.
- Operator
- Included
- You are buying hours of work with him running the machine. Nothing is released to you and no liability transfers.
- Minimum charge
- Stated with your date
- Every hire has one. You see the figure when we confirm the date — never after the work.
- Float — machine to site and back
- Charged separately
- Mobilisation is its own line, not something buried in the hourly rate. Georgian Bay and Muskoka distances are real and we would rather show them than hide them.
- Attachment changes on site
- No second visit
- The quick-attach is the point of this machine: augering, grading and hauling can all happen on the same visit.
- Locates
- 5 business days
- The statutory lead time sets the earliest start date.
- Backfill and make good
- Part of the run
- A trench is not finished when it is cut. It is finished when the surface is back.
Before we roll
- Access measured — the narrowest gate, gap or lane the machine has to pass.
- Ground condition agreed — lawn, septic bed, new sod and soft spring ground are settled before the day, not discovered on it.
- Somewhere for the spoil — off site, stockpiled, or spread. It has to go somewhere.
- Locates cleared where anything is being dug (Ontario One Call — five business days).
HST shown as its own line. Price honoured as quoted.
Book the machine
Tell us the site and roughly what needs doing. We reply with a date and what it will take — hours, minimum and float shown before you commit.
No obligation — we reply within one business day.
How it is sold
By the hour, with a minimum and the float shown separately.
Length, depth and what the route crosses decide it. Rock near the surface is the one that changes a plan.
Also part of — Lighting
We already design and install landscape lighting, which means we are already burying cable. One visit sells the design and the trench together.
Sheet A-513 — Typical job
What a typical run looks like
- A lighting run from the house transformer out to a dock or a treed path.
- Locates cleared the week before, route agreed on site the morning of.
- Cut, laid and backfilled in one visit.
- On a lighting job we design, the trench and the fixtures are one quote, not two visits.
The machine is new to the business this season, so there are no record photographs filed against it yet. We photograph work as jobs wrap up — the rest of the book is open.
Before we can book it — 05 questions
- A-513.01Route
- Where the line starts, where it ends, and what it has to get around.
- A-513.02Locates
- Cleared before we cut. Ontario One Call, five business days — this is the dig that makes it non-negotiable.
- A-513.03Depth
- Set by what is in the trench: low-voltage lighting, irrigation and service cable are not the same depth.
- A-513.04Surface
- Lawn, bed, gravel or shield rock. Shallow rock stops a trencher and changes the route.
- A-513.05Who lays the cable
- Ours, yours, or your electrician's — say which and we schedule around it.
Anything that goes into the ground needs locates first. Ontario One Call gives the locators five business days, so a dig booked on Monday is not a dig that happens on Tuesday. We file the request; you do not have to.
Sheet A-590 — Book the machine
Get trenching booked.
Tell us the site and roughly what needs doing. We reply with a date and what it will take — hours, minimum and float shown before you commit.
No obligation — we reply within one business day.