Marking and Digging Irrigation System Trenches

Making and Digging Trenches Once you've completed laying out your heads, you're going to want to mark out where you're trenching will be. So right here we've got it marked out with orange paint. And usually when we need double pipe, we mark out two lines. And then when we need a single pipe, we mark out one, so we know if the trench needs to be a little deeper or a little wider in one area or another. And then just mark your corners to cut where your heads are going to go to. So now that we're ready to trench, you want to make sure that you have a proper piece of trenching equipment. In this case, we're using a mini skid steer with a trench attachment. Now in different frosts zones we're going to have different depths that we need to achieve. In the zone that we are in, which is Zone 7, our frost zone doesn’t get below six inches. So you need to check your codes and your laws for your area to where you need to be, as far as depths. So we're going to achieve about a 10-inch depth for this case, just to make sure we're deep enough. In more northern climates, sometimes it’s a two-foot depth. So once you get your trenches laid out where they need to go, you just trench them out and then hand-clean them with your trench shovels to get ready to lay your pipe down in the trenches.