There are times when it’s fine to tackle a job on your own. There are times when you need a whole crew to handle it. And there’s times when there’s something of a middle ground between the two. A good example of this principle can be found with trenches.
Trench shoring refers to a specific part of the trench building process. One first works to create some or all of a trench. The dividing factor there comes in two parts.
One needs to factor in the overall length of a trench. But one also needs to factor in environmental conditions. If the ground isn’t very firm than it can cave in during even fairly small tench building endeavors. This means that one can only secure a very small portion of land before it begins to cave in. Conversely, firm ground should allow for larger trenches. But this all essentially comes down to a single factor coming in at a certain point.
Eventually one will need to compensate for entropy. The walls of any given trench can only stand up to so much. Trenches seldom exist in the wild for good reason. They’re just not very stable in the long run. We can build a trench, but it often takes just as much work to stabilize them. It sometimes even requires more work. But thankfully that’s one of the main points of hydraulics. Powerful hydraulic systems are one of the main and most common components in any Trench Shoring Equipment. Of course, hydraulics themselves don’t come too cheaply.
It’s one of the reasons why one needs to carefully consider the scope of a project. Trenches can be secured with lower cost equipment too. Obviously, trenches were needed long before hydraulics were even invented. But of course, these projects require one of two things. It means that one needs to keep a project on the smaller side. Or it means that one needs to compensate for the lack of hydraulics by adding on manpower. But it takes quite a few people to match up to even fairly lower power hydraulic equipment.
One should carefully consider the cost of using hydraulics or other higher cost items. It can seem somewhat off putting at first. But consider just how much money it costs to hire someone to work for extended periods of time. And then double it, because there’s no way a single person is going to match up to that equipment. And in fact, one should assume that those calculations are going to be off by a few people anyway. Add in overtime, lunch breaks and a host of other factors and the cost begins to build up.
Likewise, the investment in hydraulics for the project suddenly can seem quite a bit lower than one first imagined. In the end it’s important to consider that trench equipment is a thriving business for good reason. It almost always just makes good business sense to make proper use of it. To be sure, one should do the math first. But it’s a rare case where the proper equipment isn’t the proper choice.