Bringing Natural Gas to the New House

When we dropped by the house this morning, they were digging the trench to put in natural gas line.

They had to go quite a ways down the block to where the gas line ended and dig a trench.

They had to move everything in their way, mail boxes, big rocks…

When they got to a driveway, they went under it with this. It is a Pneumatic Mole. It is also called a Ground Piercing Mole. And that is exactly what it does.

They hooked it up to a hose going to a giant compressor. There is a heavy weight in it.

It works like a cylinder and piston. The piston is a heavy weight inside the cylinder tube. Air is blown against the weight or piston to hammer against the pointy front of the cylinder tube to make the mole inch forward underground.

The Pneumatic Mole pulls this cable along.

We could hear it reach the other side. This guy dug to reach it because it had not exactly gone straight.

Here he is pulling the Pneumatic Mole out of the trench.

This is a good shot of what the Pneumatic Mole looks like.

This is the hole it dug and the cable out the other side.

Before they put the pipe in the trench, they compacted the soil.

This is a Wacker Neuson 2 Stroke Rammer. It is “Specifically designed for use in soil compaction in narrow trenches.”

Wacker Neuson Rammers

Industry-leading performance:

• High ramming frequency, strong stroke, high impact energy, fast travel speed
• Slim design for compaction jobs in narrow trenches

So, here is one end of the new pipe before they connected it.
Gas never came this far before. See the tank?

I was surprised to see that they are using plastic pipe. The house we are in now has metal pipe and we are only blocks away.  I googled. Plastic pipe is used now anywhere there is less than 100 pounds of pressure. Plastic pipe is flexible, corrosion-resistant, easy to transport and costs less to install.

Here they are melting the pipe to a smaller pipe to drag it under the road.

Here they are pulling the new pipe through the hole under the driveway with the cable.

The cable in the trench.

This is a closeup of the heavy duty switch between the compressor and the Pneumatic Mole.

This is the compressor. It is a Kaeser M50 Mobile Air Heavy Duty Compressor.

Look at all of the gauges and warnings on this thing!

They connected our smaller pipe to the main pipe, then went under the road with it. Our line is called a service line.

They cut two square holes in the pavement of Comet. Then they poked down to be sure exactly where the water lines and sewer lines were so they didn’t hit them.

The water and sewer were marked, but they had to know how deep so they could go over or under them.

And here is our pipe coming out from under the road.

This is the trench that ends at our house.

He is making the connection.

They got it to our house. Another crew will come put in our meter.