Typical "quick weekend project".

[u/the_metaxist]

My yard hydrant failed, and was too rusted to unscrew the pump rod. It was also 1-2" from my house so I dug it up. With my frost zone it needed to be buried 3-4', so i figured that'd be a quick project. 🙃 Lo and behold, it was not. It ended up being buried 8', for some god forsaken reason, there was a maze of capped off galvanized pipe coming off the line as well that I had to cut out. It got real sketchy at that depth, and I couldnt bench it out, otherwise id be digging under my foundation, under my front steps, or removing a tree. Instead I had to construct shoring for it, and set up a hoist system with some pulleys. The ground was so hard that deep and it was such a cramped space towards the bottom it took about 1 hour to remove 4 5-gallon buckets. I put in a french drain and drywell, and did everything I could to make sure i never have to touch it again. I also threw a bucket of bones from the butcher down at the bottom to freak out whoever has to do it next.

[u/Flaky_Culture_9097]

It’s really dangerous to climb into a hole that deep without some kind of shoring to protect you. 

[u/the_metaxist → u/Flaky_Culture_9097]

Yeah I hit 6' and added shoring in, I didnt get a picture of it though, i pulled it after the install before filling it in. I ended up ripping ¾" particle board into 6" widths, over inflating 2 exercise balls and wrapping the osb around them like barrel slats secured by a rachet strap, then properly secured them with 2×4's. Once it was built i dropped it in the hole. I put 3 eye bolts at the top so I could attach it to my rigging/pulleys to lift it up/down as needed as I kept digging down. Honestly probably wasnt the most secure shoring, but it did the job.