Pro tip: told a plumber in Boise to stop digging, and it saved him $1,200
Was helping a buddy run a trench for a gas line last Tuesday, and his hired guy kept hitting old tree roots with a shovel about 18 inches down. I told him to grab the mini excavator instead of hand digging, and he argued for 10 minutes before giving in. Turned out there was a buried sprinkler manifold right under there, and one wrong swing would have flooded the whole trench. How do you guys decide when to stop digging by hand and bring in the machine?