Underground Construction - May 2021 - 23

Track Trenching for Water
Infrastructure Projects
" If it involves digging dirt, we do it, " is the
way Dakota Lunsford responds when asked
what his company, C.H.M. Construction
LLC, does. Right now, in Parker County,
Texas, outside of Ft. Worth, that's an
excellent business to be in. Communities
like Azle and Weatherford are in the middle
of a housing development boom. Builders
can't construct homes fast enough. Before
the first board is framed, underground
infrastructure must be installed, which
happens to involve digging dirt - C.H.M.
Construction's specialty.
The business was established by
Lunsford's dad in 1998, under the name
Lunsford Backhoe Service, when digging
dirt used to mean burying sewer septic
systems. Since Dakota took over the
Springtown, Texas-based business 13 years
ago, he rebranded C.H.M. Construction
after the names of his wife and two oldest
daughters, and expanded its service depth
to include water, sewer, storm drainage,
fiber and telecommunications.
He also invested in equipment to do
all the extra work. C.H.M. Construction's
fleet today includes a Vermeer T555
Commander 3 trencher for water and
sewer work, a Vermeer D24x40 Series
II Navigator horizontal directional drill
(HDD) for fiber and telecommunications
jobs, several backhoes, multiple mini
excavators and a couple of dozers.
Lunsford says being versatile is the key
to his company's growth.
" We do a good job of shifting our focus
with the changing volumes of work out
there, " he said. " For the last year and a half,
the area's hot housing market is what's
pushing us. Even though I say, 'if it involves
dirt, we can do it,' around the Parker County
area, much of the new development involves
a lot of rock. To do water installs right in
those types of conditions takes a special machine that delivers the optimal production,
while keeping our costs in check. "
The machine Lunsford refers to is the
Vermeer T755 Commander 3 trencher
that he rented for the first time in 2019
from Vermeer Texas-Louisiana. " We were
working on a mainline water installation

project in Azle, Texas, and we weren't
keeping up the way I would have liked to, "
explained Lunsford. " So, I got on the phone
to my sales representative and asked what
he had that could help us get more footage
installed faster. We talked about the kind
of rock we were working in, and he told me
the T755III could handle it. "
Skeptical about whether it would be
able to power through the dense rock, the
C.H.M. Construction crew put the rented
trencher to work.
" That part of Parker County has some
of the hardest rock we've ever worked in,
and we were working on a hill, " explained
Lunsford. " Well, when we fired up the
trencher, we may have started slowly, but
once we crested the hill, we were moving
about 15 feet per minute. That's about as
fast as you want to go if you want the rest
of the team to keep up with that machine.
From there, we averaged out at about 1,100
feet of trenching and installs a day. It kept
everyone's head down working. "

New job, same solution

At the start of this year, C.H.M. Construction
started a month-long project in the same

part of Parker County, laying 20,000 feet of
8-, 6-, 4-, 2- and 1-inch PVC pipe at depths
of 6 feet (1.8 m). Based on its experience the
summer before, C.H.M. Construction rented
the same machine again.
" Even though we own a smaller trencher
and have several excavators, the 8-foot
boom made the most sense for this project, "
said Lunsford. " There were some areas on
the job where we had cut deeper or required
a wider ditch than our trencher was set up
to do. Also, excavators would have made a
heck of a mess. We would have had to bring
in a lot more fill material and haul away the
chunky rock we dug up. "
The crew used the material coming from
its conveyor belt as fill. " After the trench
is cut, we add 6 to 8 inches of sand to the
bottom of the ditch, " he said. " We place the
pipe in the ground and then cover it with
another 8 to 12 inches of sand. After that,
the rest of the trench is filled in with the
material left by the trencher with a dozer.
Anything left over is fanned out. We don't
have to haul away any of it. "
Daily, the 14-person crew working on
this water project averaged between 1,500
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