Hello everyone, I'm about to install a large outdoor system. Theres going to be a total of 18 speakers. 4speakers around a swiming pool, 2speakers in a gazebo, 2 speakers on the deck and 5pairs along a 300ft fence.

It will require about 300ft of trenching not to mention DIGGING under 5 sidewalks.

I'll be using PVC, because theres always alot landscaping and digging going on.

the outdoor system will be power by and amp tied into the house system.

The system has already been designed and priced. I'm just not sure what to charge for labor.

First, price the biggest Ditch-Witch trencher from your local rental store, then add the labor you think it will take to run it, and set your conduit. Also, make sure you add the labor involved to have your salesman, installer, engineer, whatever, there WHILE the underground locates are being done so THEY (you r representative) can guide the locate guy to WHERE you want to bury all this stuff.

In CO anyway, if you dig, even with a shovel, and hit anything from the utilities, you are responsible for the entore repair bill AND can be fined up to 100K...so

good luck...

i usually pass the ditch work to the customers gardner. 1) The gardner is a lot cheaper and I still make money laying conduit. The difference for my labor billing compared to the gardner for the same work will often be perceived as avarice whether right or wrong. 2)The gardner usually knows where the sprinkler pipe is and if he doesn't let him cut the line instead of me

Listen...A ditch witch will destroy the grass, and make a mess that will take hours to clean up.
A ditch witch is designed for electrical use where you want to be 16 or more inches deep. Not to mention a ditch witch will chew up the irrigation piping, and take hours to repair.
I do alot of exterior systems very similar to what you described. I hire a irrigation contractor to run the conduits. They use a vermeer machine that slices the ground and at the same time, buries a 3/4 inch irrigation conduit. It does minimal damage to the landscape, and the irrigation contractor has ALOT of experience in blowing lines under walkways, and he will steer clear of the existing irrigation piping already in the ground. After you plot out your locations, pull direct burial to your speaker locations. I install an electrical underground "access lid" near the house, and all the conduits run to there. From there, I run PVC into the house.( USE 12 GUAGE SPEAKER CABLE )
If the runs are more than 200 feet from the house, try to locate the exterior AMP in the pool house or gazebo and then run balanced line from the system at the house to the amp at the pool house or gazebo. This will make things ALOT easier.
Hiring the Irrigation contractor is not expensive, and your employees will thank you for not making them "trench monkees" for a few days.

I wasn't suggesting using a ditch-witch, or any trencher, for anything other than pricing....he asked how to price it, that was one suggestion...

I agree with Shoe. There is plenty of money to be made on the project w/o having to play landscaper for a day. We never dig, it's a waste of the clients money and we can be more productive doing the tech work we really love.