Trenching, Boring & Underground
Site-level underground electrical: feeders to garages and outbuildings, bore shots under driveways, and faulted underground located and repaired.
Getting power across the property without tearing it up
Underground work is how power gets from the house or the building to everything else on the property: a detached garage, a shop, a pole building, a well, a gate, a sign, or a light pole. Robb's Electric trenches and directionally bores that work. Boring matters because it lets a feed pass under a driveway, a sidewalk, a patio, or an established lawn without cutting it open and patching it back afterward.
We also find and fix underground circuits that have already failed. Buried feeders get nicked by landscaping, degraded by water at an old splice, or damaged by a fence post driven years after the fact, and the failure usually shows up as a tripping breaker or a dead building rather than anything visible on the surface. Locating the fault instead of replacing the entire run is most of the value we add.
This is property and site work. Utility-scale distribution and municipal infrastructure is handled by a sister company in our family of companies, and if that is what your project actually needs we will point you there rather than stretching to fit.
Who this is for
Homeowners adding power to a detached garage, shop, pole building, or outbuilding, and anyone whose existing underground feed has quit working. If a bore shot can get under your driveway instead of through it, that is usually the difference between a clean job and a concrete repair invoice.
Commercial and industrial property owners use the same crews for site feeds: light pole circuits, signage, gates and access control, EV charging out in a parking area, and repairs to underground runs on a site with no as-built drawings to work from.
What's included
Locates, the dig or the bore, the conductors, the subpanel at the far end, and the surface put back.
Trenched feeders
Properly sized and rated conductors in conduit or direct burial, at code depth, out to detached garages, shops, outbuildings, and equipment.
Directional boring
Bore shots under driveways, sidewalks, patios, and established landscaping, so the surface above stays exactly as it was.
Fault location and repair
Failed underground runs traced to the fault and repaired or replaced, instead of guessing and digging up the whole route.
Subpanels at the far end
The structure gets a properly fed and grounded subpanel, not an extension cord's worth of circuit borrowed from whatever was closest.
Site lighting and equipment feeds
Circuits out to light poles, signs, gates, wells, pumps, and parking-area EV charging.
Locates, permits, and restoration
Utility locates called, permits pulled, inspections met, and the surface restored the way we found it.
Why Robb's for underground
When the digging and the electrical answer to one contractor, the schedule and the responsibility stay in one place instead of splitting between two.
- Trenching and boring are handled alongside the electrical, so underground and power are one contractor on one schedule.
- We locate faults before we dig, which is usually the difference between a repair and a full replacement.
- Boring keeps driveways, patios, and lawns intact instead of turning a feed into a concrete and sod project.
- The same company handles the panel end, the subpanel end, and the site lighting on the other side of the trench.
FAQ
Trenching, Boring & Underground questions
Still have a question? Call us at (952) 448-4030 and we'll walk you through it.
Yes, and it is one of the most common jobs we do. It starts with a load calculation for what the structure will actually run, then a properly sized feeder trenched or bored out to it, and a subpanel at the far end with the grounding and disconnect a separate structure requires. We call the utility locates, pull the permit, and restore the surface.
Directional boring pushes a steerable bore head underground along a planned path, so conduit can pass beneath a driveway, sidewalk, patio, tree roots, or a finished lawn without opening a trench through it. You want it any time the surface between the two points is expensive or difficult to put back. It is frequently cheaper overall than trenching plus concrete and landscape repair.
With locating and fault-finding equipment rather than a shovel and a theory. We trace the route, narrow the failure to a section, and open only that area. On older sites with no as-built drawings this is effectively the whole job, and it is why we look before quoting rather than giving a flat number over the phone. The look and the estimate are free.
Depth depends on the wiring method, the voltage, the circuit protection, and what sits above it, and code sets different minimums for direct burial cable, PVC conduit, and runs beneath a driveway or slab. We install to the requirement for your specific situation and the inspection confirms it. Burial that is too shallow is one of the most common problems we find in homeowner-installed runs.
Not under this brand. Robb's Electric handles property and site-level underground: feeders, structures, site lighting, and equipment circuits. Utility-scale distribution and municipal infrastructure is what a sister company in our family of companies does, and we will hand you off to them if that is what your project actually calls for.
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Let's get your project done right.
Tell us what you need and someone from Robb's Electric will follow up. Prefer to talk it through? Call the office. Estimates are free either way.
- Free estimates on every job
- Licensed, bonded & insured · EA001548
- Serving the Twin Cities metro since 1964
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- Free estimates, priced before any work starts
- One-year warranty on labor and materials