My farm construction business is growing, recommendations on equipment?

   / My farm construction business is growing, recommendations on equipment?
  • Thread Starter
#21  
Just say no. A tractor fel is just not built for digging, it's for chores and loading, a big difference....

I fully realize this, hence the heavy duty box blade. We have a 7' Gannon (non hydrualic) that we use behind the larger tractors on the farm and it moves quite a bit of soil. I've just never used it for the kind of work I'm describing so not sure how it would preform for making building pads.

On the same token, I've used a skid steer for some cut/fill leveling on a small building site (about 30x30) but never on a large one where you have to move soil a ways. Anyone use either a standard size skid steer or a tractor/large box blade for leveling larger building sites, say for a 40x100 shed, about 3' fill?
 
   / My farm construction business is growing, recommendations on equipment? #22  
Try to find a used John Deere tractor with loader arms a mower and attatchments. They come pretty cheep.
 
   / My farm construction business is growing, recommendations on equipment? #23  
I use a NH TC35D daily for my business. I've graded many a building pad, drilled plenty of fence post holes and have used my tractor for a lot of tasks that it was never intended to perform.

I purchased a tractor instead of a SS because, as my main business, I install and maintain gravel driveways and deal with drainage issues. I also brush hog properties on the side. The HST tractor and 3 point attachments work better for what I use it for.

BUT...

Exceed the machines capabilities (like cutting/grading dirt from one side of the bucket) and you will find out in short order what its weaknesses are...I know I have!
 
   / My farm construction business is growing, recommendations on equipment? #24  
I would go with the Skidsteer, you cant beat the Zero turning radius of one of those. Especially when it come to drilling holes with the Auger.

The only thing that it may not work so well would be with the truss's, but if you got it counterweighted it might do what you want. You have a good idea with renting a few machines and testing them out.

Also Bobcats are USA made. Can't beat thats, especially now adays in the equipment world.
 
   / My farm construction business is growing, recommendations on equipment?
  • Thread Starter
#25  
Update to this thread:

A year and a half later, my equipment situation has changed but most of my needs still remain as they were in the first post. I now have a 45hp tractor with a 6' box blade, said tractor can also handle the post driver. I also now have an old dump truck that I will be fixing up and putting to use in the business (C60 chevy).

With that said, I'm thinking I might want to go ahead and buy a skid steer loader as per all the recommendations. I will be buying used and have a budget of about $12k, might stretch that to $15K in the coming months. I have dealers around for Deere, Bobcat, and New Holland, haven't checked about Case.

A few criteria:

-wheeled type loader
-long wheelbase
-must be good at digging/excavating/grading, pushing dirt, spreading gravel
-must be able to comfortably load my dump truck (94" to the top of the sides)
-must have the lift capacity/stability to set a 50' wood truss using a jib crane
-haul on a 10-12K trailer
-reliability is king for me
-preferably looking at year 2000 or newer, hopefully less than 2000hrs.

So there it is, give me the good, bad, and ugly about which skid steer would suit me :confused2:

Thanks in advance.
 
   / My farm construction business is growing, recommendations on equipment? #26  
You might look at a bobcat t 190 which is a track machine that can be found for about 14000 dollars with new tracks with about 1600 hours
 
   / My farm construction business is growing, recommendations on equipment?
  • Thread Starter
#27  
 
Top