nasty but fun

[looch]

So I'm on vacation this week. It hasn't been the most enjoyable time, except for one highlight.

Monday the septic system backed up. With all the rain we've been having, the water level in the tank was higher than the inlet from the house. The leach field, being old, didn't drain quickly enough and thereby caused a blockage in the pipe from the house.

Rented a fish (snake) and cleared the blockage. Figuring it was just a matter of time before it happened again, I decided to redo the leach field.

Here's the part of this post that qualifies it under the Owning/Operating section.

I started looking for rental machines. The closest had a John deere 4400, 430 loader, model 48 backhoe with an 18" bucket. What a beast. I'm sure I heard my B7500 whimpering in the garage.

Renting this thing turned an otherwise most disagreeable job into some serious entertainment. Dare I say that after about 10 hours, I was getting pretty good.

The tractor itself had about 870 hours on it. It being a rental and all, and me being on a time limit, I put it through its paces to say the least. I caught an occasional whiff of burnt oil and the back hoe would leak down about 4" every 20 minutes - but otherwise it performed flawlessly.

I also found the price to quite reasonable - 210 CDN for 24 hours plus 60$ for pick up and delivery. The bill had the different rates on it: 420$ for the weekend, 795$ for the week, and 2200 for 4 weeks.

My advice to anyone considering a small back hoe job - definitely rent one - it is a blast.

[Gary_in_Indiana]

I have the smaller 4200/47 backhoe and it's a lot of fun. I recently had to sink a couple 8' long 5/8" copper rods 6' apart to 6" below grade for electrical grounds. The area was all hard clay and I tried a sledge hammer and fence post driver but that clay bound everything up at about 4' in.

Tired and frustrated I decided to bring out the artillery. I got out my backhoe and dug a 7' long, 6' deep trench then just drove the rods 30" into the bottom of it and backfilled. [img]/w3tcompact/icons/clever.gif[/img]

I know that was probably overkill, but what's the point of having a toy like that if you don't use it? [img]/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif[/img][img]/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif[/img][img]/w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[looch]

<font color=blue>probably overkill</font color=blue>

Nonsense. I'd draw the line at planting tomatoes.

[Boondox]

Not only have I planted tomatoes with my backhoe, but to hone my skills I've begun picking up after my four dogs with the backhoe! There is no such thing as overkill! [img]/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

Pete

[tdenny]

Pete,

Can I borrow yours to pick up after my new puppy. [img]/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif[/img] although shipping might get out of hand.

[Kodiak]

Todd:

I'd let you borrow mine. buttttt!!! I don't have a big enough crow bar to pry you off of it when your done. [img]/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[Gary_in_Indiana]

Boy, isn't that the truth? I love mine. I let a buddy play on it one time when he came by and I was digging out stumps. I ended up going for carry out while he stayed and kept playing on it. I don't know how long he'd have been on it if I'd had work lights. [img]/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif[/img] He didn't talk about much else the rest of the night, either. [img]/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[DavidInNH]

Look at the grin on my son's face and guess how much I get to use the backhoe. The first time he used it was with the worklights...

-david

[JeffRey30747]

I use the post hole digger for planting tomatoes, but that's probably just because I don't have a backhoe (yet [img]/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif[/img] but don't let my wife see that). A post hole full of composted manure under a tomato plant works well for me though so I might not change even if I did have a backhoe.

[Woody1]

speakin of ph diggers diggin, couple of weeks ago, I bought 7 5 gal pots of orn. grass that gets 10 ft tall. I dug the 1st hole, from then on, ph digger dug the rest!