80 Acres- Eagle Creek, Oregon

[NWOutlawMX]

That sure is a serious stump remover!!!!! Your place looks great, congrats on all your progress.

Eddie

The only thing missing in the pictures is me with the chain saw. One broken shovel and 3 chains toast. I did end up getting one of those sharpeners from Harbor Freight which saved me a bunch but 3 of them could not be sharpened anymore.

 

[NWOutlawMX]

Impressive job. The before and after pictures really show how much work it took. That dozer and excavator were worth every penny I'm sure.

At first the wife didn't understand why i had to get the size of the equipment i did but now she understands. I did purchase a box blade to get the final touches on the second part of the driveway and i've used it for straightening up the places I cleared blackberries, it's also proven to be a good investment.

And of course I need something to haul all the piles around. I got tired of having piles scattered around so I purchased a 1941 Chevrolet Military dump truck. Pto dump, 4X4 with a winch on the front. I now have a designated burn area i bring it all to, open burning is done for now so I'll just pile it up until fall



So far only a couple broken hydraulic hoses, plenty of grease and fuel though.

 

[s219]

Cool truck -- I would kill for one like that.

 

[wmonroe]

Love that truck!

 

[NWOutlawMX]

Sounds like I have a little more to do on one section. The power company was out and the guy said they don't bury cable anymore, it has to be in a pipe or housing of some kind. I had in my mind to have them trench and bury the cable in the orange conduit I see on the reels and follow the driveway but he informed me that they can only bend the cable a certain amount of degrees and that the conduit is very expensive and couldn't be done they way I envisioned. There is phone cables buried in the road that make crazy turns and twists (i had them marked with a call to 811 before I started anything) so I don't quite understand why power cables can't be done the same? So my option was to go above ground which is 2,000 per pole or to put the pipe in myself and they would come and pull the wire, but they could only pull so many feet so I have to have stations (can't remember the exact term) every 700 feet or so and they have to be in a straight of line as possible. Most of it is close and should work except for one section. Luckily there are no more stumps in the way and should only take me a day. But putting the pipe in and installing the stations sounds like I'm going to have to hire somebody that is PGE certified and works with them repeatedly, that way they know exactly how everything needs to be that meets their code so there won't be any problems when they come in and pull the wire and install the transformer at the end. He also mentioned if they were already pulling the wire I might want to consider putting in 3-phase? What's 3-phase and what could I possibly use that would require it? He explained somewhat about large compressors and such. Anyone have this setup? One nice thing is once it's installed they can put temporary power so no more generator.

 

[wmonroe]

I can't remember how long of a run you are looking at but I highly recommend doing underground. When we built three years ago I faced the same situation and ended up installing the conduit myself. If I remember correctly I put in about 1300' of conduit to the transformer and then about 100' to get to the house. It was a longer process than I expected since the excavator I rented wasn't big enough ( 6,000 pound machine, biggest that rental company had) and I ran into plenty of hard packed shale and I wanted the trench about 4' deep instead of the required 3'. At the time I was thinking of going overhead since it would have made my work easier but now I'm extremely happy that we did underground. The part that made the project the worst for me was I was working 8 hours from home at the time so Friday after work I would drive home, get up early Saturday and work on it, work till about 1and then drive back to my hotel.

 

[bcp]

Some houses around here have underground service, some overhead. When the cable company finally arrived in the area, the people with overhead service were connected free. Those with underground service had to pay a huge per-foot fee to be connected.

Bruce

 

[orezok]

When I did the underground primary for my house, I added a couple of extra empty conduits for future. Conduit is cheap vs. excavation later. I brought it to the surface every 300' in a pull box which would allow me to brand off at any point.

Check with your power utility for required separation.

 

[wmonroe]

When I did the underground primary for my house, I added a couple of extra empty conduits for future. Conduit is cheap vs. excavation later. I brought it to the surface every 300' in a pull box which would allow me to brand off at any point. Check with your power utility for required separation.

When I did mine I also put in extra conduit, looking back I should have put more in but there hasn't been a need yet.

 

[NWOutlawMX]

It's looking awesome!

Have you thought about putting outdoor hydrants on the property?

When do you go back to fish? I'd sure miss my tractor :laughing:

I had planned on putting a watering system in and running it off the spring. But this would be for the natural MX track (as my screen name reveals). More than likely i will have to put in some sort of storage tank so i have something like 1000 gals on hand. I haven't timed it yet but the spring is pumping out at least 100 gallons a minute.

I'll be headed back fishing probably next week, and I do miss my tractors.