Creating a flat spot

[RayCo]

Hi there. Most of my property is sloped, and I had a need to create a flat area for a gazebo and some decorative vegetation. The area I needed to flatten would be approximately a 16' diameter circle, where the drop in height from top to bottom is about 2'.

The approach I took to do this was to mostly use the backhoe on my BX24, digging the 2' at the top of the slope and gradually digging less as I approached the bottom. After the digging was finished, I went over it with the box blade as best as was accessible. It all came out surprisingly better thatn I'd hoped, and I'd say it took me about 8 hours total.

If faced with the same requirement, would you do this same thing or do something different? I did find myself thinking at one point that it might have been faster just to use the box blade only, but I wasn't confident enough in my box blading experience, so stuck with the backhoe.

 

[JOHNTHOMAS]

I did the same thing as you Saturday except it was for a garden on a hillside. I dug the hill side off with the BH and then back drug the front bucket to level it out going from cut of hill to down side. I tilt my bucket way back till it is greater than 90 degrees and it will peel dirt off. Did not use my box blade since my tiller is on my tractor and I need to use tiller. I then back drug it with RatchetRake picking out rocks and further leveling, then tilled it.

 

[BotaBX24er]

BH and backdragging the FEL is great for small areas. The thing about a box scrape is that sloping changes with whatever elevation changes your front wheels are going through. box scraping is great for long straight runs.

 

[Ken45101]

For a small area like that, the backhoe is probably the best approach for you. I have a mini excavator, so that's what I would use

In years past, I used a box blade to level out a slope for a horse round pen (60' diameter). It was a s-l-o-w process, (round and round and round and round....) but it was all I had at the time.

For the small area you have, I don't think a box blade would work all the well, especially since you have the backhoe.

The big issue for you is going to be compacting the fill so that it doesn't settle. Heavier equipment does a better job.

I tilt my bucket way back till it is greater than 90 degrees and it will peel dirt off.

That is generally considered to be a high risk of bending the cylinder rods. They are not designed for that sort of stress.

Ken

 

[RayCo]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Now if it'd only stop raining.

 

[dodge man]

I did an area, maybe a little larger than you are talking, for a swimming pool. It was maybe 3.5' deep on the high end. I did it all with the FEL of my BX2350. It took me about 18 hours of time, then the pool guy spent maybe another 8 hours getting it perfectly level. I'd say the backhoe is quicker, but I don't have one so its hard to say.

 

[Ken45101]

I did an area, maybe a little larger than you are talking, for a swimming pool. It was maybe 3.5' deep on the high end. I did it all with the FEL of my BX2350. It took me about 18 hours of time, then the pool guy spent maybe another 8 hours getting it perfectly level. I'd say the backhoe is quicker, but I don't have one so its hard to say.

A backhoe or compact excavator digs much better in hard packed dirt than a loader bucket, especially if the loader bucket doesn't have teeth.

The horse pen area I mentioned earlier, last summer we put a new barn there and I had to excavate and move a lot of dirt (about 8' high at the back. Equipment at hand: mini excavator (KX-121), 50 hp tractor with loader (M5040) and 7' box blade, and a skid steer with a smooth bucket. The ground was clay. I tried various combinations but I found that the mini ex was best for digging and piling the dirt and the skid steer for moving it from the pile to the fill area (about 50-100' away). In some cases the tractor bucket and the box blade were used together to move the dirt, but the skid steer was better at digging into the pile. It also turns the fastest whereas the tractor had a lot of wasted time turning around.

I later got a tooth bar for the skid steer bucket. It digs a lot better than the smooth bucket for digging and would have probably worked fairly well compared to the mini ex.

One of the issues with a backhoe is that it can only dump the dirt it digs 90 degrees or less from where it is digging. The pile quickly gets in the way. For very small areas this isn't a big issue. but for bigger excavations, it's a major problem. A mini ex can dump the dirt anywhere in within a circle of it's reach. Also, mini excavators have dozer blades which can push the pile away although they don't have a lot of capacity for that.

In the past, I've used a 3pt scoop for digging and moving dirt. With the right tractor, that can work pretty well.

Ken

 

[JOHNTHOMAS]

Hi there. Most of my property is sloped, and I had a need to create a flat area for a gazebo and some decorative vegetation. The area I needed to flatten would be approximately a 16' diameter circle, where the drop in height from top to bottom is about 2'.

The approach I took to do this was to mostly use the backhoe on my BX24, digging the 2' at the top of the slope and gradually digging less as I approached the bottom. After the digging was finished, I went over it with the box blade as best as was accessible. It all came out surprisingly better thatn I'd hoped, and I'd say it took me about 8 hours total.

If faced with the same requirement, would you do this same thing or do something different? I did find myself thinking at one point that it might have been faster just to use the box blade only, but I wasn't confident enough in my box blading experience, so stuck with the backhoe.



A bulldozer D9 would do it quicker, a track front in loader 992 will do it quicker and a mini excavator will do it quicker. I'd say there are 25 to a 100 different pieces of seperate equipment that would do it better. Now, lets say that most of us have a tractor, maybe even a Kubota tractor and that's all. Say we don't want to go and buy a seperate piece of construction equipment to do one little simple job that we may never do again. Now, with a tractor, you can add implements to help do different jobs but they are never going to do the job as well as a specific piece of equipment built just for that type job. A mini excavator is not a tractor, it's not, really, it's not. It's a piece of construction equipment just like a D9 Cat or 992 Cat. Only it's a tiny toy compared to them.

 

[coreshot]

My cabin lot is all steep hill, so I needed to do some major dirt moving to create enouh flat for parking and for rvs and such. I only have a BX24, but I have nothing but time. I start by digging into the hill at the elevation I want the pad to be at with the BH. Then I use the FEL to push it out off the edge, thus doubling my area as I go. When I'm done, usually there is some leveling that needs to take place, so that's when the BB comes out. I drag it around in a circle, dumping it close to the edge each time I come around. My cuts are much deeper than you are talking about, but I think you get the idea

 

[radair]

I probably would have used the FEL with toothbar on it and started from the low end, unless the material was so dense that I couldn't make a dent in it. In that case I would have used your approach. I have a small gravel pit on my property. I can't dig it out with the FEL so your first pic mirrors what I do to loosen up enough material to fill a truckload.

Looks like beautiful country!

<edit> I was looking at Cory's photos when I wrote that. It suddenly occurred to me that the photo was showing more than a 2' cut!