Big Multi Year Project About to Begin...help!

[Sulla]

Lots of good suggestions, as usual I hasten to add. We're working on the master plan now. I've already had a surveyor out there to get the layout and topography on paper. Next step will be to add the various buildings and utilities.

More and more it looks like I'm going t be doing the road. The three bridges on the Forest Service road barely handle a 1/2 ton pick up. Never mind the stuff I need to bring in.

I need to find a cheaper way to deal with this road. I've got it down to about $20,000 give or take. I'd like to be closer to $10,000.

Pretty sure the fist building is going to be a prefab metal building to house all of equipment and a bunch of stuff we have in storage.

Clearing? Probably the rear mounted saw and grapple. But haven't given up the chain saw yet. After I take the trees down I'm think about a dozer for getting the stumps up.

Which is better for clearing large swaths of land, an excavate or a dozer?

I like the backhoe idea, but my DK45 will have to do. Our budget does't have room for both.

Thanks again. More Pics this weekend.

 

[wmonroe]

I don't think you will reach the 10k mark and still have a driveway that can support heavy trucks. i just put a driveway in last fall that is about 1000', it is currently pretty rough just to get trucks and contractors in to build my house. This fall when i dress it up and make it nice i expect to have approximately 10k in it.

 

[DAY]

A big, BIG chunk of $$$ will be saved if you have stone on site! That is where those Soil Conservation Service maps I mentioned earlier will be invaluable.
Glacial moraine deposits range in size from clay thru sand, gravel, and rocks, all good road building material. Remember, the cost is in the transportation.
Good luck with your 'prospecting' this week end.

 

[Sulla]

A big, BIG chunk of $$$ will be saved if you have stone on site! That is where those Soil Conservation Service maps I mentioned earlier will be invaluable.
Glacial moraine deposits range in size from clay thru sand, gravel, and rocks, all good road building material. Remember, the cost is in the transportation.
Good luck with your 'prospecting' this week end.

The surveyor is pulling together those maps as I write this. We certainly have plenty of rocks and boulders. My plan is to use them to reduce the grade in a few places. Then cover them with gravel. We took quite a few soils samples and we seem to have plenty of clay to build up the road as well. With any luck I'll hit a gravel deposit.

 

[DAY]

With any luck I'll hit a gravel deposit.

You can increase your "luck" by finding a geologist (local College?) who can point you in the right direction.

I live near Reading, PA, and glaciers "didn't make it this far south"- except I have a 100 ft high "mountain" that contains some Canadian granite- and we used them to fill in a low spot on the new road. (instead of three 30 ton loads from the quarry:thumbsup

 

[dave1949]

You can increase your "luck" by finding a geologist (local College?) who can point you in the right direction.

I live near Reading, PA, and glaciers "didn't make it this far south"- except I have a 100 ft high "mountain" that contains some Canadian granite- and we used them to fill in a low spot on the new road. (instead of three 30 ton loads from the quarry:thumbsup

If that's a terminal moraine I bet it has good pickings for stones, etc.

I have about 1000' feet of driveway total. It took 26 tri-axle loads of bank run/pit run to get a base through the wet section. Plus three days of excavator tree clearing and rough-in time, no way was my wheeled tractor going into that and come out again :laughing: It was so soupy, the excavator was having trouble getting enough traction to move trees. We put used paper mill felt down on the soup before the bank run stone, it works like geo-textile fabric.

I just looked up in my records, my driveway cost $10,160. $650 of that was in culverts. But, that is starting from swampy woods and building a driveway that will handle just about anything year-round. Every other year or so, I use 24 yards of 1" minus to keep it in good shape.

Roads and drives can get expensive in a hurry and there really aren't many alternatives if you need to get heavy trucks in.

Dave.

 

[Rustyiron]

Sulla, I allways prefer to take the trees out on the stump with an excavator. Once you cut off that 30' handle, that stump will be a lot more time consuming to get out! If you're lucky, it will be dry ground when you do it and a decent sized excavator with a thumb on it will be able to shake most of the dirt out of the stump for filling the hole back up and the stump will be much lighter and more apt to burn. If you can rent/hire one for a week, I think that you would put a good dent in your clearing job and maybe poke a few holes looking for gravel. Enjoy your adventure and take lots of pic's,,, It helps alot to look back at them when you get that "what the h*ll was I thinking" thoughts rolling around in your head (and sore back). If you don't have a machine to move around your (removed) trees as they come down, you'll need to carefully plan you're attack with the excav. or you'll be burried with trees and need to take valuable time to cut and move them (with you're rented machine sitting idle, but the clock's still ticking).

 

[CurlyDave]

I agree with Rustyiron, an excavator is very good at taking out trees.

Another way I have done it, which is not nearly as fast as an excavator, but certainly less expensive, is to use a long chain (at least 30' longer than the tallest tree), and pull them over with my TLB.

I can easily pull over 8" saplings in the spring when the ground is wet. I use a ladder to put the chain around the tree about 8-10' off the ground. A nail is good to hold the chain at that height. Using the leverage of the tree, my 43 HP TLB pulls them right over.

This can be very dangerous if the chain is too short.

Once the ground dries out, it becomes a lot more difficult.

 

[Sulla]

I just looked up in my records, my driveway cost $10,160. $650 of that was in culverts. But, that is starting from swampy woods and building a driveway that will handle just about anything year-round. Every other year or so, I use 24 yards of 1" minus to keep it in good shape.

Roads and drives can get expensive in a hurry and there really aren't many alternatives if you need to get heavy trucks in.

Dave.

If I get this road done for anything close to $10,000 I will be thrilled. The road is already there, so no trees to clear on that part. There are two or three really wet parts, but even they have a base as I can drive over them in my truck. It's lifted six inches and the ground does scrape but I can get through.

The plan is as follows, so far. Dig out the mud with my DK45 and loader. There is enough mud for it to be work but not enough that I don't think the tractor can handle it. Now comes the part I'm still kicking around. I plan to buy/rent a small dozer to dig out the trenches, grade the road and spread the gravel. My thinking is that the dozer can do most of what an excavator can do on the road and for deeper trenching I have the backhoe on my tractor. When the road is done I can then use it for land clearing, more on that in a moment.

Next I need to lay in at least four culverts, probably five. The water breaks are already there so it's just a matter of trenching a little deeper and dropping them in. Right now it looks like 18" plastic with a smooth sleeve to keep It from clogging up too fast. Then comes the gravel. Unless I find some on the property, the plan is to buy about 30 truck loads of inch and a half and another thirty or so truck loads of three quarter inch. The local company will truck it in as I need it. When its spread I'll rent a roller and pack it in.

Some details. There is one spot where I'd like to reduce the grade. I'm thinking about dumping some rocks in there, cover it with at least a foot of fill and then putting down the gravel. I don't have to tackle this but it will be an issue in the future. I should mention that I plan to put Geotechnical Fabric between the ground and the gravel.

On to the land clearing. Then plan here is cut the trees either with a chain saw or a three point hitch saw, making sure to leave about two feet of a stump. Change out the loader for a grapple and stack the fire wood, to be cut before winter, and chip the tops and small trees. Now comes the dozer. Push up all the stumps, dig a big hole and bury them in the corner of the property. Grade and fill where needed and put up the equipment barn and get ready for the snow.

I'm just a guy trying to figure this out and I welcome all constructive comments. I really do appreciate it.

I can't do much else because the heavy equipment road ban is still in place up here. We're getting more rain so I doubt they'll take it off this week. More time to think, less time to do. I better make good use of the time.

Thanks all.

 

[wmonroe]

It sounds like you have a good plan. I think the dozer is a good idea and you will probably end up using it for a lot more than you can think of right now.

Any wet spots in the road make sure you dig down to solid and add the proper drains. I know with my driveway i had a spot that after a lot of rain my truck (approx 7400 lbs) would have no problems, but when the truck delivering concrete block tried he sunk in about 12" +.