Buying Advice Looking for advice and experience on stepping up to our first "real" (non-lawn) tract

[Ck80]

Looking for advice and experience on stepping up to our first "real" (non-lawn) tract

Hi all, my name is Kenny from down here in Georgia, and I guess I'll start out by saying this: I've lurked around a while, tried reading pages upon pages of comparison posts and which do I buy type threads... and what I've really learned is that maybe if I can describe what we have, and will eventually be wanting to do, some of y'all will have some guidance where we should start...

I don't have a brand preference, and I also don't have a budget. Either I need to take a personal loan and buy used, or finance new.

We close on some new property on the 30th, and I'm looking for the best options for what we need to do now, and what i'll be growing into doing over time. Being east of Atlanta, snow removal will not be an issue or task Id undertake. If we get some, I'll just work from home till it melts.

Topography/Site: The land is 7 acres, and is fully fenced around the entire perimeter with a 4.5 foot chain link fence. Driveway is currently gravel and dirt, grown with some weeds, no ruts/crest present and has been in place 55 years. Entirely inside the property is a 1.75 acre +/- pond, has raised dam at rear. Most of land is flat with little slope, but the far side of the northwest corner of the parcel, +/- 1 acre of space, is separated by a small 2 ft creek and has road access down a small uniform hill. Behind the house is about 2 acres of meadow containing an active bored well, a decommissioned bored well, and soon to be our newly drilled well after closing. About 2 acres of land is understory for large tall trees, has been moved underneath but will regenerate brush I am sure in short order. Additional maintenance headache - wisteria on the property. (But no kudzu.)

My long term projects (hopefully not dreaming too large) are as follows:

Obviously maintain everything that is there as far as mowing and keeping brush from returning. There are a few areas of damaged fencing, hopefully not needing new poles installed now or in the future but you never know.

Behind the house is one area of improper grade where the land need to be built up so drainage flows away from the home.

There is an overflow spillway at the pond corner wrapping around the dam to rejoin the creek outflow. I'd like to line it with 3-6" granite for future safety.

There is a rough sawn barn in place, I'd like to update it and probably need to dig footings for posts etc.

Due to weed height, I'm not sure how level or good that 2 acres of meadow really is, might want to level, might want to build a large raised garden area, unsure at the time.

There is no actual garage or workshop for the home, I'd like to put one in, thinking 30x50, and do the site work myself.

Would like to in the short term resurface the driveway with new gravel, and long term prepare it for concrete surfacing.

Eventually plan on needing to add an addition to the home, would be a slab on grade situation, one wing about 24x30, the other undetermined at this time.

If i ever get to the let's have a pool phase, probably would like to do that excavation myself as well.

Will be taking down some trees, expect the tractor will help moving the firewood after, etc in that process.

So what about my needs: I know I need something with a front end loader. Some type of mower, either belly mount or tow behind? Probably box blade for the meadow leveling and some of the driveway work. Eventually probably a auger for the digging and a someday back hoe for the addition footings and pool if that ever happens.

My abilities: I call myself a shade tree mechanic. I've done changing of radiators and water pumps, furl punps, carbs, redoing vacuum hoses or changing out gas tanks, stuff like that I've done a lot of. Replacing numerous bolt on body panels and the like on old cars and truck, yup done that too. Never did much with brakes/hydraulics, and not experienced welding.

My experience: not much. Recently just lots of tiny riding mowers. As a teenager in the 90s we had a deere with the fel and belly mower, 4wd, diesel, turf tires, but darned if I know what it was. Looking at pictures I'm guessing a 655 or 755 series but it was a long time ago. I drove I some, used the loader some, but mainly I'd say I'm pretty inexperienced so ease and forgiveness in operation may be a consideration.

I'm looking to control costs, and have dependable. If that means financing brand new or getting two older units to do the different things I need, I'm ok with that too. I need to balance cost and make sure I have good reliability since whatever I actually do, it will eat up a decent amount of disposable income.and some attachments may need to wait until I need them to preserve the extra cash.

If there's something I've left out that might help on a recommendation, let me know.

 

[Teachu2]

Re: Looking for advice and experience on stepping up to our first "real" (non-lawn) t

I wonder if you might be better off buying a good 30-40hp tractor with a FEL to handle your maintenance tasks, and either hiring a pro or renting a specialized unit for big projects. That's where I ended up on my quest. A backhoe was an attractive fantasy, until I realized I wouldn't need it often enough to justify the cost, and I could rent an excavator or a true TLB for $500 a day that would outwork any backhoe on a tractor that I wanted to own. Footings I could see doing, but I've had enough experience with pools to leave that to the pros.

Roads, driveways, and other box blade tasks are handled with the tractor I bought, as is brush, mowing, hauling and placing railroad ties for retaining walls, moving rocks and dirt, dragging downed trees, etc. It will do 97% of what I can imagine needing done, and the rest would require a much larger and heavier machine that wouldn't work as well for the 97%.

If it were me, I'd meet the neighbors and talk tractors. See what they are using and what they'd buy if they had it to do over again. Find out if they are happy with their dealer, brand, and size. Then go shopping, and don't be shy about asking to demo a unit on your new property. I initially bought a 1984 Mitsubishi 21hp 4wd diesel with 360 hours on it, no FEL. Bought it cheap, off Craigslist. It ran good, but simply wasn't enough tractor. It did, however, help us realize how handy a tractor was, and helped us determine our needs. After a year of using it, the wife said it was time to buy a better tractor. Used tractors in my area are either old farm tractors or priced at 85% of new. For the price of a used 29hp Kubota (750+ hours, no warranty), I purchased a new 34hp Kioti - the supposed last of the non-Tier IV models. I chose a manual transmission, putting me in the minority - but it's what I prefer. If you choose HST, study up on proper operation and you should be fine. Test drive whatever you are considering - control layout matters, and is highly subjective.

Enjoy your hunt, don't rush, and shop around. When you get it narrowed down to a few, open a thread here and pop some corn - these discussions get lively.

 

[edgarrian]

Re: Looking for advice and experience on stepping up to our first "real" (non-lawn) t

Im guessing your trees are some what mature. Id rent an excavator and take them down. I just built a pad for a 30by 40 building. I dug a hole with the excavator and used that material for the pad. Leaving the hole open for onsite trash during the building of the house. Concrete and **** like that. Leave the smaller tasks your tractor and FEL.

 

[G31]

Re: Looking for advice and experience on stepping up to our first "real" (non-lawn) t

My opinion, and nothing more...

You could easily get by with a sub-compact. BX25, or JD 1-series with hoe. Keeping costs down as a goal makes this the best option. My father-in-law maintained 20 acres with a BX22 for 7 years before he turned it into a cattle pasture. He has since upgraded to an L3301 w/hoe. Having spoken to him, and having actually run both pieces of equipment on his land, the biggest gain from the upgrade has been the ability to use larger, more expensive implements (translating to getting the same jobs done faster). That's really it.

For what you describe, you need to figure out whether you need a larger unit in the long term. Once you finish all of the initial big jobs, will you need the extra capabilities? If so, get a larger compact. If not, consider a sub- or small compact. The smaller units will do the job, just requiring more time to do it. Considering cost, keep in mind I have close to $20k in my BX already. That's including a grapple, carry-all with ballast block, a 12v Northern Tool ATV sprayer tank, and a rear blade. Start getting into tillers and spreaders, and you can add $2500+. Tractor implements are not cheap, and the bigger ones cost even more!

If you feel like you will have the mower off a lot, get a rear finish mower, unless you get a Deere with the auto connect feature. It is not hard, but still a pain to work with my BX deck.

If I could do it all again, I would find an LS dealer and check out their lineup. You can get a J-series as cheaply as a BX, but the size of a B.

Wanted to add this: I think the vast majority of we "homeowner" use types would be well served with SCUTs. It is the rare exception to the rule to need larger.

 

[gladehound]

Re: Looking for advice and experience on stepping up to our first "real" (non-lawn) t

I have less land than you, but use my tractor in a similar way minus the mowing (use zero turn for that). While you could get by with a BX sized tractor, I would go bigger especially for woods maintenance. I had a ~20 hp small frame CUT. It would get everything done that I wanted to get done except rip out stumps and footers (and it struggled to raise the post hole digger if it got too deep). I recently moved to a 45 hp tractor with 3x the loader capacity. The difference is night and day. Jobs get so much faster and I've tackled additional landscaping projects that I couldn't do with the 20hp tractor. If moving trees loader capacity and stability is important. These both improved drastically with most brands at around 40+ hp. For me, I would start at 40+hp if I could afford it. You'll have to decide what type of transmission you need. The easier it is to operate the more it cost. I don't think you listed a budget. If you did, I missed it. Keep in mind that you can get 1.5 - 2x heavier tractor in a manual transmission than you can in a hydrostatic for the same price. So you have to weigh your budget against convenience vs brute strength (I'd rather have strength but many go for convenience). So many options out there. I suggest you figure out your budget and start looking at everything in your price range. Sit on them. Drive them. You'll start narrowing it down to a few options. At that point the folks on this site can probably help a lot with specific questions and differences between the models.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Re: Looking for advice and experience on stepping up to our first "real" (non-lawn) t

I would think that a 25 PTO HP tractor would serve you well enough with 7 acres. Personally I wouldn't invest in a belly mower that is mostly in the way when doing everything else and cost nearly as much as a low end ZTR mower.. I would get a bush hog for the rough stuff and a lawn mower for your yard whether it is a zero turn or tractor type would depend on how much stuff you have to mow around. For my excessive amount of trees, shrubs and flowers that the wife has planted, nothing less than a zero turn will do. BIL and I share 42 acre tract of land in which I have 11.2 acres and mow about 6 of in as lawn with the rest in pasture. It takes me about 1.5-2 hours to mow my 6 acres with my Ferris IS 700Z.

I bought a used Kubota B26 TLB which is my go to tractor for everything except tillage and mowing. I have a 7 foot bush hog for the LS but rarely hook it up now that I have all the saplings under control. I can mow my pasture just about as fast with my ZTR mower as I can with the tractor AND get around all the trees much better so about twice a year, I crank the mower up to max height and mow the pasture to keep any weeds in check. I gave $20,500 for my B26 used with 60 hours on it and it now has 4 times the hours as my LS which mostly sets under the shed till I need to prepare my garden with the tiller. That is about what you would pay for a new BX25D but is much more capable machine and lots more ground clearance and almost bomb proof underneath for working in the trees and saplings. Most folks don't agree, but I would not be without my backhoe. My back isn't as strong as it used to be so now I work smarter not harder. My place is near the Ozarks so it grows a new crop of rocks every year and many of them requires the back hoe to get them out. Dead trees, get dug out so no stumps to contend with, fruit trees get planted using the back hoe rather than shovel, my brother in law runs cattle and occasionally we do have to bury a dead animal so the back hoe gets lots of use. Last week we installed 40 feet of culvert to correct a drainage problem, used the FEL to smooth out some ruts from mowing when it was too wet (it has been that way all year but grass had to be mowed). No end to occasional uses for a TLB around our farm

All that said, if you really need a backhoe, go for a used Kubota B26 or perhaps its larger brother in the L series and get the 3 point hitch arms with it and you have the best of both worlds-tractor and backhoe. The back hoe is simple to remove and install and takes all of 5 minutes to take off, a bit more to put back on but all depends on having level ground to set it on. Your use for a back hoe may not be like mine but they sure are handy to have. I have the hydraulic thumb on mine and it works great for removing fallen limbs from our creek also. It isn't just for digging.

As for building a pool, I don't know if you could tackle that yourself as that requires a lot more reach for the deep ends than most CUT backhoes have and I think you might need a lot of shovel work to shape the bottom to fit a pool contour. Personally I don't care for swimming pools-mostly they devalue a house by $25K when you have them because most folks wont take care of them and don't want one. Each to his own though.

 

[flusher]

Re: Looking for advice and experience on stepping up to our first "real" (non-lawn) t

Tractor: 30-40 hp (engine), 4WD, hydrostatic transmission, power steering, two pairs of rear hydraulic remotes (3 pair is better). Add a front end loader (FEL) with 6-ft wide bucket, tooth bar, chain hooks and skid steer quick attach option.

Implements: brush hog and box blade (6-ft wide).

This will get you going. You can add implements later and trick out your tractor as desired.

Backhoe: unless you're digging and maintaining irrigation ditches all the time, payback time on a BH is lengthy

Good luck.

 

[TripleR]

Re: Looking for advice and experience on stepping up to our first "real" (non-lawn) t

I really can't disagree with the previous posts as they will work which is why it is so hard to pick the right machine or combination. However, keeping the following in mind: "I'm looking to control costs, and have dependable. If that means financing brand new or getting two older units to do the different things I need, I'm ok with that too. I need to balance cost and make sure I have good reliability since whatever I actually do, it will eat up a decent amount of disposable income.and some attachments may need to wait until I need them to preserve the extra cash."

I would pick something in the same class as a Kubota B2601 with a MMM or a economy ZTR, my brother just got a ZTR for around 3k, so if you don't mind maintaining another machine cost is going to be close to the same. We own an older model Case backhoe, but no longer use it enough to make it worth the trouble of keeping it going, so if we need to dig, we rent an excavator. While it might be "handy" to have a BH attachment, cost and space just don't justify it.

If disposable income was not a priority, my recommendation, but I've been through that and it is really easy to put yourself in a bind and you are looking at new land, new house etc.

I only used Kubota as a reference as any of the brands will have equivalent models of the same or better quality.

 

[Luke'sScreenName]

Re: Looking for advice and experience on stepping up to our first "real" (non-lawn) t

Flusher hit the nail on the head.

 

[Luke'sScreenName]

Re: Looking for advice and experience on stepping up to our first "real" (non-lawn) t

Oh and.. Dealer, dealer, dealer! Find out who has the best customer service in your area and then buy that brand.