How long to dig a 30'x50'x8' ish deep hole?

[Morning Wood]

As mentioned. Where are you going to put 445 yards of material?

 

[quicksandfarmer]

Have you priced having it hauled away? I'm not big on using my own land as a dump, too many ways it can come back to bite me.

 

[two_bit_score]

Have you priced having it hauled away? I'm not big on using my own land as a dump, too many ways it can come back to bite me.

Good point. In the long run the haul off and disposal might be the cheapest option. For sure the best.

 

[4570Man]

I've got a BH77. Not a chance could this happen with this size of a machine. I don't think a full size backhoe is the right choice either for that matter. If I owned one, I'd make it work but I don't. It's definitely a job for an excavator, the size is the question.

My BH 90 is definitely too small, but I can use it as long as it takes for free. Renting a machine will cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. My backhoe is too small to get dirt out of that size hole. I would use the backhoe to break up the dirt and use the FEL to carry it out. Unless the barn is huge I don't think it will take a hole anywhere near that big especially since you are saving any good wood. I would be surprised if a hole half that size isn't big enough.

 

[4570Man]

Selł the steel for scrap. They will pay you to take it, at least in the U.S. Burn all of the wood that you don't salvage. If it is too rotten to burn, it won't take long to finish rotting piled up somewhere. Hauling off the concrete will be expensive, but the best option especially if you only have 7.5 acres.

 

[stuckmotor]

I know a guy who's company had been burying scrap steel for years. He told me that when steel scrap went sky high, he dug for days and sold the steel for a nice chunk of change. Maybe you should bury the steel on top.

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

As mentioned. Where are you going to put 445 yards of material?

As mentioned, 1/2 of it will go back in the hole as fill, the other half will be graded out to raise a low area right beside where the hole will be

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

My BH 90 is definitely too small, but I can use it as long as it takes for free. Renting a machine will cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. My backhoe is too small to get dirt out of that size hole. I would use the backhoe to break up the dirt and use the FEL to carry it out. Unless the barn is huge I don't think it will take a hole anywhere near that big especially since you are saving any good wood. I would be surprised if a hole half that size isn't big enough.

Cost of machine rental is easy to figure out once I have a better handle on the time, and easy to compare to a contract price. Regardless of time, there is no way around the fact that my B3300/BH77 is way undersized for what I want to do.

Estimating what I've got to go in the hole is easy. It's somewhere between 200-250 yards so double that gets me a 400-500 yard hole

The steel component is minor as is the wood part. 1/2 of the stuff going in the hole is dirt mixed with debris...I'm not sifting thru it for every last piece.

I agree than hauling it away would be better burying it, no arguments there. But cost wise doesn't work for me. A full day for a truck and excavator will run me 3 grand plus the tipping fees. With an hr to load and round trip to the dump that's what it would take. And I'd still need 200 yards of fill for the low spot. It makes no sense to me to haul away 200 yards of material only to truck back in 200 yards of material. I just don't want the 200 yards I have to be on the top.

It's going in a hole, that's been decided. And I have lots of room to deal with the fill, both as it is excavated and the leftover when done.

The question is do I rent or hire? And to answer that, I'm trying to get a better handle on the time to dig.

 

[EddieWalker]

I think the only way you will know the answer to that is to start making some phone calls to local operators and get some bids to do the job. Same thing with the rental yards. If I remember correctly, I could rent a 12 tonne excavator for $4,500 a month, or $1,500 a week plus fuel and a delivery charge. That's not a very big machine. My neighbor has hired a guy with a 45 tonne excavtor that is charging him $180 an hour and $500 delivery fee to remove about 40 acres of stumps and is expecting him to get it done in 160 hours. That's his budget, but I think he is running his time too tight figuring out how many stumps per hour he can get out. For what you want to do, I think I would hire somebody like the guy my neighbor found with the 45 tonne excavator and have that hole dug in one day. Then when you get everything moved into there, hire another guy with a really big dozer to push the dirt back into the hole. Again, a D6 or something close to 200 hp should be able to do that in a day easy.

How are you going to get the debris into the hole?

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

I figured the same excavator that dug the hole would put the junk in it and do the basic backfilling. If I had to, the backfilling could be done with my tractor. Either way, I'd use my tractor to do any final grading and touch ups. Pushing dirt into a hole with a small tractor is mush easier than trying to get it out.

I've talked with 2 local contractors so far that both have similar size machines to each other (not sure of the exact size but they haul behind a tri-axle dump truck).

The first one said he can dig 50'x50'x10' in a 10 hr day. He's the guy that put my septic system in 5 yrs ago so he's familiar with my soil. That's 925 yards moved. So by his own math, guy #1 should be able to do this in a day easily. (450 out and 450 back in)

Guy #2 lives around the corner and came for a look. He figured 20 hrs but he's known for taking as much as he works. I think 20 hrs is nuts, as does a buddy of mine from the next road who has hired guy #2 several times.

KubotaToy, what size is the bucket on your machine? Your trenches are in the 2000 yard range