How much dirt have you seen moved by hand?

coralhead · Apr 2, 2017

Goose69 said:
Several months ago, our church bought an old building to use as a Kiddos church. We had to pour a slab floor due to old floor joists being rotted out, as well as other issues. We had two tri-axle dump trucks of pea gravel to move thru the door of the building.
The city allowed us to have the gravel dumped on the street of the city square, provided we had it all cleaned up before the next day.
A group of about 12 of us, with lots of shovels, 3 wheelbarrows, and one compactor, moved, leveled, and compacted all that gravel in 14 hours or so.
My entire body is hurting just remembering it. Lol.

How well did that pea gravel compact? Pea gravel is like trying to compact marbles.

CADplans · Apr 2, 2017

My sister and BIL built a house in Pittsburgh suburb in the late 1950's,,, large yard, no topsoil.

My father knew the supervisor of the crew that shoveled out storm drain traps,,
Those traps caught the nicest topsoil,, and all the beer bottles, trash,, etc.
so, dad had 20-30 dump truck loads delivered to the yard.

My BIL built a screen, and started in shoveling the the soil onto the screen,,
the neighborhood kids would watch to see what he would find.

One shovelful turned up a coin,, the kids got VERY interested,,,
They started to help,,, hoping to find more money,,

Well,,, my creative sister,, that evening after the kids left,,,
went out and "salted" the pile they were working on with a dollar in change.

The next day the kids went nuts digging,,, shoveling like mad because they were finding money.

My BIL had to build 2 more shaker screens,,, because there were so many kids wanting to dig.

EACH night,, my sister was out "salting" more dirt piles with more change.

The kids were actually disappointed when the last of the dirt had been screened,,, :laughing:

That was a deep dark family secret,, the kids were NEVER told about the "salting"
even 20 years later after my sister and BIL moved away,,,

MESSMAKER · Apr 3, 2017

I don't know if this is the situation, but an young couple with a few friends, a lot of dreams and not much money can get a lot done when they really need to. It might be a story they can always tell their friends. If they find it is too much, they can get a Dingo.

quicksandfarmer · Apr 3, 2017

I have three buildings on my property from the 1850's with full basements. They're each about 36x28 and 8 feet deep. Based on the date I have to assume they were dug by hand, although they may have had help from horses for hauling. The way they got to eight feet was by digging down four feet and piling the spoils around the foundation to build up the grade, so each one required moving about 150 yards of dirt, which had to be lifted up as much as eight feet. Must have been a fun summer job for someone.

k0ua · Apr 3, 2017

CADplans said:
My sister and BIL built a house in Pittsburgh suburb in the late 1950's,,, large yard, no topsoil.

My father knew the supervisor of the crew that shoveled out storm drain traps,,
Those traps caught the nicest topsoil,, and all the beer bottles, trash,, etc.
so, dad had 20-30 dump truck loads delivered to the yard.

My BIL built a screen, and started in shoveling the the soil onto the screen,,
the neighborhood kids would watch to see what he would find.

One shovelful turned up a coin,, the kids got VERY interested,,,
They started to help,,, hoping to find more money,,

Well,,, my creative sister,, that evening after the kids left,,,
went out and "salted" the pile they were working on with a dollar in change.

The next day the kids went nuts digging,,, shoveling like mad because they were finding money.

My BIL had to build 2 more shaker screens,,, because there were so many kids wanting to dig.

EACH night,, my sister was out "salting" more dirt piles with more change.

The kids were actually disappointed when the last of the dirt had been screened,,, :laughing:

That was a deep dark family secret,, the kids were NEVER told about the "salting"
even 20 years later after my sister and BIL moved away,,,

That was a great story. I read that one to my wife..

MossRoad · Apr 3, 2017

bcp said:
They wanted to build them point down to make shade, but I recommended point up for stability.

Bruce

Nice! :laughing:

PJSprog · Apr 3, 2017

You can move a whole lot of dirt by hand if the motivation is right.

I grew up just a few miles from this:

Cahokia Mounds |

That said, people who aren't used to such intense manual labor should be cautious trying to move mountains on weekends. No different than shoveling snow when you're out of shape.

Goose69 · Apr 3, 2017

coralhead said:
How well did that pea gravel compact? Pea gravel is like trying to compact marbles.

There was much discussion about what to use as fill material. Of course everyone swearing by using whatever they had used in the past. I'm not an expert on the matter, was just grunt labor. Lol
We went with the pea gravel on the recommendation of the company doing the concrete work.
We started running the compactor when we had about 6" deep of gravel, and kept running the compactor until we had the area filled to level we wanted.
I suppose it worked. Time will tell I guess but the Concrete guys were happy, and The concrete still looks great without any signs of cracking anywhere
They are using the concrete as flooring without anything over it, so if it ever cracks due to settling anywhere, we will know quickly.

John Fitzgerald · Apr 3, 2017

I have moved several dump truck loads of stuff in my lifetime with wheelbarrow and shovel. Crushed limestone, river rock, sand, and topsoil. It only takes time, and I'm retired. The last truckload of crushed limestone rock took about a week, and I worked on it a few hours a day. It helps with the clean up if it is dumped onto a large tarp.