Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

[bob112]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

Believe me, I have been around a LOT of them! In the larger company I was at, they really insisted that the operators "just operate" and they were just fine with that......Until there was a large undercarriage bill due to lack of cleaning the UC as any good company should. That was on a Cat 365. Not a cheap day!

I really prefer to be the ground guy and on my own jobs, I usually just throw my dad in as the operator so I can manage things on the ground. I used to train ground workers because they just think they are the grunts and the operator is "the guy"..... Ground hands have to also be spotters for those big machines. We cannot see everything with in those big machines.

 

[crashz]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

Ground guys control the job!

 

[dodge man]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

There is a contractor I did quite a bit of construction inspection with. They did a lot of sanitary sewer and water main. They had a trench guy who was really good. I could tell he would like to be an operator but he was too good at what he did. He made the job happen.

For septic some health departments do the perc test for you. It seems the trend is away from traditional drain fields. They end up being too big and long term plug up. It seems sand filters and active systems with bubblers or stirring motors are the trend.

 

[bob112]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

I live in one of those counties that loves red tape in wastewater. My county inspector is actually a very good guy and we all want a quality system and I guess stuff like that, I have always made it personal, as my name is on it. I know how I want to design the systems, but I will be dictated somewhat by the county. For instance, I have remediated several systems, designed my own set equipment, and in one case I just inspected, it was in total failure. Like done! The system was older so only a single chamber tank. I built a stainless primary outlet filter, dug up outlet main and installed a secondary stainless filter, designed an aerator to be installed near the outlet of the tank, and designed a timed blower unit with check valve system on the lateral field. At that time, I dug up and installed an inspection tee at the far end of the lateral field for inspections. It was FULL before. Now it is rare to even see effluent down there!

It works! Oxygen is the key ingredient as is keeping solids of contaminants out of the lateral field. People complain about filter maint until they realize that will otherwise end up in the field and ruin it eventually. Cotton, Nylon fibers, etc, can get in the field and you don't want that.

Unfortunately my county guy knows but "doesn't know" because I am not licensed. I am hoping this helps our relationship and he can get me in compliance.

However, my county wants to force people into an annual maint contract to second they do anything more than a 100yo anaerobic gravity system. This detours owners and they just want cheap. There is zero reason a treatment system could not last 100yrs. I only install poly tanks. Yes, concrete works for many years, but will eventually fail, and the price difference is minimal.

Another thing I have realized is systems go into failure because they might have been built at say 18" depth, but 20yrs later, that will be much deeper due to soil gain and Oxygen can no longer get there. Anaerobic biomat forms, and you are done! Like a seal around the pipe.

I might be one of the few that is fascinated with the #2 biz....lol To realize all that nasty can actually be turned into drinking quality water in 24hrs is amazing!

 

[MossRoad]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

Good thoughts and ideas guys! This at least did give me the idea of piloting septic work. I actually have a lot of hands on and design experience in this field, having designed and installed remediation systems and recovered every system so far. Our county requires a license but I am on a first name basis with the only county guy that inspects these. It is just a paper test. He knows I work on these already regardless the license. Also in our area, our county guy has been pushing for massive size upgrades in lateral fields. many being 1000ft of pipe in the ground with a 3ft wide trench. Sure, a smaller machine can do this, but getting a field open, then closed up before rain can be tricky. I really would enjoy new system installs because it would give me an opportunity to use my experience with this stuff. I have seen and heard so many falsehoods from installers, it just makes me cringe, but half the battle is educating the home owners about how to use their system.

I do own a D7 dozer as well but I might want to run it more on the farm to ensure I am confident with it. Just don't use it enough and I don't want breakdowns on a jobsite.

I also have high end lasers and a total station.

I see you're out in Tulsa area? We were out there a couple months ago. Red Clay! Yikes. A lot of smaller machines would struggle, wouldn't they? And I see your comments about rain. Rain and clay; I can only imagine the fun.

 

[EddieWalker]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

There is a guy on Youtube called Letsdig that posts a bunch of video's of what he does on his excavators. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=letsdig

It says that he has 2,901 videos on there, and from what I've seen, he does it all. If I was looking for ideas on what to do, I would look at what he is doing.

 

[deezler]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

Yes guys, 27T as in 54,000lbs. 34", 48", and 60" buckets, hydro thumb, and would like to work. I think most are just talking about insurance. I will deal with that, but I am more interested in what work I might consider. I know the type of work I have done in the past which is very large municipal storm sewers, roads, bridges, etc, but I am not looking for that level of work. I think ponds are a free for all where any hooptie digger can show up and make a hole.

Hey Bob, sounds like a real nice (and huge) machine. Can you share some pics?

Main thing I am wondering.... is how you propose to transport that machine to customer jobs? Obviously you would need a CDL, Semi tractor, and heavy duty lowboy trailer. Is this something you already do on the regular? Do you need permits for a load like that?

Post some pics!

 

[dodge man]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

I have a Multiflo unit at my house. It’s a prebuilt unit, poly, that just gets dropped in the ground and hooked up. Has a motor that keeps oxygen in the waste so it’s and aerobic system. The bad is the electricity cost and I also pay a maintenance fee every year. The good is that there is no drainage field to ever plug up.

 

[bob112]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

Pic of toy.

Dodge Man, it sounds like you have an alternative septic. Or should I say wastewater treatment unit. Septic means anaerobic. They are becoming more common but as you noted, they have more moving parts and operating expense. I would never recommend one unless the site requires it, either due to poor perc or lack of space.

I was installing gravity systems many years ago but only in recent years dug into the science and realizing that the "20yr life" of a gravity system was a falsehood. However, there are a few things I am working on to improve these. One being a filter. Gotta have it! Other is I am working on a gravity dosing design. The optimal way to feed any lateral is to wet it, then let it dry. Effluent or just water has only about 1% the amount of Oxygen as air, so if a field stays wet, air cannot get in to feed the bacteria. old gravity systems would slowly feed the first part of the laterals first, then biomat slowly seals off the area. Then it would move down the line until the whole thing is sealed.

I proved my point to someone where we cut out a section of badly sludged lateral. I let it sit in open air and after some time, that 2" sludge layer became a paper thin film that would rinse easily. In short, air did it's thing. That system now runs nearly clear in the field.

The issues become balancing energy and complexity with simple and easy. This is why I am working on a gravity dose. Nothing wrong with gravity if the soil will take it, but you need to work the whole field. I originally felt only a pressure dose system could do this, but I am working on solving the issue with gravity so there is no need for a pump and pump chamber.

It has also been interesting talking with people. Even my family did not know that food waste should NOT be put in a septic, or at least minimized.

 

[4570Man]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

The local septic inspector made me put this in a septic pump line. If you wanted a freeze, choke and break point all in one lick it was mission accomplished.