New land owner, clearing land help

[6fthook]

We recently bought 9.5 acres of land in Connecticut including a half acre of farmed blueberry bushes. We're planning to build a house on the property middle of next year, and going to use the rest of this year to finalize the house plans and to clear the land. We're hoping for about 3 acres cleared for where the house will sit and the rest of it woods to be used as hunting land during the seasons. The location where the house will sit has about .5 acre cleared of trees, and the rest is wooded with mostly small-medium diameter pine and the like, with a small handful of bigger trees. A contractor quoted us about $8,000/acre cleared which means about $24,000 for the 3 acres. I'm thinking of buying a Kubota tractor (several local dealers and ease for service) with front end loader and backhoe, specifically a L3901 and doing the work myself, but I have some questions that you all can hopefully help me out with.


1. What's the minimum size tractor that you would recommend? Is a Kubota L3901 not enough? Most people I've heard say to buy the biggest I can afford, but I would obviously like to save money where I can meanwhile still having enough machine to do the job efficiently. The tasks I'll be doing are: clearing land of trees/weeds/brush, moving several stone walls, cutting in and grading a 600' driveway, grading ~3 acres of land, moving soil/mulch/stone, digging footers, digging curtain drains, and various other chores in the future.

2. What's the best/most efficient/easiest way to clear land of brush, weeds, and grass to prep it for a new lawn? I was thinking of using either the front end loader or backhoe and scraping the ground, using a box scraper, or using a tiller. If the backhoe or front end loader method works good I'd rather go that route so I don't have to buy another attachment.

3. What's the best/most efficient/easiest way to grade the land and 600' driveway? Box scraper? Front end loader?


I'm sure I'll have more questions in the future, any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[mjcountrybumpkin]

My personal suggestion would be to buy a used dozer, get the work done, then sale it for about what you bought it for. Then guy buy the tractor you want to do other task around the property.
That would be the most efficient way. And you wouldn't have a beat up new tractor from clearing your land. Good luck and have fun.

 

[oosik]

Clearing land can be very hard on and time consuming with a tractor. They simply are not, normally, designed for that type work. mjcountrybumpkin has a good idea/suggestion. If the quote you got is a fair one then the clearing job is a relatively tough job and not something a new person would want to tackle with a new tractor. What will happen, most likely, is you will get part way completed and realize this and the fact that your time table for completion is way out of whack.

Even given an unlimited amount of time and the current tractor I have - there is no way I would have tackled my driveway and house pad preparation. The contractor did an excellent job on my place and it still took almost three weeks using a JD 650 crawler. BTW, my driveway is a mile long which was about 97% of the time involvement. The foundation excavation and clearing around this excavation took them about 3/4 of a day.

I'm sorry if this is bad news - its better that you ask now and find out. It could have been a lot worse if you were two or three weeks into this project and had to ask - "What do I do now".

 

[Gordon Gould]

I pretty much agree with the first two posts. Dozers and excavators make the best land clearing and site prep equipment. It possibly can be done with a tractor but as said above will be a big job. Some pictures of the 3 acres you wish to clear and grade and of your house site would be very helpful. The terain, type of soil, and the size and kind of trees you have to take out and dispose of will make a big difference. What are you going to do with all the stumps, roots, and trees ? At 8K per acre what is the contractor going to do with them ?

 

[jeff9366]

You probably should do some reading in the LAND CLEARING Forum, which is under the RELATED EQUIPMENT Forum.

 

[Arc weld]

Post a picture of what you need cleared. Really hard to tell with just a vague description.

 

[Egon]

Any small tractor of 25/35 HP with a backhoe should handle the clearing. Dig down, cut the roots and push the tree over. For lawn prep a rotatiller and rear blade with gauge wheels should work. A float or drag made from one or two of the trees can also help in the finishing touches.

 

[Deere Dude]

I would buy a tractor like you suggested because you will always use that on a property that size more than likely.

But, I would maybe cut down the trees that are in the way and hire a cat man to do all the grubbing and roadwork. I don't know if that quote is legit or not because it seems awful high. I would shop around and hire a guy by the hour and be out there watching him. A good cat will do more in a day than your tractor will do in a month. For instance, I had to move some sharpish stone from a washout. After about 4 hours and one cut tire I hired a cat. He worked maybe 4 hours and did a whole lot better job than I could have done in a week, plus I saved my tractor. The cat cost $250 which I thought was a good deal seeing what I was facing. Use your tractor for the final leveling and grading and planting.

Every time I hire a cat, I do it as a last resort because of the expense, but whenever it was done I was glad to pay the guy because it seemed like a good deal for me looking at all the work he did in a short time.

I select cut a dense wooded acre lot with not a lot of big of trees and it took maybe a month but I didn't have a backhoe. That would have helped. I had a 45HP tractor and I was just having fun and playing mostly. But to get the job done timely, hire a cat or track-hoe.

 

[Soundguy]

CUT's are not great land clearing machines.

dozer, trackhoe and payloader are better.

We recently bought 9.5 acres of land in Connecticut including a half acre of farmed blueberry bushes. We're planning to build a house on the property middle of next year, and going to use the rest of this year to finalize the house plans and to clear the land. We're hoping for about 3 acres cleared for where the house will sit and the rest of it woods to be used as hunting land during the seasons. The location where the house will sit has about .5 acre cleared of trees, and the rest is wooded with mostly small-medium diameter pine and the like, with a small handful of bigger trees. A contractor quoted us about $8,000/acre cleared which means about $24,000 for the 3 acres. I'm thinking of buying a Kubota tractor (several local dealers and ease for service) with front end loader and backhoe, specifically a L3901 and doing the work myself, but I have some questions that you all can hopefully help me out with.


1. What's the minimum size tractor that you would recommend? Is a Kubota L3901 not enough? Most people I've heard say to buy the biggest I can afford, but I would obviously like to save money where I can meanwhile still having enough machine to do the job efficiently. The tasks I'll be doing are: clearing land of trees/weeds/brush, moving several stone walls, cutting in and grading a 600' driveway, grading ~3 acres of land, moving soil/mulch/stone, digging footers, digging curtain drains, and various other chores in the future.

2. What's the best/most efficient/easiest way to clear land of brush, weeds, and grass to prep it for a new lawn? I was thinking of using either the front end loader or backhoe and scraping the ground, using a box scraper, or using a tiller. If the backhoe or front end loader method works good I'd rather go that route so I don't have to buy another attachment.

3. What's the best/most efficient/easiest way to grade the land and 600' driveway? Box scraper? Front end loader?


I'm sure I'll have more questions in the future, any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[Arc weld]

9.5 acres is a huge chunk of land to clear with a small tractor. $8000/acre to clear seems really high. I'd get some other prices from contractors with cats and excavators. $8000/acre for a big mulcher for oilfield clearing maybe but you don't need that. A track excavator with a thumb will do a real nice job with an experienced operator. It would be good to see what you need done though.