Another slope application question

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

iPhone app too. I have it, very cool. "Clinometer"

 

[Hill HIgh Guy]

Axlehub, thanks for the informative answer. Your right there is a huge variety of opinion on this. I'm a homebuilder and when I built this house, I essentially dug in to a hillside and created a flat space for the house and a flat bit of yard but have a hill behind the house and a super steep hill in front. The rest of the property loses 60' in elevation from the back of the property behind the house down to the street (3acre lot). I got in to a lot of rock in the excavation which I buried most but the rear hillside has a little bit of topsoil covering...rock. I don't I will be able to put any sort of machine on these hills and threw grass seed to try and stabilize the erosion of topsoil. My plan is to install plantings at some point. The local jurisdiction allowed my to only clear about an acre out of the 3 for construction. The rest was an old orchard and field grass. It's growing crazily now with all of this rain we've had and I need to keep it cut or my new neighbors are going to lose their patience. I will be moving rocks as I find them growing out of the ground while I try to turn this field grass in to something presentable and also clear the few poison ivy mangled apple trees on the property.

I had guys out the other day to know down the field grass/weeds and they used zero turns so I feel confident that a MMM can accomplish this. I wouldn't mow with the BH on nor probably with the bucket.

I've got two good dealers in my town. JD and Kubota. I guess 1 series or bx for me. I am going to look at a B2601. It's 3" lower than a B2650 but has enough space to add spacers so maybe that might be the sweet spot.

 

[MossRoad]

If they are mowing it with ZTRs, it either isn't that steep, or they are nuts! ZTRs are notoriously bad on slopes.

Measure your slopes so we can have some idea of how steep they really are to help with the suggestions as to what would be a better machine for you.

 

[Hill HIgh Guy]

Most of my slope is seeded and netted so I kept them and their ZTRs off of that part. I measured approx 13* off level which I believe is around 23% slope?

Yesterday I sat on and drove: BX2680, B2601, B2650 around a local Kubota dealer and his lot had some slope to play on. The B2601 just "felt" more stable to me. I think that is direction I'm going to go.

0% for 84 months may end this month and two dealers informed me of a 2.5% increase coming across the board due to "tariffs".

 

[4570Man]

Maybe I’m nuts but I’d bet money I can mow a hill with my grasshopper that would roll a tractor. The zero turn model, tires, and operator make the difference between pretty much useless and a hill mowing machine.

 

[MossRoad]

Most of my slope is seeded and netted so I kept them and their ZTRs off of that part. I measured approx 13* off level which I believe is around 23% slope?

Yesterday I sat on and drove: BX2680, B2601, B2650 around a local Kubota dealer and his lot had some slope to play on. The B2601 just "felt" more stable to me. I think that is direction I'm going to go.

0% for 84 months may end this month and two dealers informed me of a 2.5% increase coming across the board due to "tariffs".

Don't get hung up on the % grade. Stick with degrees of angle. Many people over the years here on TBN have talked about 45 degree slopes and after interrogation and discussion, realize it's a 45% grade, which is only a 23ish degree angle. There's just been so much confusion regarding % grade VS degree angle. Grade really only matters to truckers and trains and up and down hills.

When you're traveling across a hill, you aren't moving up or down, so you arent' climbing or decending a grade. You're traversing a slope and leaning at an angle. Anyhow, call it what you want, just be sure to remember the difference.

13 degrees is not very much at all. Traveling up and down it should not be a problem. Across it shouldn't either, but if you put a load in an FEL and raise it too much, or a backhoe angled down the hill, or hit a hidden dip or groundhog hole, then your center of gravity or tilt angle can change rapidly and over you go.

Stand 8' back from an 8' wall. From your feet to the ceiling is 45 degree angle.
4' up the wall is about 22.5 degree angle.
2' up the wall is about 11.25 degree angle.

So if you think about it, you should be able to drive up 2' high in 8' forward pretty easily.

 

[Ford850]

Stand 8' back from an 8' wall. From your feet to the ceiling is 45 degree angle.
4' up the wall is about 22.5 degree angle.
2' up the wall is about 11.25 degree angle.

So if you think about it, you should be able to drive up 2' high in 8' forward pretty easily.

That might be the best example I've seen on here, making very easy for anyone to picture. Like you said earlier there's been a lot of confusion over grade/slope/degrees.

 

[Goose69]

Most of my slope is seeded and netted so I kept them and their ZTRs off of that part. I measured approx 13* off level which I believe is around 23% slope?

Yesterday I sat on and drove: BX2680, B2601, B2650 around a local Kubota dealer and his lot had some slope to play on. The B2601 just "felt" more stable to me. I think that is direction I'm going to go.

0% for 84 months may end this month and two dealers informed me of a 2.5% increase coming across the board due to "tariffs".

.. I just had a B2601 delivered yesterday. Ordered it a couple weeks ago
I was looking at the same tractors as you, as well as others, even some non tractor options. and decided on the 2601. We have a lot of sloped areas, hills and rough terrain.
...We decided a subcompact BX would be too small. The B2650 would be too big for our house, orchard, barn area.
....Kubota made it a pretty easy decision with their 0% finance and we found a dealer we like, with a good reputation for service after the sale

 

[4570Man]

According to the angle app on my phone by holding it on the roll bar this hill is 17 degrees. It’s child’s play for my grasshopper. That’s the equivalent of bragging that your loader lifted 3 bags of cement.

 

[Hill HIgh Guy]

Well, you can see that I have a nice variety of slope.

 

[Ford850]

The iPhones have a level built into the compass app that can be used as an inclinometer. Swipe your compass to the left to see the level.

Hill High Guy, your property has nice character.

 

[4570Man]

Well, you can see that I have a nice variety of slope.

View attachment 559609

That hill in the front looks steeper than my claimed 17 degree slope with near mandatory sideways mowing. Maybe being a good bit longer makes it look steeper than my hill. I think you dealer is blowing smoke that a BX equivalent would be better than a B equivalent. Sorry I’m not familiar with JD terms. Believe I’d look for orange with that dealer anyway.

 

[MossRoad]

Well, you can see that I have a nice variety of slope.

View attachment 559609

That looks nice! :thumbsup:

 

[AxleHub]

Hill High,

Nice looking house and property layout. It would have been good to know early on that you're actually a contractor and not just having a home built - as typically a contractor has familiarity with equipment in general - and may have other uses for the tractor too.

Looks from the outside like you do nice work.

However, only from the single picture you showed - the only steep slopes I could see that reminded me of ours are on the very far left side of the picture just before the woods - but those look to be up and down possibly instead of sidehill (I can't see behind your house).

Other than that one area I mentioned I could see - I don't believe you'd have any problems at all with a BX or my Massey GC 1715 or a B2601. Even a front mount Grasshopper would be fine on it I would virtually all of it I would think.

And being a Home builder as a business - the B2601 could come in handy for some jobs too as long as you don't let others run it (no matter how much experience they have) LOL.

jmho

 

[4570Man]

Hill High,

Nice looking house and property layout. It would have been good to know early on that you're actually a contractor and not just having a home built - as typically a contractor has familiarity with equipment in general - and may have other uses for the tractor too.

Looks from the outside like you do nice work.

However, only from the single picture you showed - the only steep slopes I could see that reminded me of ours are on the very far left side of the picture just before the woods - but those look to be up and down possibly instead of sidehill (I can't see behind your house).

Other than that one area I mentioned I could see - I don't believe you'd have any problems at all with a BX or my Massey GC 1715 or a B2601. Even a front mount Grasshopper would be fine on it I would virtually all of it I would think.

And being a Home builder as a business - the B2601 could come in handy for some jobs too as long as you don't let others run it (no matter how much experience they have) LOL.

jmho

You don’t have much experience with a front mount grasshopper do you. If you intended on beating one of those you better show up with a dedicated hill side mower with duels on it.

 

[AxleHub]

You don稚 have much experience with a front mount grasshopper do you. If you intended on beating one of those you better show up with a dedicated hill side mower with duels on it.

Assuming what you don't know always has the potential for embarassment

 

[4570Man]

Well I don’t own one but I’ve seen them do stuff that I wouldn’t do with my mid mount. I know for a fact that without adding ridiculous amounts of weight like a 2” thick steel “skid” plate that a subcompact tractor will be on its side before my mid mount grasshopper gives up.

 

[Hill HIgh Guy]

Hill High,

Nice looking house and property layout. It would have been good to know early on that you're actually a contractor and not just having a home built - as typically a contractor has familiarity with equipment in general - and may have other uses for the tractor too.

Looks from the outside like you do nice work.

However, only from the single picture you showed - the only steep slopes I could see that reminded me of ours are on the very far left side of the picture just before the woods - but those look to be up and down possibly instead of sidehill (I can't see behind your house).

Other than that one area I mentioned I could see - I don't believe you'd have any problems at all with a BX or my Massey GC 1715 or a B2601. Even a front mount Grasshopper would be fine on it I would virtually all of it I would think.

And being a Home builder as a business - the B2601 could come in handy for some jobs too as long as you don't let others run it (no matter how much experience they have) LOL.

jmho

Thanks for the kind words Axlehub. I work for a national builder and years ago, I was the guy in the field building houses. These days I'm a corporate puke but I'm also cheap so I wasn't going to pay someone to do something I could do. I've built a couple for myself over the years but this one was a crusher with the weather over the Winter and the rock I ran in to during excavation. I can run a skid steer and back hoe but I'm dangerous so I leave that to the professionals LOL. There is going to be a lot of work to get this property to resemble some sort of yard. Since it was an old apple orchard, I intended to plant a bunch of fruit trees, put in a large garden, maybe some grape vines (this part of VA is "wine country").

I'm going to put my down payment down on a B2601 TLB tomorrow. With how uneven the property is at this point, I'm going for a RFM instead of the MMM. Of all the tractors I drove, this one seems to fit me the best. I'll post pics when I get it.

 

[AxleHub]

Well I don稚 own one but I致e seen them do stuff that I wouldn稚 do with my mid mount. I know for a fact that without adding ridiculous amounts of weight like a 2 thick steel 都kid plate that a subcompact tractor will be on its side before my mid mount grasshopper gives up.

4570,

That was a similar statement the Grasshopper salesman made when he stopped out to demo a unit (a front mount). He ended up in the neighbors yard twice and almost in the drainage ditch once.

I'm amazed how much some people don't understand the grass type and sidehills are a combined issue. I've always liked the bigger front mount grasshoppers for slope . . . But sidehills is a different story. As is the need for using r3 treaded tires is important too

 

[4570Man]

Turf tires on wet grass are a recipe for failure. Add in a smaller less capable zero turn with an inexperienced operator and it’s no wonder they have s bad rap. I put get something done tires on my grasshopper and being one of the widest models with plenty of ballast over the drive tires I stick with my original statement that a compact tractor will be on its side before my grasshopper gives up.