As bored as me? Let's have a little fun. How would you tackle this scenario???

[Piston]

I've started a couple of threads for 'how to' of clearing my land, but it never hurts to start another right? I'm interested in some more ideas from you guys.

This thread is more for fun, and sort of an exercise to see different ways to do things, or different opinions on the best ways to get it done, as well as provide entertainment, anything goes.

I'm interested to see how you guys would tackle a project I have coming up. I have 2 weeks until I start and a bunch of "sitting in front of a computer" between now and then, so this will keep me entertained :laughing:

I don't need to finish it in 5 days, but I have 5 days to work on it, so whatever I get done is a bonus, I have all summer and fall to finish.

I'll give a scenerio, along with pics, and I would like to hear your ideas on how you would best approach the job.

You own 31 acres of mixed hardwoods. There is a transition zone from an all pine site, to a mixed hardwoods site. A nice stone wall separates the two zones. The site is gently sloping 5-10% grade or so.
There aren't many neighbors and your house lot is about 600-700' into the woods. (Don't worry about the driveway, there is a whole nother thread on that:laughing
You want to build a house right in this 'transition zone' and have a 2 acre 'spot' picked out.
You don't have a lot of expendable income because you have a baby on the way :laughing::laughing: (Okay, that might be more specific to my situation:laughing

The equipment you have available (I.E. already own) is as follows:
A full size backhoe (John Deere 410)
A 45hp tractor with FEL
A FEL grapple
Heavy duty box blade with hyd scarifiers
Top N Tilt
Landscape rake with gauge wheels
Ratchet Rake

Also assorted hand tools, chainsaws, polesaw, brushcutter (weedwacker syle) etc.

You have one helper who is very good at running equipment.

You'll be clearing your land for a house lot. Use whatever landscape scenerio you would prefer, whether it is a barely cleared site because you like the 'forest' look, or a totally open site with manicured lawn, whatever you personally prefer.
How would you go about clearing the land?

How would you choose which trees to take/leave?

How would you use the equipment I listed to achieve your results?

What would you hire out to get done, and what would you do yourself?

I have my ideas in my head but it's good to get other people's perspective as well. If history repeats itself, I will learn a great deal from you guys and will realize I didn't think of many things, that you will have brought up.

Sooooo,
What's YOUR plan?

EDIT: If you could add one more implement to what I've listed to help out, what would it be and why?

(Pics to follow)

 

[Piston]

Here are some pics, this is an example of the trees you will be taking down.

(More next post)

 

[Piston]

Some more pics....

 

[Dingo Man]

Well I don't know about the entire game plan, but do you have any wood there that would be appealing to a saw mill. You mentioned having a bit of a budget issue. I would think if you could locate a local that has a portable saw mill you may be able to make a little money. Only other thing is the older white pines drop alot of branches and create a mess so I would drop any larger pines around where I would be building.

 

[retiredmgn]

awghvdgas

 

[TRR]

I'd mark the trees I want to keep then cut the rest for either a sawmill, firewood, fence poles, etc. Then I'd get a stump grinder and grind the stumps or possibly a mulcher to grind the stumps.

 

[LeadPoison]

Step One: Figure out exactly where you want the house. Mark it off with some flags, tape, etc.. Include your "yard area."

Step Two: Figure out the road way in/out and flag, tape it, etc...

Step 3: Use a chain saw and drop every tree too big to be bulldozed in the zoned areas.

Step 4: Drop every tree that is too big to be bulldozed that has the potential to fall on the house. Even if it's a healthy tree. It's cheap insurance.

Step 5: Drop every unhealthy tree that could fall across the road.

Step 6: Hire a dozer and clean it out. Wayyyyyyy faster. Have him de-stump what he can and use the backhoe to give him a hand if necessary.

Worry about the lawn later after construction of the house.

 

[scoutcub]

I'd mark out where the house/yard/road/landscaping/well/septic, etc. will be. Then mark trees I wanted to take/keep. Think about it long and hard.....where does the sun rise/set....dominant direction of the wind.....views....tops of trees versus impacting the roof...etc.

I would jump on the 410 and start digging out the root of the tree, and push it over with either hoe or bucket. Hoe is quicker, but easier to slip off the tree, more dangerous. I've also dug around some roots, and left...after a good windstorm they will drop. Little more risk there, needs to be managed properly.
Cutting trees and dealing with stumps.....been there, done that, hated it. Dozers are terrible for removing stumps. On a good sized tree, your 410 will take quite awhile on a stump. I have a CAT 312 and some stumps have taken me several hours to pop. Grapple the logs in a pile, grapple the stumps for burning or burying. If burying, find a spot out of the way as it will settle with decomposition.
Sounds like you have the time and equipment, I would save the $$ and do it yourself.
Good luck!!

 

[buck12]

Not sure exactly how to go about it as that will be dictated by time and money. If it were my home site I would remove every pine that would be near my house and yard. I had pines at my last house and hated them.

 

[schmism]

your going to have to spend money on outside work. (least a smart person is)

very first thing.

1) Survey. Pay for a proper topo survey of the area in question. you want to know grades, how much dirt to move, were waters moving etc.

Once you have your survey you can lay out your house, driveway etc on paper and block it out with stakes and flags in the field to verify design.

Once ive considered wind direction, what areas get sun, what areas stay wet, what areas drift with snow, i start marking trees to take out.

With your full size backhoe you should be able to drop a decent size tree. (check out letsdig18 youtube channel on how he drops pines with his trackhoe) but make no mistake, your backhoe (even full size) is still a poor excuse compared to a 25,000 lb excavator.

after ive marked the trees, id hire out an excavator to drop the trees by digging stumps. he could clear in hrs what would take you days on your backhoe. at $4 a gall for fuel , you may quickly find it was cheeper to hire it out for 8 hrs vs spending days doing it yourself.

After he drops the trees its up to you to to buck them to log length skid them out and bring in a portable sawmill to turn them in to lumber. saw on shares keeping half of the lumber for your new pole barn, the sawer gets the other half as payment, your out no money for that job.

dig a hole and burry the stumps or burn them with the tops in a pit.

after the site is clean, you bring in the construction equip to start building the house.

 

[Ken45101]

If you just want seat time, do as you please. BTDT. I did a lot of preliminary clearing so that we could plan the homesite but the contractor's bulldozer and excavator did it a lot more efficiently, including getting the stumps out and burying them.

Ken

 

[brin]

Looking at your pictures, you have very few large trees..If I were you I would consider hiring a Mulcher and mark off the areas you want ground down and let him bring his machines in a do the deed...you will be left with some nice wood chips..no clean up and you are done...Right here on TBN there are members who could do the job for you.

 

[JRobyn]

Having recently done exactly this, it is my opinion that LeadPoison has it all mostly right. Only three things I might add:

1) where the house slab/foundation is going to go, hire a good bulldozer guy to push the trees over. This takes out almost everything of the root ball so that there are not long-term settlement issues as root balls gradually decay. Although you may be able to do this yourself with the big backhoe, a guy with an appropriately-sized dozer can do it so much faster and with no wear an tear on your equipment. The guy that did ours cleared the home site, yard, septic field, and back driveway about 100 yds long, and pushed it all up in a very tight/neat burn pile in a little over one day.

2) Assuming that you will need septic, make sure you identify and clear a sufficient area for the drain field and that there is sufficient "perkable" soil! We had to alter our preferred house location a good bit to have it near a suitable area for the septic field. And had to hire local soil scientists to confirm all that before the county would grant a septic permit.

3) If you are out in the middle of nowhere like we are, determine a suitable position where you can get line-of-sight from a satelite dish to the satelite, and clear any trees that are in the way!

 

[Piston]

awghvdgas

Good plan! :laughing:

but do you have any wood there that would be appealing to a saw mill

I didn't mention that I do have a portable sawmill and intend to keep any of the Pines that are 'millable' size (10" or more for me). I will put them off to the side in a log pile in 16' lengths for my mill. Any of the hardwoods over 4" I will pile for firewood.

LeadPoison,
I like your plan, sounds like a good one. :thumbsup:


schmism,
That is a very well thought out plan and I like the idea of dropping the trees whole, and not leaving the stump.

Looking at your pictures, you have very few large trees..If I were you I would consider hiring a Mulcher and mark off the areas you want ground down and let him bring his machines in a do the deed...you will be left with some nice wood chips..no clean up and you are done...Right here on TBN there are members who could do the job for you.

This is an excellent idea. Anyone reading this do mulching in or near Central NH?

I was thinking of a mulcher last time I was up there, but it seemed to me like there wasn't too much brush that a mulcher would be able to keep busy on. I don't mean it couldn't handle it, but it wouldn't be able to mulch the larger trees, and I think they would probably get all the mulching I need done in an hour or two, so I dont know if it would be worth their time?

1) where the house slab/foundation is going to go, hire a good bulldozer guy to push the trees over. This takes out almost everything of the root ball so that there are not long-term settlement issues as root balls gradually decay. Although you may be able to do this yourself with the big backhoe, a guy with an appropriately-sized dozer can do it so much faster and with no wear an tear on your equipment. The guy that did ours cleared the home site, yard, septic field, and back driveway about 100 yds long, and pushed it all up in a very tight/neat burn pile in a little over one day.

2) Assuming that you will need septic, make sure you identify and clear a sufficient area for the drain field and that there is sufficient "perkable" soil! We had to alter our preferred house location a good bit to have it near a suitable area for the septic field. And had to hire local soil scientists to confirm all that before the county would grant a septic permit.

3) If you are out in the middle of nowhere like we are, determine a suitable position where you can get line-of-sight from a satelite dish to the satelite, and clear any trees that are in the way!

:thumbsup: Great advice.

 

[Piston]

Here is the plan I'm thinking of, but I welcome any and all advice and it's interesting to hear how you guys would do the job.

This is where I'm at so far,

I have had a thorough survey of the 2 acre area that shows contours every 5'. The surveyor has marked out the proposed driveway (although that is just based on where I told him I wanted it in general) and he drew in a proposed house site, with septic and well on the survey.

My general plan is to go into the woods with ribbon and tape (based on your rec recommendations) and mark all the dying, diseased, deformed, and heavy leaning trees to take out. I'll also take out as much brush as possible. Once I get a decent opening, I'll step back and look at the trees again, deciding which ones to keep.

Once I have that down, I'll go in with the backhoe and tractor, and knock the trees over with the backhoe, uprooting them in the process. There aren't any trees on the lot that I won't be able to knock over fairly easy with the hoe. Any really large trees I will leave, as they aren't in the nearby building area.

After dropping the tree I'll drag it to a 'landing' once we make one, then cut off the stump and limb the tree, cut it into 16' if it's usable (or shorter if needed) and move the sawlog to the log pile, then move the stump to the stump pile and rake up the brush with the grapple into a burn pile. I'll also pile the tops for burning.

Anyone else have other ideas on how they would personally tackle the situation?

Question about the burn pile, would you dig a large diameter pit, like say 2 or 3 feet deep, and pile the brush in there to burn? Or would you just pile it on top of the grade? I was thinking if it was a dug pit, maybe the brush would burn better since the 'walls' could reflect the heat back in, don't know if that is nonsense or not?

 

[LeadPoison]

Just burn the debris. Don't worry about a pit. You will have to push or throw the outside limbs and debris back over in to the fire though.

 

[Mark Page]

Trash the pines. If you have to drop any hardwoods they might be good for boards. Push the woods back so that your house gets some sunlight.
Buck the trees you drop into 8 foot lenghts and stack with graple for later use. Get a dozer in to smooth drive way so you can smooth stone later. Have dozer pull stumps and place in the woods. Allow more room around your house than you think you'll need. This is gonna' be a big job. Can you burn the slash?

 

[Piston]

Yes I can burn, as long as it isn't too dry out but that isn't typically a problem this time of year :laughing:

I want to add another question to this thread (you just made me think of it)

Hypothetically speaking If I could get one more attachment for my tractor to assist in what I'm doing, what do you think the most useful attachment would be?

I was originally thinking a used hydro feed chipper, but now I'm not so sure?

 

[LeadPoison]

You have electricity out there yet? A PTO generator might be a good investment for power outages and electrical during the build process if you need it.

 

[schmism]

Hypothetically speaking If I could get one more attachment for my tractor to assist in what I'm doing, what do you think the most useful attachment would be?

3pt tiller. Good for gradeing, makeing gardens and planting grass.

pallet forks for the hoe or the tractor. Its nice to be able to move pallets of construction materials around.

3pt wood spliter to split up the wood you drop for your fireplace