Ditching job

[crashz]

Your excavator should continue to ditch and throw it up-stream as he goes. Never stop moving that machine. He can build piles in the ditch ahead of himself to load into the bucket (truck!). Keep working the far edge and pull the piles to the near edge.

What about a hay wagon or manure spreader? You you load a spreader (I know nothing about these btw) and use it like a walking floor dump trailer? Trying to think outside the box a little.

 

[fishdrivel]

So the tractor travel time is a concern, but I will say the tractor can cover the 1/2 mile pretty fast. It’ll go 15+ no problem with a full bucket and Kubota shockless ride control turned on.
The customers driveway is stone and we can use it for about 75% of the travel distance from ditch to spoil pile or berm.
The problem is what the mini ex operator does while waiting for the tractor to make its round trip, which I calculate to be about 5-7 minutes.

What about the dirt spilled on stone driveway?
Are you going to travel fast with a full bucket?

One of the things I taught my young contractor friends is to do the math. It is not terribly hard to calculate the soil removed which will be at least 10% more in the bucket. You won't have a full bucket either. Take your tractor and time loading, travel, dumping, returning. Do the math. It may surprise you.

Go find a contractor. Ask him for a bid for the work.
Might get a surprise!

 

[Hay Dude]

Your excavator should continue to ditch and throw it up-stream as he goes. Never stop moving that machine. He can build piles in the ditch ahead of himself to load into the bucket (truck!). Keep working the far edge and pull the piles to the near edge.

What about a hay wagon or manure spreader? You you load a spreader (I know nothing about these btw) and use it like a walking floor dump trailer? Trying to think outside the box a little.

Yeah cool ideas, but a spreader has beaters that would throw spoil and make a mess.

**Thinking about a dump trailer behind my AG tractor?**

fishdrible: I did a “time scenario” and figure it’ll take 15-20 minutes from ditching 3 buckets into loader bucket, driving loader to spoil pile and returning. So that’s only 3-4 loader buckets per hour, or 24-32 loader buckets per 8 hour day. Or 120-160 loader buckets in a week.

 

[crashz]

This may be a stupid idea as well, but it did work for an addition that was built in a tight area. My father dug a foundation for a friend and the friend wanted to use the fill in the back of his lot. The run was too long for a loader, to rough and soggy for a 10 wheeler, but the friend a had a 4x4 1-ton dump. We had two. So with an army of 1-ton dump trucks, we moved about 350CY of soil in a couple days. They were a little overloaded, but it worked.

 

[fishdrivel]

Yeah cool ideas, but a spreader has beaters that would throw spoil and make a mess.

**Thinking about a dump trailer behind my AG tractor?**

fishdrible: I did a “time scenario” and figure it’ll take 15-20 minutes from ditching 3 buckets into loader bucket, driving loader to spoil pile and returning. So that’s only 3-4 loader buckets per hour, or 24-32 loader buckets per 8 hour day. Or 120-160 loader buckets in a week.

You are going to be very tired!

 

[crashz]

I figured a manure spreader was more complicated that a simple chain conveyor.

Yeah, That big Kubota should tow quite a trailer. Something with float tires would be best so that you don't sink it when loaded and tear up the ground when turning.

 

[Hay Dude]

You are going to be very tired!

That’s actually an easy day compared to most. Probably more stressful than physically tiring, but yeah.

 

[Hay Dude]

I figured a manure spreader was more complicated that a simple chain conveyor.

Yeah, That big Kubota should tow quite a trailer. Something with float tires would be best so that you don't sink it when loaded and tear up the ground when turning.

I could rent mats, but we’d need so many it would get real costly.

 

[fishdrivel]

I figured a manure spreader was more complicated that a simple chain conveyor.

Yeah, That big Kubota should tow quite a trailer. Something with float tires would be best so that you don't sink it when loaded and tear up the ground when turning.

Will not be able to drive very fast with a loaded trailer behind the tractor.

 

[Hay Dude]

Looks perfect size, low compaction, but slow looking