Dozer vs Excavator-need opinion

arrow · Mar 12, 2010

Ken45101 said:
An excavator will leave a lot of holes from the root system. There will be a lot of "destruction" with an excavator too. Those need to be backfilled and packed down, probably with a blade.

Another issue is the slope of the land, if any. A dozer is more stable on hillsides than an excavator.

Ken

Ken, my experience with small trees as described leaves hardly a hole. Yes, some small ones but these are easily covered up with a side sweep of the bucket in short order. One of the largest advantage of an excavator is it is able to pivot and cover a large portion of ground without moving. I have seen a 1 yard bucket excavator out pace a 2 and 1/2 yd loader when filling dump trucks as a result. You raise a valid issue with the lay of the land of which I do not know. Out where I live, in the late 1800's they would just use the trees as fence posts. I have barbed wire coming out of the middle of trees that are 15" round and because a tree grows height wise mostly from its crown, the fencing appears to be in the same place on the tree they placed it over a hundred years ago. Just that now the fencing comes out from the middle of the tree.

jenkinsph · Mar 12, 2010

Ken, Arrow,

South Louisiana is flat, real flat.

MarkV, I think either the dozer or excavator can easily clear the fence right of way, my thought was the excavator could bury it quickly.

bw_wis · Mar 13, 2010

Have you though about a skid steer with a cut/mulching head on it?

JoelD · Mar 13, 2010

bw_wis said:
Have you though about a skid steer with a cut/mulching head on it?

This is a very good idea could make very quick work of it

only problem would be stumps left behind

I've ownd a dozed and doing finish quality work is very hard to get right excavator on the other hand much easier for average operator

if you don't need to stump I like the skidsteer mulcher idea if you do I've found excavator to just be a bunch easier thumb a must for dealing with trees

Joel