Hoe project for the first timer?

[Cord]

We just purchased a piece of property and need to put the driveway in. The drive will wind it's way up the face of a rocky bluff. Most of the drive will be pretty easy, but apx. 50' will need to be carved out of the rock. At this time, we don't know how solid the rock is, but I'm anticipating being able to finish the job with a hydraulic breaker. After we got a price for the electric service ($26,000) I needed to recover some money in the budget and have decided to put the driveway in myself. I'm planning on renting a small hoe (not a mini), but I have very little experience with one. I used a skid steer mounted backhoe once which is not nearly as sophisticated as the newer machines are. You guys have any pointers (and encouragement) for the novice?

 

[EddieWalker]

Digging in rock with a backhoe? I hope it's some sort of crumbly rock or it loose materail. I've run into some hard packed iron or, which is mostly small pebble sized rock compacted into clay, and my full sized backhoe can't get through it. I have to drag the teeth back and forth over it to break it down. Very, very slow work. No way I could clear a road of that stuff.

Do you have any pictures?

Where are you located? Sometimes people in your area will know some tricks that the rest of us don't.

Eddie

 

[inveresk]

I'm doubtful that the backhoe is the right tool for cutting/building a drive. The only time I used mine during that operation was to remove a couple of stumps and a few large rocks. I did almost all of the work with a box blade which I bought for the purpose, and for maintaining the drive. It's a great tool, cost only a few hundred bucks and has easily paid its way since I bought it.

During building operations the hoe is useful - I've cut all the service and drainage trenches for the barn and house, formed and landscaped two new swales, installed 4 acres of field drains and pulled a few stumps but, long term, I expect the box blade to get more use than the hoe on our property. Once the building works are complete and we're on maintenance only, I might even sell the backhoe.

p.s. The box blade won't cut rock either. I'd have thought if you have much of that, you'd be best to hire in an excavator with a rock needle or do some blasting.

 

[dubba]

oh boy, what a post.

Not knowing where you live, lets do generalities.

Renting an excavator & a hydraulic breaker is probably the only way you will be able to cut the driveway into the rocky bluff.

IMHO no inexperienced user should run an excavator with a hydraulic breaker unless you have an unlimited amount of cash to replace all the bits that are going to be broken, bent & abused. It is a sort of art that involves being familiar with the machine & sensitive to its controls & weight.

On a totally unrelated side note..

26k for electric service?? If I was presented with that estimate, I would stop any work & fully investigate solar/wind power. You allude to a rocky bluff that might mean you are high enough for wind. 26k would go a long, long way to outfitting yourself with a system in which you would never have to pay an electric bill again & no generator for emergency backup service when the darn power goes out.

Having no idea where you live makes for a lot of questions, instead of answers. If I had been involved with the construction of my current house, we would have solar/wind power & I wouldn't have to pay $2400/year for electric service.

 

[PineRidge]

Don't think a hoe is the best tool for your application. Here's what we used, and it made short work of a 650'-700' gravel drive.

 

[3RRL]

Cord,
If your talking Rock, boulders and such, you'll have your hands full and I agree with the other posters to consider having and expert handle THAT part. You can do the other. If your talking like decomposed granite, that can be done with an excavator. Some of you may have seen this photo before, where part of my road had to cut through a ravine with a lot of hard DG in it. You can see the teeth marks on the bank.

As far as the side note about wind or solar power, you'll still need a backup generator for those days the battery bank does not charge for lack of sun or wind. We are going totally off grid with solar. Here in So CA, SCE wanted to charge us $25/ft to pull from nearest box and another $25/ft to put it underground in conduit. HA! The nearest pull box is almost 3,500 ft away! Do the math...

 

[3RRL]

Cord,
This is what we used to do the rough work in the ravine and also the entire road... a little 55 to D-9. Check out this photo.

 

[Cord]

Here are some pics. The first one is of my neighbors drive. The top couple of feet of rock is pretty decayed and a strong hoe can rip through it. After that you are drilling and loading holes. A can't afford to blast, so what the hammer can't get we'll need to deal with.

 

[Cord]

Here's a pic of the area I need to get the drive up. There is a beatiful building site on this lot, so long as we can get to it. We can't build at the base of the bluff because the bluff face is actually in the setback.

Obviously, we won't be using a tractor for this job. A small cat might get it, but a hoe would be the better choice. With the hoe you can work in front while the machine is on stable ground.

 

[Cord]

Looks like there might be some caving starting too. We found 3 of these rock holes (and indications of several more) on the property behind us. So far, I havn't found any on our lot. The stick that's in the pic was 6' long and it went in all the way. The hole is around 6" in diameter and is proably a crack in the bedrock.