How hard is it to learn to use a rental mini-excavator?

[paulsharvey]

A 24" stump is a pretty significant stump for something like a Cat-302 or a JD-27. Not that I can't be done, but it very well could be 4-6hrs per stump.

 

[dstig1]

They aren't bad to learn but don't expect to be smooth at it, unless you find you have a particular talent for this. But I am with the others in that what you are asking to do is probably better handled by a stump grinder or hiring it out to someone with a bigger hoe. You will want a grinder with at least 20-30 hp

One thing to be aware of is travel time. Excavators are the slowest thing on the planet so you don't want to drive them far once you get one delivered.

 

[newbury]

And like they wrote - tree type, soil, root structure make a BIG difference.
Soon after I got my B7610 w/ Woods BH70 backhoe I took out a tree that was about 14" DBH but had died. It was spring, the soil was moist, it took most of a day plus. Then I took out a few "small" pine trees, < 8" DBH. They were like pulling carrots.
Then I tried to take out a red maple stump. Tree had been about 22" DBH, rooted in marine clay with at least 4 massive root "branches" or laterals each over 8" in diameter. It took many hours, probably days of work before I figured it wasn't worth my time. The soil dried out and I gave up, I had holes as deep as my BH would reach (~ 6') all around the "stump" and couldn't break the taproot. Let it set and rot for a year and pulled it out finally.

 

[ultrarunner]

Are you good with video games...

My then 12 year old nephew with no experience was a natural and I was scratching my head why.

He told me it's just like a video game he has...

Kids today can surprise a person.

 

[dodge man]

I’m one of those people with pretty average hand eye skills. The good part is digging out stumps isn’t delicate work. I’d say get a little bit bigger one than you think you need. I dug out about a 15” stump with a Kubota BX several years ago. It really didn’t take that long but I had to get in there and cut some roots by hand, I also had a huge hole and pulled it loose with a truck.

 

[5030]

All I can say is, having never ran a Cat D6 dozer but my buddy has one and told me I could use it, took me about 20 minutes and some serious gouges to get the hang of running it. It's a hoot too. Something about popping a treee out of the ground, root ball and all is exciting and the dang thing don't even blow any smoke either, just gets up on the turbo and pushes. Real good for stumps too. I could do a lot of damage with it if I was a vindictive person. It's a tank. Issue is moving it around. It has to be moved on a low bed trailer and it's heavy and wide too. Glad he has a low bed to move it with, I don't. He owns a 54 acre wooded lot near me and he wants me and my woodcutter buddy to cut all the downed trees in it and remove the stumps too and we or should I say my buddy gets all the wood and it's mostly hardwood. Gonna be a fun spring and summer and did I mention, it has a 30 ton winch on the back as well and I have permission to hunt it as well. It's about 10 minutes from the farm. Already itching even with snow on the ground. Lots of big saw logs are going to come out.

 

[BlueKnife]

A 24" stump is a pretty significant stump for something like a Cat-302 or a JD-27. Not that I can't be done, but it very well could be 4-6hrs per stump.

Exactly. With a decent stump grinder, it's be more like 5-20 minutes per stump.

 

[paulsharvey]

One clarification would be; the difference between a 24" stump vs the stump from a 24" tree. Another difference is how they tree is cut. Normally, I would say leave a 4-6 ft trunk to allow a lever to pull-push on, but with a hoe that small, you also want to minimize the weight of the stump/trunk combo...

 

[paulsharvey]

But to the original question; a mini hoe is very easy to run, But you won't be efficient, and to dig stumps, you will be repositioning a fair bit, around the root ball, and I would look at other, cheaper options; such as, cutting flush and leaving the stumps if in an inoffensive place, and allowing a couple seasons of decay to do a lot of the work or you. Somethings, like a long leaf pine, a 24" tree, might have a tap root that is 8 ft long, and a hoe of that weight class just isn't going to pull/break off.

 

[Jims1025R]

If you're going to rent a mini excavator for stump pulling, try it at a "tugging" task before you accept it for the job. I've owned a John Deere 15 (quite small) for 25 years. A few years ago, a friend wanted me to take it to his house, 75 miles away to pull some stumps, and move some rocks. I told him I was entirely happy to help, but that it would probably cost less effort to arrange for a delivered local rental, rather than arranging truck and trailer to move mine all that way. He agreed, and rented a rather larger one. I went to do the work for him, and it was gutless. Mine would have easily done the work. Though a bigger machine, I saw that the hydraulic cylinders were smaller, and I don't think it was really built to work, but rather play. And, I wonder if the rental agency had dialed back the hydraulic pressure, so the machine could not be worked hard. I don't know how you judge the suitability of the rental machine before hand, but I know that too weak a machine is a waste of your day....

As for learning, just make sure that there's nothing close by you can hit by accident (swinging), and go slow for the first few minutes. Don't use the swing to move rocks sideways, lock the cab to the tracks, put the blade down, and use the boom swing instead of cab swing. And work over the blade as much as you can.

 

[vagem55]

I have a Woods backhoe on my Kubota B3030. The controls on the backhoe use the John Deere pattern. The mini-excavator I rented had the switch on the control box mentioned below. Learn one technique and you can operate both.
Note the mini-excavator turns with foot pedals.
John Deere "BH" pattern has always been opposite ISO(SAE/Excavator). You can swap the Crowd(stick) and Boom hoses at the control valve.

 

[Matt Bland]

You could look into a stump bucket for your tractor. Saw a few videos they seem to work well and for around the same cost give or take you have an implement you can use whenever you need it. I am trading in a mini excavator on a new bigger kubota and included one in the package. Several different brands lots of choices

 

[mikester]

It's easy to learn.

First learn how to fasten your seat belt and ALWAYS wear it

Second, buy the insurance

 

[nknelsen]

I've been a member of this forum for a long time and appreciate the advice offered hear. I'm the proud owner of two Steiner 240's. I have two properties and they serve me very well for mowing, dirt moving and snow blowing. Last summer the machine in the picture moved 1000 yards of fill and gravel and it was maybe the best summer of my life!!! I personally think that the flexibility, power and durability make Steiner/Ventracs a very good long-term value for a mechanically inclined homeowner like me.

My place in Maine has tree stumps that are out of range for a 22 HP machine. I can push 24" and smaller stumps around once they are loose, but I can't get them dislodged.

I'm considering renting a mini-excavator to dig about 10 stumps in the 12 to 24" range. My question is, how steep is the learning curve for a mini-excavator for someone who has lots of hydraulic tractor experience? Can I reasonably expect to dig 10 stumps in a day starting with no mini-excavator experience?

I thought you Americans had 24/7 access to dynamite? Wouldn't you rather blow them out of the ground? Sounds like more fun to me.

Seriously, learning to run a mini x is different for everyone. Some get it quickly some don't. In my job I've witnessed hundreds of new and learning new operators.

Is there anything valuable near the stumps? House, trees you want to save or retaining walls close by? If they are in the open then I'd say it's worth a try, but if you damage the brick or siding on a house etc.....

I find renting a grinder for my Kioti works better for me, and that way I don't have a hole to fill.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

Learning tomoperate is easy. Digging a 24 inch stump with a mini ex will take half a day or all day and probably, you wont be able to move it. The weight is astonishing. If you can live with the results, I would get someone to grind them or Rent a stump grinder and do it yourself.

 

[GeneSimm7]

Not that hard to learn how to run an excavator. A little harder to get good at it. I recommend that whatever you rent that you get one with a thumb.

 

[Daytonacoupe66]

For me an excavator offers the most fun you will have on a machine. If that's what you are after then rent one and enjoy, but they do take a few hours to get acquainted with the controls, then hundreds of hours +++ to get good at what you are doing....not unlike any skill. If your job is small, you'll likely be ahead $$$ if you hire an experienced operator with a larger machine to pop those stumps out and do a quick cleanup/grading. For a few stumps, as suggested a grinder does nice work.

 

[OzarkChris]

I've been a member of this forum for a long time and appreciate the advice offered hear. I'm the proud owner of two Steiner 240's. I have two properties and they serve me very well for mowing, dirt moving and snow blowing. Last summer the machine in the picture moved 1000 yards of fill and gravel and it was maybe the best summer of my life!!! I personally think that the flexibility, power and durability make Steiner/Ventracs a very good long-term value for a mechanically inclined homeowner like me.

My place in Maine has tree stumps that are out of range for a 22 HP machine. I can push 24" and smaller stumps around once they are loose, but I can't get them dislodged.

I'm considering renting a mini-excavator to dig about 10 stumps in the 12 to 24" range. My question is, how steep is the learning curve for a mini-excavator for someone who has lots of hydraulic tractor experience? Can I reasonably expect to dig 10 stumps in a day starting with no mini-excavator experience?

I'm not so sure I would want to use a mini for this job. I used a 10T (maybe a bit overkill, but it was available from neighbor JD 75G) to remove about a dozen trees (Oak, Pine, Pear, Cedar, etc), dug a new septic & drain field and dig dirt to level a new 50 x 100 slab. Trees took about 4 hours. Septic about 1.5 hrs Dirt about 10 hours because of limestone shelf I encountered. Used a med dozer to level. BTW, it's much easier to pull the stumps if the trees are still attached!

That track hoe made pulling the hard & soft wood trees really easy. I think a mini would take all day just trying to dug out the roots if your trees have nearly the root ball mine had.

 

[henerythe8th]

One clarification would be; the difference between a 24" stump vs the stump from a 24" tree. Another difference is how they tree is cut. Normally, I would say leave a 4-6 ft trunk to allow a lever to pull-push on, but with a hoe that small, you also want to minimize the weight of the stump/trunk combo...

I've used my Kubota U25 to remove stumps to clear my house site.
My preferred method for removing stumps is to leave the WHOLE tree attached!
Having leverage really helps.
If you've left trunk for leverage chainsaw it after removal if you wish!

 

[vagem55]

For me an excavator offers the most fun you will have on a machine. If that's what you are after then rent one and enjoy, but they do take a few hours to get acquainted with the controls, then hundreds of hours +++ to get good at what you are doing....not unlike any skill. If your job is small, you'll likely be ahead $$$ if you hire an experienced operator with a larger machine to pop those stumps out and do a quick cleanup/grading. For a few stumps, as suggested a grinder does nice work.

Spot on! The best combination of frustration and satisfaction.

Every time you use one, you will gain valuable experience.

Also, OzarkChris made an important point, " BTW, it's much easier to pull the stumps if the trees are still attached."
I dig the roots first and pull the whole tree over (with rope and pulley) and use the boom to move it when down.
If the tree is too large, you can still cut high and gain leverage.

We had problems with professionally ground stumps, where new plants wouldn't succeed in the area.