Long Summer: Endless Haul

[4570Man]

Thanks...

Occasionally we get asked by contractors if they can haul gravel out of my pit, but it is not really worth it for me. They pay $2 a cubic yard ($28 a truckload) and while I admit it does add up, what we have, which is about 8 acres, is about all we have. The state surficial maps do not show much else for gravel unfortunately. So we keep it just for ourselves.

I am not sure when gravel was discovered, I would say in the early 1900's. The Federal Government bought it during the CCC Years, but then sold it back to us, which is nice because any gravel pit in Maine operating before 1970 is grandfathered. I got proof going back to 1938, so I can do what I want down there. Of course when you haul less than 1000 yards a year out of a pit, there is not really a lot of environmental damage to be done! LOL

Did you consider buying a bigger dump truck? For a few thousand you could have had an older single axel dump truck and been moving 8-10 yards a trip. What is gravel worth in your area. Locally crushed limestone cost directly from the quarry before tax and haul bill about $8-10 a ton.

 

[BrokenTrack]

Did you consider buying a bigger dump truck? For a few thousand you could have had an older single axel dump truck and been moving 8-10 yards a trip. What is gravel worth in your area. Locally crushed limestone cost directly from the quarry before tax and haul bill about $8-10 a ton.

I have thought about that, and it would be nice, but at the same time I know how these things go. It is a vicious circle; you buy something that is bigger, then you got to scale up to fill it. It is nice sometimes just being a one-tractor-show. One engine to maintain, one tractor that always starts, that kind of thing. There is something to be said about being content to just go slow and steady. I am in no hurry, I am just surprised at the end of the summer how much gravel I have hauled.

I can speed things up if I haul the dump trailer with my Ford Explorer. My wife can drive that, while I use the tractor to load it. With its own engine and hydraulic system, my wife can dump the gravel where it needs to be, and then at the end of the day, I travel up from the pit with my tractor and level off everything we hauled for the day. That works well, BUT you have to have good going to do that.

As for prices, a 14 cubic yard load of bank run gravel is $150 if it is just dumped in your yard. That means hauling gravel myself, I can save considerable money. Around $12 in fuel would net me around $200 worth of gravel. Or, put another way, my first round trip pays for the fuel for the day.

 

[BrokenTrack]

Let's see. 1/4 mile one way so the total turn was 1/2 mile. You did this about 400 times as your capacity is 1and 1/3 yard at a time in order to move 600 yards. This means you traveled around 200 miles on your tractor. You must have had deja-vu all over again.

Yeah kind of, but I am used to it. I mow the sides of the road for area towns in the summer, and as far as I can tell, I mow about 200 miles of road...and I have a boom mower so I go all the way back to the treeline (3 passes on each side), so I am used to traveling slow.

It is not that bad on the way down because I can go in top gear, but the hill is so steep that I cannot do that hauling my gravel up the hill. Then it gets boring, but it is faster than mowing the sides of the road!

I did vary where I got my gravel from too though which helps, and if I ever had to do a huge road again, I might rent an excavator for a day and just steadily dig in the pit so that I had several hundred yards of loosened gravel in a pile to dig from. That would speed things up, but again, I am not in a hurry. If I looked at it like I had to move 600 yards of gravel at the start, I would have never started. Instead I just haul to accomplish something, like a place to park he cars, then a one lane driveway, and then just steady refine things until it looks the way I want.

It is all mental, kind of like putting up a livestock fence. It is a lot of work, but you spend 3 days putting up something that will last 30 years. It is pretty easy to put in 3 days when you know it will be in place for 11,000 days. Every yard of gravel I hauled I knew was in its final place. It is not that I have x amount of yard more gravel to haul, but rather that is one less yard I now have to haul. And I know most of the roads around here were built or improved in the 1930's. Well back then they dug in my pit with a front shovel that was a mere 5/8 of a cubic yard, and loaded trucks that were 3 cubic yards. My tractor's bucket is nearly as big, and my trailer is only 3 times smaller. If they can build hundred of miles of road like that, surely I can do my own gravel work.

It is just a different perspective that keeps me going.

 

[EddieWalker]

I'm dying to see pictures of your driveway!!!!

 

[arrow]

Yeah kind of, but I am used to it. I mow the sides of the road for area towns in the summer, and as far as I can tell, I mow about 200 miles of road...and I have a boom mower so I go all the way back to the treeline (3 passes on each side), so I am used to traveling slow.

It is not that bad on the way down because I can go in top gear, but the hill is so steep that I cannot do that hauling my gravel up the hill. Then it gets boring, but it is faster than mowing the sides of the road!

I did vary where I got my gravel from too though which helps, and if I ever had to do a huge road again, I might rent an excavator for a day and just steadily dig in the pit so that I had several hundred yards of loosened gravel in a pile to dig from. That would speed things up, but again, I am not in a hurry. If I looked at it like I had to move 600 yards of gravel at the start, I would have never started. Instead I just haul to accomplish something, like a place to park he cars, then a one lane driveway, and then just steady refine things until it looks the way I want.

It is all mental, kind of like putting up a livestock fence. It is a lot of work, but you spend 3 days putting up something that will last 30 years. It is pretty easy to put in 3 days when you know it will be in place for 11,000 days. Every yard of gravel I hauled I knew was in its final place. It is not that I have x amount of yard more gravel to haul, but rather that is one less yard I now have to haul. And I know most of the roads around here were built or improved in the 1930's. Well back then they dug in my pit with a front shovel that was a mere 5/8 of a cubic yard, and loaded trucks that were 3 cubic yards. My tractor's bucket is nearly as big, and my trailer is only 3 times smaller. If they can build hundred of miles of road like that, surely I can do my own gravel work.

It is just a different perspective that keeps me going.

Hope you didn't take this the wrong way. I'm all in for "different kinds of perspective" and applaud your perseverance. Just cuz someone else does something differently, doesn't mean it right or wrong. Its just different. I don't agree or disagree in the way you did this and not judging your way in the least.. The most important thing to keep in mind was if your "perspective" makes you pleased with life, then I'm happy for you. End of story.

 

[BrokenTrack]

Hope you didn't take this the wrong way. I'm all in for "different kinds of perspective" and applaud your perseverance. Just cuz someone else does something differently, doesn't mean it right or wrong. Its just different. I don't agree or disagree in the way you did this and not judging your way in the least.. The most important thing to keep in mind was if your "perspective" makes you pleased with life, then I'm happy for you. End of story.

Oh goodness no. You did not offend me at all, I took it just as you explained it.

I like math too as you get the details like riding on a tractor for 200 miles. You are absolutely right, and it does really add up.

The only time I was really upset was a time on here when a guy mentioned making a driveway with his tractor, and about 20 people said to hire a contractor to do it instead of using his tractor. I was the only one encouraging the guy to go for it. Why buy a tractor and then hire someone else to do work?

It really is amazing what you can do with smaller tractors if you keep at things.

 

[nyone]

Bingo!..why own a machine that fully capable and hire it out. To me if im working on my own projects my time costs nothing. In this case by picking away at it your basicly paying your self. No one will work harder at making your dreams a reality than you. Lets face if hauling gravel and putting in a driveway isnt rocket science but pure and simple labor...some people are more afraid of that.

Lets see the driveway.

 

[sodamo]

Great attitude, BrokenTrack. Sometimes just the satisfaction is enough to overcome the challenges. I own my tractor so I can do things, not hire them out.

 

[BrokenTrack]

Bingo!..why own a machine that fully capable and hire it out. To me if im working on my own projects my time costs nothing. In this case by picking away at it your basicly paying your self. No one will work harder at making your dreams a reality than you. Lets face if hauling gravel and putting in a driveway isnt rocket science but pure and simple labor...some people are more afraid of that.

Lets see the driveway.

I am retired so I am fortunate in that I have plenty of time. I ended up mowing the sides of the road in several towns, but the mower was broke a lot, so even then I got to devote days to this project.

But that is how it works; when you have time, you can save yourself a lot of money doing things yourself. It is almost a Catch 22; you work a real job, and so you have no time, so you hire things out, which leaves you with no money, so you work more, and then hire even more out because you have even less time at home, and it ends up being this vicious cycle that keeps you from enjoying life. When you pull out of that vortex, then ever bit of work you do, goes directly into your net worth, and ultimately makes you more valuable. The ability to work equals wealth; the question is are you going to make someone else wealthy, or yourself?

I am hesitant to post pictures because we just moved into this 90 year old Tiny House. It was vacant for 11 years, and all we did was get the really important stuff fixed like get new plumbing, electrical, insulation and drywall done, and not much else. The driveway was the first thing we fixed, so in any pictures there is going to be a cruddy house and several nasty brush piles to burn. They are about as big as a house, so when I touch them off this winter, you will be able to see them from space.

We got two of our other houses for sale, but they have yet to be sold, but as soon as that happens, I will start really fixing this place up because I can divert money from them, to here.

 

[dougtrr2]

Yeah kind of, but I am used to it. I mow the sides of the road for area towns in the summer, and as far as I can tell, I mow about 200 miles of road...and I have a boom mower so I go all the way back to the treeline (3 passes on each side), so I am used to traveling slow.


I did vary where I got my gravel from too though which helps, and if I ever had to do a huge road again, I might rent an excavator for a day and just steadily dig in the pit so that I had several hundred yards of loosened gravel in a pile to dig from. That would speed things up, but again, I am not in a hurry. If I looked at it like I had to move 600 yards of gravel at the start, I would have never started. Instead I just haul to accomplish something, like a place to park he cars, then a one lane driveway, and then just steady refine things until it looks the way I want.


It is just a different perspective that keeps me going.

Sometimes I think going slower is better. The idea of slowly refining things as you go is not a bad idea. How different would the project look if you just had a series of big dump trucks spread all the gravel?

Doug in SW IA