Need advice on landscaping task.

[Gary_in_Indiana]

I have a barn which was built as a stable and in it's last years of use the owners simply pushed what was inside on the floor out the doors. The good news is that it's long since composted completely. The bad news is that I now have to deal with the resulting problems. Here's what I have now.

The floor in what was the riding arena has been lowered and the areas outside of the two walls with the doors have been raised. The result is a drainage problem on a large scale.

To address this I started tearing through the sod (to use the term loosely) yesterday so that I might begin to move some of the dirt around and re-contour the ground around the building to create proper drainage.

As soon as I started with scarifiers ripping the ground I encountered problems. Apparently this building replace one that burned years ago and I found pieces of charred lumber, chunks of concrete, pieces of pipe, hurricane straps and all sorts of general garbage.

I certainly expected rocks and a few other items but this is way more than I ever thought I'd see. I'm looking for any suggestions as to how I might deal with all of this. Should I just waive the white flag and hire a bulldozer or is there something I can use to deal with this? I have a box blade, a subsoiler and a tiller but I'm afraid to even think about using my tiller in there for fear of what I might hit even after I tear it up with the other implements. What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance for your help with this one. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Junkman]

Put on the tooth bar and go to work moving the mess. Stack it up in one corner and when you have time, drop it over a sifter made of chain link fencing. That should filter out most of the problems enough that you can re use the material. What come out of the pile, stack in another pile until you need some fill... then dig a hole and bury it and use the dirt that comes out of the hole to cover over the junk. If you don't have a tooth bar, you should.... best investment you will make since buying the tractor...

 

[Henro]

Gary,

After you get your first front flat, if you do, then consider foam filling the front tires. I was dealing with a lot of junk mixed with earth (much broken glass, and everything else you can imagine (no bathtub though) and it appears that the fronts puncture rather easily, while the rears in my case have not been a problem.

The guy where I got the fronts filled said fronts on tractors with loaders seem to puncture easily when running over unknown trash, for what that is worth... /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

If you have the time and interest to do it yourself, why not try and see how it goes. You can always throw in the towel if you start finding things under there that your tractor is not able to deal with...

I say go for it and then give up, rather than give up without trying first! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[SPIKER]

I agree with Junkman & henro:

try it first with a good box blade with scarfers down, if you bend or damage the box blade some then you get some welding skills built up and if you don't have a welder then you have a GOOD excuse to get the CFO to let you buy one! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif I would follow JM's advice on clearing the stuff. everything else being equal you may want to rent a bobcat with a ground grooming attachment, (forget its name looks like a pipe with a bunch of carbide spikes welded on and rotates opposite of the natural movement of the bobcat.) anyhow they will pulverize just about anythign and no worry about flats as it's probably already got filled tires for a rental machine...

Mark M /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

I like the idea of the chain link fence piece as a screen for some of this stuff. I was out there today and found electrical outlet boxes, door hinges, more chain and metal plates used to assemble engineered trusses along with some good sized pieces of lumber charred one at least one end or side. I'm guessing I've uncovered the remnants of an earlier building destroyed by fire.

I spent a couple hours this morning just using the scarifiers on my box blade with the top link as short as possible and determined one thing. This is a job requiring more than one person. Tomorrow I'm going to go over it again with a couple people following me picking things up that I unearth. I think that could be money very well spent as I don't know any other way to get this cleaned up other than manually.

Would something like a landscape rake be a tool to use before I resort to having someone follow me around? Since I don't have a CFO, I'm able to buy or rent one if I want to. I just don't know if it's the tool for the job or not. Any thoughts?

 

[DannyD]

This sounds like something I would love to get my backhoe into. I have pulled some pretty tough things out with it so far, and the seat time would be great.

 

[aardvark]

I'm not sure a landscape rake will pull up what you want. When I was using mine, it would pull small stuff along the ground real well, but the large items that were stuck in the ground (large branches, pieces of 4x4, etc) it would just climb over instead of dragging them along.

 

[Junkman]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Since I don't have a CFO, I'm able to buy or rent one if I want to. )</font>

If you like, I will send you mine.... you can have her for free, but there are no returns... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

A landscape rake isn't going to do this. It needs to be dug out with either a loader or a back hoe. Since you already have the loader, use it. If you don't have a tooth bar, I would make that purchase first. I believe that if you figure out where the edge of the problem area is, and work your way in from the edge, that you should be able to clean it up yourself. You might need to purchase some material to put back in its place, but that is going to cost a lot less than to have someone bring in a machine to do the work.

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

<font color="blue"> 'This sounds like soiething I would love to get my backhoe into. I have pulled some pretty tough things out with it so far, and the seat time would be great. " </font>

Danny,

If you look at my thread in the 'Ddere Owning/Operating' forum you%ll see that I just broke my trabtor today so you'd be mmre than welcome if you vant to make a rmad trip up I-69* I'll find out tomorrow if my broken axle housing can be repaired or has to be replaced. In either case, I think I'm looking at more than a few days down time. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /fnrums/images/graemlins/m`d.gif

Needless to say, if you're serious, you and your tractor would be mgre than welcome. Just send me a PM and let me know. If it's truly not convenient for you, I'll certainly understand. <img src5"/forums/images-graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

 

[DannyD]

Just checked the lottery home page, sorry to say but I have to work today. You have a project that most of us (as you know) would love to tackle.

what broke the axle housing /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif