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How to move a lot of dirt

Lawless said:
IIRC a Bobcat bucket is a little over a half yard capacity so lets say a couple thousand trips. You need the biggest bucket you can fit back there and a dump truck if it really is 1000+ yards, that is unless you wanna take forever to get it done.
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This is accurate. To give an example, I was working as an independent General Contractor and doing various ground work jobs and can break down the time frame a bit.

I used to tear out swimming pools (among other work), and the average pool needed 60 yards to fill. Tear out the deep end by breaking it up with an excavator with a breaker. Tear up the shallow end, tear up the pool deck and dump it into the deep end, and break all the walls down to 3' subgrade and dump into the deep end. You then have about a 3' plus deep hole to fill, usually taking about 60 yards when fully compacted.

That's 6 loads from a standard 10 yard / full sized dump truck. With my CAT 247B tracked skid steer and a 68" wide bucket, I could haul a 1/2 yard per load. That's 120 loads or so and would take 2 days of hauling butt and doing laps while compacting as you go.

Move 1000+ yards, and you're talking about 100 dump truck loads and some serious seat time in a small machine, but it can be done. Bring in a D6 or a solid sized front end loader if you have soft soils, and you can get it done faster. Either way, it won't be cheap. If you have a lot of time, you could do it with the smaller machine, and besides, it's a great excuse to stay away from the wife in the event of needing some time out of the house.


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MT-TOY said:
30 yard trailer would take 30+ trips for 1000 yards. A skid steer would take probably 500 trips and more diesel than you'd care to purchase plus the cut which the skid steer wouldn't do in any capacity...even with cutting teeth. You'd be time and money ahead to hire a dirt contractor and watch with a beer in hand.
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With the normal skidsteer having a 1/2 yard bucket, that 1000 yards wouldn't require 500 trips, it would require 2000 trips. That's a lot of material for a small machine to move.

Dependent on distance, you could expect to move a load, let's say every 3 minutes (1.5 minutes each direction).

That's 20 buckets or 10 yards per hour. That's 100 hours of high speed work to move 1000 yards at the rate of 10 yards per hour. That doesn't include digging it out, compacting it, or grading, just hauling and dumping.

Most rental yards will give you 8 hours on the machine per rental day. At the rate of 8 hours = 1 day of rental, divided into 100 hours of machine use, you can expect to pay for 12.5 (13) days of machine rental.

You could technically work 100 hours straight if you didn't need sleep, but they'll still charge based on the 8 hour per workday rate. If you worked 8 hours per day with a skid steer, it could then be said that you could move 1000 yards in 2000 trips over 12.5 - 8 hour days if you kept them at 3 minutes per round trip.

Bringing in an full sized excavator and front end loader would get it done easily in a couple days.

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ConwayMuddy said:
I have the perfect pile of junk you can borrow. Make a few repairs now and be working this winter.
4 in 1 bucket, ripper on the back, runs great, steers for shit. I've got new tracks for it but the drive wheels need help. If you can get it back and forth from Wisconsin it's yours to use
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4 way buckets are the best shit ever. :smokin:

Texas97 said:
2BB hasn't learned the value of his time yet. One day he'll figure out you can replenish your bank account but time spent is gone forever.
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Paying other people doesn't bring the same satisfaction. Also other people won't let your kids sit on your lap and run the machine.
 
Sit on my lap? He's 2 he can run it himself. It took him 5 min to be completely able to start and drive it in a controlled manner and probably an hour to be able to dig


This video is his first minute on it and you can see his mind working figuring it out.

Watch "Rowdys first minute on an excavator. 30 months old" on YouTube https://youtu.be/ZA7eZXBnSFQ


The whole elevated section of dirt he is on in the video going back about 30' behind me is what I want to dig down to the level of the house

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2big bronco said:
Sit on my lap? He's 2 he can run it himself. It took him 5 min to be completely able to start and drive it in a controlled manner and probably an hour to be able to dig


This video is his first minute on it and you can see his mind working figuring it out.

Watch "Rowdys first minute on an excavator. 30 months old" on YouTube https://youtu.be/ZA7eZXBnSFQ
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I didn't realize he was that old. Put the project off a year or so while you shop for a bigger excavator and a dump truck/trailer. Make some plates to limit the travel of the levers so he can't go all out and then make him load your truck/trailer while you drive back and forth. I wouldn't let him dig beside your house but there's no reason a 3-4yo can't run an excavator in the wide open space you have.
 
2big bronco said:
Sit on my lap? He's 2 he can run it himself. It took him 5 min to be completely able to start and drive it in a controlled manner and probably an hour to be able to dig


This video is his first minute on it and you can see his mind working figuring it out.

Watch "Rowdys first minute on an excavator. 30 months old" on YouTube https://youtu.be/ZA7eZXBnSFQ


The whole elevated section of dirt he is on in the video going back about 30' behind me is what I want to dig down to the level of the house
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That's awesome. My boy just puts the bucket up and down the the K'bota. :homer:
 
2big bronco said:
I genuinely appreciate your input and will probably keep that in the back of my mind but not act on it. My plan is to keep going full steam and retire in 10 years around 45-46. I suppose I could die in 5 years but in my mind I'm giving up 25% of my time now (hours outside of my actual job) for 100% of my time once my kids are 10 and 12. Hopefully I dont look back and regret it... but I'm scared I would regret having to continue working 100 miles from home through thier middle and high school years.
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Well, according to that chart from a few weeks ago, you're definitely a white guy. I'm kinda the same, I enjoy work and usually need to be doing something. I try and have the children help as much as possible, they seem to enjoy it. I never use all my vacation from work, but I almost never work overtime.

I consider myself to be in fantastic/amazing financial condition considering age/debt/assets. When me and momma decided to have children, we decided that she would stay home and her primary job would be child rearing----fuck the money, I'd rather enjoy my kids and have them know they are loved and important.

I'm 38 and I don't expect to retire until 60 or 65 or never.

So, what are you doing/have you done that you will be able to retire in 10 years? I'd like to learn from your experience and perspective.
 
Looking at the pictures you posted, are you going to push water runoff right into your house?
It looks as if the hill was purposely cut further back and the dirt was kept away from the home so that water could disperse without flooding the house. :confused:
 
YotaAtieToo said:
I've worked in dirt moving also, mostly larger scale stuff though.

It's funny because I remember someone asking what machine to take a chunk out a hill and load into dump trucks. I said excavator and everyone thought I was dumb because "excavators are for digging holes" everyone said loader. Now here I am saying loader :rolleyes:

I've been to his place but it's been a while, I think the flat area is hard, maybe road base, so getting started should be easy, until your tires get into the soft material. I think maybe alternating between scooping down hill to have gravity on your side, then scooping up the spoils when they get built up would work well. I'm not a loader guy, but if it's sandy, I'd think it would work.
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Also in the business.

Out here that job is not possible without an excavator. Excavator to dig / pile, loader to move pile. We simply don't dig with loaders in the northeast. I have also never seen a scrapper in the northeast.
 
TiTRD said:
Out here that job is not possible without an excavator. Excavator to dig / pile, loader to move pile. We simply don't dig with loaders in the northeast. I have also never seen a scrapper in the northeast.
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You can get away with it on Cape Cod and basically nowhere else.
 
TiTRD said:
Also in the business.

Out here that job is not possible without an excavator. Excavator to dig / pile, loader to move pile. We simply don't dig with loaders in the northeast. I have also never seen a scrapper in the northeast.
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Where were you guys in the last thread where everyone was saying loader to take down a mountain? :flipoff2:

Same here, we have red clay, rocks and roots. You can shave a little with a skid steer. But not really dig.

I'm only saying loader based of him saying it's soft soil and because 2 machines aren't practical for him. Seems like a skid steer might be the most realistic though.
 
arse_sidewards said:
Not only is it over-crowded but the tourists are assholes and the locals have no ethics. Everyone who can leave does.
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Can confirm.

My childhood neighbor's parents move to the Cape a couple years ago. It was their dream. Decent house with a plot of land behind it. Someone bought the property and propped up some low income housing right behind them. You can almost spit onto their deck. They're so bullshit.

As for digging in New England, yep it sucks. I have one area that's at a decent slope, and another that needs about 8' of fill to level off so I can form some type of level ground. I tried moving the slope with the L series, but no way. I beat the tractor pretty good for 20m before I said no way. Between the roots, boulders, and ledge there's no way.
 
Muckin_Slusher said:
So, what are you doing/have you done that you will be able to retire in 10 years? I'd like to learn from your experience and perspective.
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So I've already got 19 years and 23 ish pension credits with the ironworkers union. The rule is your age plus your credits must equal 85 and you must be 55 years old. So with 7 more credits I will be able to collect retirement once I turn 55.

I current current no significant Bill's other then living expenses and 1 credit card with $18k on it from building my house which is paid off

Plan is later this year/early next year to purchase roughly 1 mil in real estate which should get me around $6k in rent /month using the 75% rule at today's prices. I should fairly easily be able to pay off the rentals in the next 10 years and then use that as my income once I "retire" and then once I turn 55 I'll get a significant pay increase.
 
2big bronco said:
So I've already got 19 years and 23 ish pension credits with the ironworkers union. The rule is your age plus your credits must equal 85 and you must be 55 years old. So with 7 more credits I will be able to collect retirement once I turn 55.

I current current no significant Bill's other then living expenses and 1 credit card with $18k on it from building my house which is paid off

Plan is later this year/early next year to purchase roughly 1 mil in real estate which should get me around $6k in rent /month using the 75% rule at today's prices. I should fairly easily be able to pay off the rentals in the next 10 years and then use that as my income once I "retire" and then once I turn 55 I'll get a significant pay increase.
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Sounds like a solid plan, and with your hustle & determination, I'd bet on you making it happen :beer:


. . . unless there's a fence between you & retirement - that could delay things ~4 years :flipoff2:
 
I didn't read through all 10 pages of comments, but assuming the red square is all of the dirt area, I'm coming up with an area of about 4000 square feet assuming the house in question is 2000-2500 sf. If that is the case, then your mound would need to be about 7' tall. Assume 15 to 20% swell as you dig, I don't know what kind of soil you have but those %'s should be good for gestimating. You'll actually move closer to 1200 cubic yards.

If you haven't already figured out a plan you could try the following and some considerations:
  • If the mound is considerably dense, compacted, full of rock or just generally hard, you'll need something to break up the ground first.
    • Toothed bucket on a large loader would work, but will be slow. You'll need to either rip it or dig with an excavator and then move it with a loader. The bigger the bucket on the loader, the less trips it will take.
    • Use a wheel loader if you can get one, tracked loaders will dig better but they will be slow on transport and will destroy travel path in a hurry. Wheel loaders won't dig as fast but will transport faster and less overall damage to the path. Figure your trade offs.
  • If the soil is fairly easy diggin, your absolute best bet is a tractor and pan (dirt scoop). You can cut the mound down, transport, spread and compact without changing machines. You'll be able to fine tune your grade at the mound site with this as well, but you'll probably need that tractor to fine tune your fill area. bob cat would work well for this part though.
    • If you're in a large farming area or have friends that are, could probably get access to one of these fairly cheep and easy. If you want to travel and spend money, I'm looking out my office window right now at a large case tractor hooked to a pan with a for sale sign on it.
No more than you're moving, if you consider general dirt moving prices to contractors you may be money and time ahead on just hiring it done. We normally land somewhere around $4-$7/cy for moving dirt on site, depending on the material and quantity. Less total material, dirt quality and haul distances raise prices. Easy diggin and short hauls will be pretty cheap.
 
YotaAtieToo said:
Right up your alley

https://chico.craigslist.org/hvo/d/o...167100227.html

I'd say you want to have a tire put on it, or at least half ass seat that one to actually drive around.

Just noticed it's local to me, let me know if you want me to put eyes on it.
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I used to operate one of these in college at an airport I worked at to plow snow and do earth moving projects like 2bb. Would be good for what he needs. Plus you can get fork attachments for them and that only expands the realm of what you can get in trouble with. You can stack your sammies like chord wood in the corner of the property to save space :grinpimp:.

We did practically zero maintenace on them and they always worked after you jumped them.
 
arse_sidewards said:
4 way buckets are the best shit ever. :smokin:



Paying other people doesn't bring the same satisfaction. Also other people won't let your kids sit on your lap and run the machine.
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Seriously, 4 in 1 combo buckets are the tits. Best implement ever IMHO. So much you can do with those things when you know how they really work. I loved the CAT combo bucket I bought for my machine. That thing saved me so much time and made the work far easier than if I had any other bucket.


That tracked loader is really cool. Slow, but really cool. It's nice in that it can dig, grade, and load/haul like a backhoe but with far more power. It's only downside is lack of speed, but if it's your own property, then speed isn't nearly as much of a problem as if you were on a paying job. Transiting loads across a property in that thing would be slow though. Really slow, but doable if you've got the time and an iron butt.


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