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Track steer or mini ex for clean up after hurricane?

Mr.Ratbastard

Mr.Ratbastard

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Joined
May 30, 2020
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1688
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833
Hurricane Sally took down more trees than anything I have ever seen before including Ivan. On a side note it was 16 years to the day between the two. Anyway I have at least 25 good size trees and maybe 4 big ass trees to clean up. I have a 40hp 4x4 teactor with a front end loader and I am considering selling it to buy a mini ex with a thumb or a skid/track steer with a grapple. Opinions? I used my tractor to push a large pine over that was leaning towards a neighbors house and removed a medium sized Cedar tree. The tractor did good and I don't want to make a mistake selling it with so much work to do but would one of the others be better for this? One consideration would be the budget 20k and under.
 
Seems like a pretty small project to justify selling and buying equipment.

A set of forks for the tractor would be pretty handy for this and future projects.
 
Plumb the front of your tractor and get a grapple for it. It might be a little slower to use but it'll do the job
 
More information, I will likely sell anything I have after the cleanup. I earned 1k helping removing the small tree from the house. The contractor said he would be renting a track steer for the large trees on the fence(if the fence is covered by insurance, if not I am on my on) The goal would be that he let's me earn more towards my 5k deductable then get out of it.
I have found a couple Bobcat T300's that look ok, the mini ex's are easier to find but may be on the small side (20+hp?) With my budget I worry about getting a piece of crap. I bid on a few last week that were good deals I just missed out on. I am afraid those won't be around for awhile at least in this region. We drove 50 miles east to find gas a couple days ago so damage is incredible. Things are slowly re opening now.
3 people are coming to look at the tractor today...
 
cut the roots while the trees are still laying down, then cut the trees that way if they stand back up they will be easier to remove.
use what you have cut and drag to the burn pile

screw insurance for downed trees, unless you have structure damage, any one you hire is going to rape you.

Dont sell the shit you have until you buy something to replace it.
 
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Insurance would only cover cutting up the trees on the fence. These are the biggest ones and the ones I need the most help with. There won't be any tree removal just cutting up the ones on the fence if covered. If the fence isn't covered I have to do all of it. The roof on the house has to be replaced so the 5k deductable is already in play.
 
I second the "don't sell good useful, working equipment until you have a replacement. Otherwise you will be sitting here 2 months from now with no working equipment. I suspect it is a shit time to buy what you are looking for without traveling halfway across the country.
 
You have what you need to do the job. Worst case is you spend a couple hundred buck to rent a squirt boom lift to cut up the leaners. Skid steer will only help to move brush which you can do with tractor. A excavator big enough to help with the leaners is out of your budget.

Best bet buy another chain saw and start cutting. Get the big stuff turned into firewood burn the brush. Once that is all done get on the stump grinder list and be done.

I know it’s not buying new equipment but using what you have sometimes is the best bet.
 
I second the nows not the time to buy. The time to buy was before the storm. Everyone and their brother will be trying to outbid you. If you really want to buy something wait until 3 months from now when the weekend warriors are selling their overpaid for equipment. Let them take a loss on it.

The old saying will never be wrong. You sell when everyone else is buying and you buy when everyone is selling.
 
Fredycruger said:
mini ex with thumb is kick ass to process trees
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Sure they do, but I sure wouldn’t want to do that without other supporting equipment.

That would kinda suck for dealing with the brush and having to drive anywhere with this wood.
 
Bacho said:
Sure they do, but I sure wouldn’t want to do that without other supporting equipment.

That would kinda suck for dealing with the brush and having to drive anywhere with this wood.
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The problem with minis dealing with grubbing is they don’t have the reach. To get close enough to grab the brush you need to be on top of it. To do a halfway decent jon You would need a 12t minimum Preferably a 20t hoe.
 
ThePanzerFuhrer said:
You have what you need to do the job. Worst case is you spend a couple hundred buck to rent a squirt boom lift to cut up the leaners. Skid steer will only help to move brush which you can do with tractor. A excavator big enough to help with the leaners is out of your budget.

Best bet buy another chain saw and start cutting. Get the big stuff turned into firewood burn the brush. Once that is all done get on the stump grinder list and be done.

I know it’s not buying new equipment but using what you have sometimes is the best bet.
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Panz wrote the same as I was thinking in my earlier post.

20k isn’t buying shit when it comes to excavators.

What’s wrong with just using the tractor?

Shinny new to you toys won’t fix your issue, but plain old elbow grease will.
 
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Mr Stubs said:
Panz wrote the same as I was thinking in my earlier post.

20k isn’t buying shit when it comes to excavators.

What’s wrong with just using the tractor?

Shinny new to you toys won’t fix your issue, but plain old elbow grease will.
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Finally some one is learning. My motto in life is right wrong or otherwise I’m gonna go out and do something. If you guys seen my fleet of equipment most of you wouldn’t even get started. Sure it’s old and not the most perfect but it’s what we got and make it work.

Its 25 trees, cut one up a night after work and 3 on Saturday and you’ll be done in no time. It will only cost you a few calories and a couple gallons of mixed gas. Shit with how long ago the hurricane was he should be 1/3 done already.
 
A friend of mine uses a mini ex with a thumb, another friend runs a tree service and has a skid steer. I think either would be great.

If you find something up this way that you need to have someone look at, holler.
 
I agree with Panz as well.

Don't sell working equipment to potentially buy someone else's nightmare.

I have both a mini-ex (with thumb) and CTL with grapple. There's really no comparison between the two. While the mini-ex is great, it cannot and will not lift nearly as much weight as the CTL. For large trees, it's not the right tool for the job.
 
Just had some trees cut on my project. The tree company used a skid steer with a grapple, which he fed the chipper with. Made short work of it.
 
Set your purse down and pick up a chain saw, pickup, and forks for the loader. It's free firewood, I probably cut that much or more nevery year for heating.
 
Have you considered renting a piece of equipment. For about 1,000.00 you can rent an excavator with thumb for a week delivered. Have some one bring you one out of Baytown. There's a bunch for rent right there in Baytown Mt. Belveu. Then all you are responsible for is fuel.
 
If anything get a set of pallet forks or bolt some square tube to your bucket in a similar fashion. I brushed around my new house with my father's 45hp Nortrac, My biggest problem was I didn't have enough space to stack branches. I moved about 20 yards of branches by stacking on/in the bucket and tip cylinders.

I left everything 4ft-ish and stacked it so it would tip off when I dumped the bucket. my limit wasn't the tractor, it was how much volume I could stack.
 
The timing sucks. I will make money on the tractor, I was trying to buy last week and if I had known about this I would have been more aggressive. There are 3 people that are supposed to be coming so I am going to honor my ad. My price is firm now and after these people I will take the ad down.
I hardly have any experience cutting trees up, I do have some but almost all of these are leaners so my goal is help controlling stuff maybe earning the deductable and not dying.
I used a track steer recently and it was a beast, of course it was a 90k beast but it was impressive. If one of these 3 buys it I will go after the Bobcat with the grabble. It may be gone already but it is 200+ miles away.
I will be surprised if I have an answer from insurance a month from now. They are saying 2 weeks for the adjuster then it goes to someone that matches damages to policy. Until then we were told don't touch anything which is driving me crazy. But if I wait a month I may very well get a decent deal on something. If not I may have to pay to ship something in.
 
anatram said:
Have you considered renting a piece of equipment. For about 1,000.00 you can rent an excavator with thumb for a week delivered. Have some one bring you one out of Baytown. There's a bunch for rent right there in Baytown Mt. Belveu. Then all you are responsible for is fuel.
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Yes and this is my fallback plan. I will make enough on the tractor I will still be ahead after renting. I likely wouldn't gain anything on the deductable going this way. I am figuring that into the overall logic of selling this(make money) and using the next piece to earn $ so when I sell I should come out ahead unless the new machine is a piece of crap and it bliws up.
 
Mr.Ratbastard said:
Yes and this is my fallback plan. I will make enough on the tractor I will still be ahead after renting. I likely wouldn't gain anything on the deductable going this way. I am figuring that into the overall logic of selling this(make money) and using the next piece to earn $ so when I sell I should come out ahead unless the new machine is a piece of crap and it bliws up.
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When Harvey hit my place, I didn't wait for the adjuster. I rented what I needed. The adjuster told me the same shit, be there in 2 weeks. I took almost a month before he arrived. I rented what I need in the mean time out of pocket, and kept my receipts. When the adjuster asked who did the clean up, I told him I did and rented the equipment. As long as I provided receipts for the equipment they reimbursed me for it, including diesel fuel. They also compensated me for my labor at 20.00 per hour.
 
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