8 Acres to clear...... Smart or crazy

[gabeancounter]

I think the loader man is playing you.A 953 loader runs $85 a hour around here. Dump truck is $60 an hour. Two days they could clear that house and clear the land. $2k tops. Get some more numbers. Ask how many hours they think to clear etc.

At $100 an hour he is says it will take 100 hours to clear?

 

[ecoslik]

The comment about leaving a "tall stump" to push on is excellent. You should definitely search TBN for posts about clearing land, stump removal, etc. In fact, the compact grapple video on Everything Attachments adds to the knowledge base plus there are lots of videos on Youtube.

I highly recommend hiring dozers when it is called for, but it sure sounds like what you want to do can be done easily enough with a tractor.

Buy the tractor and do it yourself would be my vote.

I am beginner with some background around construction, bought a tractor this summer for our place, and love doing these things myself. Do not be surprised how much skill and technique there is to learn in using a tractor, FEL, and box blade to clear and shape land. I prefer to read up on TBN, find some videos, and then get to it on my own tractor. It helps to have patience and practice and a willingness to mess it up a little before getting it right. :laughing:

 

[milkman636]

Anything the tractor with the bicket or grapple/root rake can't budge will stay............. I've found a Kubota L5240 HST 4x4 (2008 - 400 hours) with quick detach loader that I'm really leaning towards right now.

Start with the small stuff, and work your way up to the bigger stuff. Once the undergrowth is out of the way just stand back and look at different areas. You'll be able to see what you have and selectively clear the areas that you want. I started out with a spary can trying to mark trees to clear for a new barn and drive way, and ended up selectively clearing four acres and really opening things up nicely to the sun and summer breezes. It was a lot of good not-so-clean fun.

After you have that little piece all prettied up you'll be looking for more jobs for that tractor. Driving it around alot will help to keep the growth from coming back, but you may find your L5240 is a little big for your needs if you don't have anything else lined up for its potential after you clear those 8-12 acres.

 

[R_Walter]

Use the money to buy a bigger place with more land instead of the 5240. You don't need that big a tractor for... what.... 12 acres?

 

[JoeinTX]

Oh, the caveats.....

#1-As noted prior, a tractor isn't a dozer and shouldn't be used like one. You will tear it up.

#2-From your pics, and also previously stated, if you're looking to start with the small stuff and work your way up (in conjunction with some chainsaw time) then starting with a tractor/shredder/loader similar to what you're describing will probably be fine. Whittle around on the minor stuff until you get to a point where you know you'll definitely need heavy machinery and then get people to bid on the more clearly defined jobs.

#3-An L5240 is probably more than you need to maintain 12 acres of pasture cutting. But, to get things started it might be better and quite often the phrase "wish I'd gotten a bigger tractor to start with" has been uttered around this place. Unless you're also going to worry about mowing the lawn with it and working around tight spaces or cleaning stalls with it you'll probably be fine and have plenty of tractor for anything you need.

#4-I'm assuming the house is an entirely different question from that of cleaning up the 12 acres. Someone who knows what they're doing and has the means to do so needs to handle that.

 

[andyz171]

Here are some updates from recent work. As you might remember you could not even see the house from across the street before 3 weeks ago. I'm learning that slow and steady will win this race, when I get in a hurry things go bad.... It's not a dozer.

 

[hobie]

I am in the midst of some reclaiming work on a family property. It is only a little over 3 acres, but has become quite overgrown. Luckily I have the support of 2 out of 4 brothers, and one did all the tree work so far. Looks like you are doing well with your project! I like the " slow and steady" approach. I don't have much choice, but it will give you more time to see what you have, and make decisions. Looks like you are off to a great start. Brian

 

[Western]

Slow steady and methodical is the way to go.

The only time I get in a "jiffy", is when the wife starts looking at her watch and the fish start biting!

 

[Gary Fowler]

Looks like you got your tractor and root rake with grapple. You shouldnt have much trouble with all the scrub brush with what you have and a heavy bush hog. Looks like you have made a good start. You will be surprised at what a bush hog can shred up when you push it over with your tractor FEL and hit it with the hog. Small shredded trees make good soil compost. Clear it with the bush hog and then work on the rest if need be with chainsaw or backhoe as needed to remove. When you get all the tractor will take out, you may decide that the rest looks good enough to keep.

 

[Soundguy]

great progress!

soundguy

 

[dirtdog44]

You might think about getting a stump bucket for the loader to get out the stumps. Not sure how big your tractor is but my bobcat 743 and a home made stump bucket can take out a- 10 inch stump pretty quickly. The stumpbuckets can be bought for about 800-900 bucks. I have 300 in mine using steel I have around the house. awesom tool..

 

[andyz171]

So here are some pics from this past weekend's work. That is actually a pic of the overgrown barn you could see in some other older pics. Funny / not so funny side note: I got off tractor to move something from underneath, stood up hit top of my head on bucket...... Now have 6 staples in top of head. I bet I never do that again and pay more attention in the future. I'm fine and never even had a headache.

 

[herd]

Somebody said it earlier, you asked the wrong group: give someone $10,000 to do something for you or spend $10,000 extra on your toys. No brainer.

I am just winding up a similar project, about 2.5 acres adjacent to my house. Was clear cut a few years back, grew back up naturally with mostly oak, gum, and cherry scrubs, about 8-10 feet tall. Also, windrow left over fm loggin and many large pine stumps. I had a loose estimate fm a contractor of somewhere between $5,000 to $7500 to clear it but I don't have that kind of extra money anymore.

So, I burned it off, burned off the windrow as much as possible, and then went to work with my disc harrow, bush hog, middle buster, and landscape rake. Been about 6 weeks working off and on but I will be finished by week's end, and I am very, very pleased with the outcome.

Lots and lots of hard work, working along, but it has been my highest paying project yet, in other words, compared to everything else I've done, I paid myself real well on this one. Of course, it has helped tremendously that I can burn here, as so much of the debris had to be burned.

ou can do it yourself, just go for it and keep up posted.

 

[Ranger Rick]

So here are some pics from this past weekend's work. That is actually a pic of the overgrown barn you could see in some other older pics. Funny / not so funny side note: I got off tractor to move something from underneath, stood up hit top of my head on bucket...... Now have 6 staples in top of head. I bet I never do that again and pay more attention in the future. I'm fine and never even had a headache.

And next week the nurse will use a staple remover to take out the staples. Ask me how I know. I had been using the bucket to push a new fence post into an old post hole and had gotten off to check if it was in the ground far enough, It was but some how I did not have the bucket as high as I thought and stood up and did like you did. 6 staples no pain just a hard lesson. :laughing: I am sure ew will not be the last people to hit there head on the bucket.
Rick

 

[kubotakid USA]

If I were doing this selective clearing, Id look for a used backhoe attachment, Ive seen some off from ditchwich trenchers go for about 1500.00 It will save alota wear n tear on that nice tractor, and you can take out an 18 in tree with some seat/learning time, pretty eaisly, you might want to sell after your done or NOT,... If you can do fab work great, If not the adaptor is pretty simple to make any welding shop can do it, (the 3 pt adaptor). Besides removing stumps, If you need a drain field done,.It will pay off just doing that, along with the MANY other projects that come along,. :thumbsup: Eric

 

[Localmotion]

We are wanting to clear out the underbrush of about 8 acres, which to us means leaving trees about 1 ft in diameter and larger.

I've received estimates from dozer guys all around $10,000 to do the job.

Wish we could charge €6,700 ($10,000) here! In Spain the same sort of work (depending upon terrain of course) could cost you no more than half that!

Maybe we should move to the US... :laughing:

Personally I would put that $10,000 towards purchasing your own kit, or hire in the machinery to use yourself & save a lot of money :thumbsup:

 

[andyz171]

So I have not updated in a while because last time out work I un-earthed a body in a shallow grave. This is not a joke, it's been a really weird week dealing with cops, news, ect. I cannot give details because it's an open case an body is still unidentified. Thanks to you all telling me to do clearing with my tractor we were able to recover this body, a dozer might have just rolled over and never noticed it. Here are the pics I can share, sorry nothing great.

 

[LarryD]

Now that tops anything anyone has ever found on their property. I'm sure your heart skipped a few beats when you realized just what you had unearthed.

 

[Soundguy]

dang.. now if that just don't beat all.

soundguy

 

[LoveTheSmellofDiesel]

Wow, now that is a find... Just out of curiousity if you can share - why the extended ladder over the tree tops for a body found on the ground? Pictures?