Working frozen dirt

[rjwerth]

Well, my hopes of getting my pond cleaned out before winter are quickly fading away. Even as dry as it has been (up to 2 weeks ago), the bottom of my pond is still pretty wet. And, as people know, wet clay just doesn't play nice with tractors. So, now I'm thinking my next best attempt to clean it out is going to be after the ground freezes so it firms up and can support the tractor and provide a whole lot more traction.

The question is...can I still work the soil with my box blade and/or FEL after it freezes or is that just wishful thinking?

 

[DJ54]

Depending on how cold it get's, and if there is snow to insulate the dirt, there will only be a crust. Below that will be the same thing you have now.

On a positive note... If you do get it out, and just rough it off for winter. The freeze and thaw cycle will really mellow it out, when it dries in the spring.

 

[Camdigger]

Well, my hopes of getting my pond cleaned out before winter are quickly fading away. Even as dry as it has been (up to 2 weeks ago), the bottom of my pond is still pretty wet. And, as people know, wet clay just doesn't play nice with tractors. So, now I'm thinking my next best attempt to clean it out is going to be after the ground freezes so it firms up and can support the tractor and provide a whole lot more traction.

The question is...can I still work the soil with my box blade and/or FEL after it freezes or is that just wishful thinking?

If the ground freezes very deep, you will have difficulty doing any work with it. My experience with wet clay type soil when it freezes indicates that it will polish like glass with a flat cutter blade and be almost as hard. Even 300 HP crawlers have difficulty working solidly frozen wet clay. Ripping takes muscle and can be pretty rough on shanks,etc. I vividly remember shearing off 2 rippers shanks off a D8K one night on a rush construction job. On that one, the frost was 3' down and we had only 2' cut and fill. Nasty bit of lump mashing went on there.

 

[john_bud]

I just cleaned out a "wildlife puddle". It was too wet, but using the backhoe to dig a hole / ditch to the side, the water seeped over there and the ground was dry enough to remove from the other areas.

But the ground has a bit of sand so water can run better than clay.


Here's the video of the work. Early you can see the back hoe come in and dig a small hole screen left. Then later along the edge. I was about to get stuck before that, but not after! The bottom was dropped 6' in places.

 

[RoyJackson]

Considering the OP is in southern Michigan, I expect he'll have a difficult time once the freeze commences.
There were times we had to use jackhammers to break up the frozen soil to dig sewer trenches...and this was in Maryland.

However, can't hurt to try...just don't wait too long.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Having worked in Northern Canada, I can tell you for certain that you cant dig in frozen soil with any kind of equipment. Even the moisture in pure sand will freeze and make it impossible to dig.
Pure clay is slow to dry and even when dry on top can be deadly to equipment that falls thru the crust. Very hard to retrieve the equipment from a swamp bog.

 

[D7E]

Sometimes after a very wet fall rather than make ruts we wait till beginning of freeze up and work it at -5 /-10c or so when soil is partially froze so it will carry tractors without spinning , it works very well and is very common practice . Very short working window till froze solid or snow is too deep though .

 

[cqaigy2]

Sometimes after a very wet fall rather than make ruts we wait till beginning of freeze up and work it at -5 /-10c or so when soil is partially froze so it will carry tractors without spinning , it works very well and is very common practice . Very short working window till froze solid or snow is too deep though .

I've seen this done as well, before the soil freezes hard. There is a narrow window of opportunity when the soil is more like ice cream and not sloppy. Hmmm ice cream.

 

[GolfAddict]

Here's the video of the work.

What a cool video!

 

[rjwerth]

I just cleaned out a "wildlife puddle". It was too wet, but using the backhoe to dig a hole / ditch to the side, the water seeped over there and the ground was dry enough to remove from the other areas.

But the ground has a bit of sand so water can run better than clay.

Great video! Yeah, I wish the ground had as much sand as yours does. I currently have spots on either end that are 2-6 feet deeper than the majority of the pond and I've been pumping out both sides regularly. Helps a little, but the pond is a few hundred feet long so the middle is just holding the water below the compost layer. I've been trying to save as much of this black gold as I can, but when I take a scoop, the front tires sink into the wet clay layers.

Sometimes after a very wet fall rather than make ruts we wait till beginning of freeze up and work it at -5 /-10c or so when soil is partially froze so it will carry tractors without spinning , it works very well and is very common practice . Very short working window till froze solid or snow is too deep though .

Yes, this is my thought as well. I'm hoping to get some work done when the nights get very cold but then the days are just barely above freezing. Of course, at this time of year, my day job really starts to get in the way of my digging fun.

 

[RaydaKub]

Sometimes after a very wet fall rather than make ruts we wait till beginning of freeze up and work it at -5 /-10c or so when soil is partially froze so it will carry tractors without spinning , it works very well and is very common practice . Very short working window till froze solid or snow is too deep though .

Yeah, I remember as a kid one year there was no way to plow up the cornstalks. My dad hired a relative to come in and chisel plow it instead. But it was greasy enough that the only time it worked was between about 5 and 10 pm. Before the sun set, it was too slick. By about 10, it was setting up fairly firm and they couldn't pull it. Took about 3 or 4 evenings to chisel about 60 acres with a 100hp tractor.

 

[john_bud]

Great video! Yeah, I wish the ground had as much sand as yours does. I currently have spots on either end that are 2-6 feet deeper than the majority of the pond and I've been pumping out both sides regularly. Helps a little, but the pond is a few hundred feet long so the middle is just holding the water below the compost layer. I've been trying to save as much of this black gold as I can, but when I take a scoop, the front tires sink into the wet clay layers.


.

How big is your tractor? That's a LOT of digging. My area was like 60-70ft end to end and less than 20 across and it took several long long days of solid aggressive digging.

 

[D7E]

Yeah, I remember as a kid one year there was no way to plow up the cornstalks. My dad hired a relative to come in and chisel plow it instead. But it was greasy enough that the only time it worked was between about 5 and 10 pm. Before the sun set, it was too slick. By about 10, it was setting up fairly firm and they couldn't pull it. Took about 3 or 4 evenings to chisel about 60 acres with a 100hp tractor.

I did the last 600 acres like this about 4 years ago . 10 degrees in the daytime so starting at 3am when there was a good hard crust and working till about 10 am when it got sticky

 

[rjwerth]

How big is your tractor? That's a LOT of digging. My area was like 60-70ft end to end and less than 20 across and it took several long long days of solid aggressive digging.

Same one that's in my profile: DK50SE. Not sure if that qualifies as a "compact" or a "utility." 49hp.

Yep, it is a lot of digging. So far, I've spent over 40 hours on the tractor on this project alone. Several of those have been fairly unproductive since this is my first tractor and my first time at this type of project. Pump, wait (dry), dig, pump, wait, dig. I typically only work a couple hours a day, a couple days a week since I have a day job. When I started in July, I thought for sure I'd be digging into dry(er) clay by the end of August. No such luck.

On the plus side, I do have 3 large piles of beautiful black compost, and my land bridge to get to the other side faster is about half built. Looks like I'll be putting the work lights on the cab to good use this fall/winter!

 

[sdkubota]

Considering the OP is in southern Michigan, I expect he'll have a difficult time once the freeze commences.
There were times we had to use jackhammers to break up the frozen soil to dig sewer trenches...and this was in Maryland.

However, can't hurt to try...just don't wait too long.

When I was in construction we repaired any water main breaks the city had. During the winter it could take 12+ hours with a hydraulic jack hammer to bust a 3' x 6' hole through the frost. It is easier to break through concrete then frozen ground.

 

[RaydaKub]

It is easier to break through concrete then frozen ground.

Several years ago we needed a bunch of temporary offices next to the permanent building. The large excavator had a jack hammer on it and spent a few weeks chipping out dirt to put down foundations for trailers to be brought in. I sat on the 3rd floor and they were, at minimum, 20 feet away from the building. The whole building vibrated all day long.

 

[sdkubota]

Frozen soil has the ability to absorb the impacts where concrete will shatter...nasty stuff.

 

[RoyJackson]

Frozen soil has the ability to absorb the impacts where concrete will shatter...nasty stuff.

Yeah...frozen soil is a pain...especially when you get a spade bit (for the jackhammer) stuck.

Wasn't much option though...we used a full sized Ford backhoe and all it did was lift the rear end when trying to break the ground.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Due to engineering delays on a project for Syncrude in Northern Alberta, we did a lot of underground work in the dead of winter. We had tents build over the area to be excavated and ran big heaters in them all night to thaw out the ground a few inches and dug it during the day. Heated and thawed again till we got to the correct elevation, kept the heat on in the tents for the workers and to keep the soil thawed. All our backfill was keep in a heated tent also as you cant compact icy soil or slushy soil. We backfilled up to the ground elevation using warm dirt at about 60F. Engineering didnt mind putting the backfill against frozen soil but the backfill material had to be well above freezing so we had time to load it, haul it from the heating tent to the hole to be filled and compact and test it before it froze back. It cost a large fortune to do that but we had to maintain the completion date even though engineering was behind schedule by more than 6 months.

 

[sdkubota]

Due to engineering delays on a project for Syncrude in Northern Alberta, we did a lot of underground work in the dead of winter. We had tents build over the area to be excavated and ran big heaters in them all night to thaw out the ground a few inches and dug it during the day. Heated and thawed again till we got to the correct elevation, kept the heat on in the tents for the workers and to keep the soil thawed. All our backfill was keep in a heated tent also as you cant compact icy soil or slushy soil. We backfilled up to the ground elevation using warm dirt at about 60F. Engineering didnt mind putting the backfill against frozen soil but the backfill material had to be well above freezing so we had time to load it, haul it from the heating tent to the hole to be filled and compact and test it before it froze back. It cost a large fortune to do that but we had to maintain the completion date even though engineering was behind schedule by more than 6 months.

And people wonder why gas prices are high.