Filling a Hundred Holes (6-feet across, 4-feet deep)

[60047]

My property was previously a tree farm and I have over a hundred holes where the trees were dug out, balled, and burlapped. I tried filling the holes with my Kubota L4330, but I made very little progress scraping off surrounding dirt and using that as fill. I've also tried loosening up dirt with a tiller, but that is only slightly more effective.

What type of equipment is usually used to fill holes left when removing trees? Should I rent a dozer? Or is an excavator more efficient at this task? If an excavator, is a Bobcat E-85 (20k pound machine; 36-inch bucket) big enough to get through that many holes in an 8-hour rental period?

Or should I just truck in some fill dirt and rent a backhoe?

 

[WranglerX]

What is you plan to get material to fill holes?

Dale

 

[60047]

I have a few hundred feet of trenching that needs to be done, so there is material from that. I also need to create a fire break around the wetlands for a controlled burned, so that is another source of material.

 

[4570Man]

Are you digging the ditches and leaving them open? Trying to scrap dirt off the surface is a pain. Digging a big hole or trucking in fill would be better. But filling 100 holes that big would take a lot of dirt. Digging on site is the only reasonably cost effective option.

 

[60047]

Yes, the ditches will be open to drain standing water from higher ground.

 

[4570Man]

An 85 excavator will dig a big hole in a hurry but it can’t move dirt any distance. If the terrain is suitable digging a hole and putting the dirt on a dump truck would be fastest. If not you’ll want something with a good sized front bucket. This hole is probably 15 minutes work with an 80. It looks like attachments still aren’t working. View attachment 689994

 

[60047]

I assume I can move the dirt with the tractor's FEL. The distance between the hole/dirt pile and various holes is at most 500 feet.

 

[4570Man]

Are all the holes as big as the title says? They must have been transplanting 1’ diameter trees.

 

[60047]

About half of them are that big. I would guess they were 8'-12' at the time (blue spruces). Most of the trees are 30' now. Maybe taller.

 

[old and tired]

Sounds like a good time to build a pond!!! Dig a big hole!

 

[4570Man]

I assume the holes taper and aren’t cylinder shaped so I calculated the volume at half depth. That’s about 2 yards per hole so not as much dirt as I originally thought. I’d say 4 full scoops on your tractor FEL would about fill one. Although that’s packed yards vs loose yards so maybe 5 or 6 scoops.

 

[60047]

Yeah, just waiting on the jurisdictional determination from the US Army Corps of Engineers. The wetlands should not fall under their jurisdiction, so pond-building is high on the to-do list. It might take a month or so, since it's 4 acres of wetlands. In the meantime, I would like to fill these holes and also build an embankment slide for the kids.

 

[JethroB]

Be aware of the quality of the dirt from low areas. It may be silt or muck. It may not be good fill material. Nasty stuff when wet.

 

[Redlands Okie]

Might check around and hire a good grader operator. They can move a lot of dirt short distances and do so fast. Leaves a level surface. Also can do ditching, and build many types of embankments.

 

[Jchonline]

It can be done with a smaller machine if you have a few years . If you dont want to wait big iron can make quick work of it.

 

[bdog]

You can buy dirt cheap by the semi load. Maybe $350 a load? Get a load dumped right by your holes and it will be easy to move the loose dirt into the holes with your loader.

With my skid steer I bet I could fill and smooth a hole in under five minutes if wasn’t having to move the material too far.

 

[4570Man]

You can buy dirt cheap by the semi load. Maybe $350 a load? Get a load dumped right by your holes and it will be easy to move the loose dirt into the holes with your loader.

I can buy it for $100 but that’s a very area dependent price.

 

[bdog]

I can buy it for $100 but that’s a very area dependent price.

That is super cheap if you are talking semi and not tandem and cheap even for a tandem. Around here you are going to pay $100 minimum just for the trucking plus the cost of whatever you want hauled. Granted dirt is cheap but the people digging it up and loading it want something for their efforts.

Regardless I think OP is far better off trucking in material than trying to dig it up to fill these holes unless he already had a backhoe or excavator and a means to haul the dirt.

 

[bcp]

Craigslist ad here a few months ago offered free dirt, delivered, but you had to take at least 100+ loads.

Bruce

 

[Scar0B2150]

You can try putting your name out to a few "dirt" contractors in your area. There are always some around my area who a looking for places to dump waste dirt from another project. My neighbor did exactly that and received 10 tandem dump truck loads of clean topsoil withing a week from a housing project totally free. He was very specific that he only wanted top-soil! Free sure beats paying for it.