Clearing 1/2 Acre...You Want How Much???

[Kyle241]

We have been in our house for just over a year and we want to open up the area behind the house to help reduce the bugs in the summer and have a more productive vegetable garden. I have been going back and forth on the best way to clear approximately 1/2 acre of trees, the majority of which are 4-6" hardwoods and the larger 10"+ I'll let stand. The plan is to eventually bush hog the area in summer to keep things neat. I know I could do it myself with my B20 TLB but it will take a while and I don't have the time. So DW suggested I contract out the work and I had a guy come over yesterday. When he got out of his truck, I thought this guy looks familiar and when he said his name, I was like, great I've done business with this guy 10 years ago and was not happy with his work then. I thought I'd give him another chance so we walked the area and I have already marked the trees I want to keep. His solution was not to bring in any heavy equipment such as an excavator or dozer but instead bring in a large chipper that supposedly can handle up to 15" logs. I thought okay, this is not a bad idea as it would clean up all the debris and leave me with chips for my trails. He stated he would only do the work by the hour instead of a by the job, not what I was looking for. He then went on to tell me it would be $350/hr for 5 guys and when I asked him approximately how long it would take, he couldn't guess so I did it for him, 3-5 days? He said best case 3, worse case 5 so I would be looking at between $8,400 and $14,000....I was like, "ah, let me write you a blank cheque now". Suffice to say I bid him on his way politely and threw away his business card. His quote did NOT include any leveling of the site after or removing stumps.

So now I am back to doing it on my own and trying to decide what the next steps are. I think I will rent my own chipper after I have downed the trees to clean up the area. Once this is done, I'll look at using my B20 to remove the large stumps or even better, I'll take the $8-14k he wanted and put it as a down payment on a MX5100 with BH that I have been waiting to get all summer.

I just don't get contractors that estimate these numbers and get business but he has been around for a number of years. What is interesting though is he changed his company name as I would not have called him if it was still the old company name. My guess is something is amiss there as well but that is not my business.

 

[rd_macgregor]

If the trees you want to leave aren't too hard to avoid, then I'd suggest tracking down a good dozer operator to tear out all the rest. You'd save enough money (over the quote you had) to buy yourself a really good, large-capacity chipper! Chainsaw off the uprooted stumps and chip the rest, then have a nice stump-pile bonfire sometime.
BOB

 

[MarkV]

I agree that for 4-6" trees a small dozer could come in and up root most of the trees, rough grade and push you up a pile to burn or chip. With only a 1/2 acre I would think a half day and you would be out less than $1000.

MarkV

 

[creekbend]

I would check and ask around the area for recomendation of a good dozer operatior. I haven't seen your property but what you descibed should be completed by an experience dozer operator in a day. In my area they normally charge $600.00-$700.00 daily. Some charge travel costs to the jobsite. I would sell what firewood I could--that is if you don't burn wood yourself-- and pile up the stumps and left over debris and burn it. That is if you are allowed to burn in your location. If so, a burn permit will cover you if the authorities are called by neighbors. Happy Tractoring.:tractor::tractor:

 

[scoutcub]

Wow...are you sure he didn't mean $350 per day??
I don't think lawyers and doctors make that much!
Agreed on hiring it out to a dozer, or perhaps renting a dozer.....you get the seat time, but will take longer than an expert.
Good luck!

 

[sizzami]

how could you apply five guys to 1/2 acre? what would they all do? I cleared one acre about five years ago cut the trees , stumped it and cut up the logs myself , it took about six days , I rented an 8500 lb excavator with a blade.

 

[dmay]

Here are a bunch of questions for you:

What is the number of trees you want felled?
How tall are they?
What is the number of trees you want left standing?
Is there room to fell the trees in between the standing trees or do they need to be cut down and removed in pieces?
Is there enough room for heavy equipment like a dozer to operate effectively in?

The benefits of hiring a dozer/operator are the trees when pushed over will likely uproot themselves leaving no stumps behind. If you have room, the dozer can push the trees out of the area and return to level the remaning ground. At least as best as possible working amongst the remaining standing trees.

If there is not enough room for heavy equipment to work, then it may mean there is a lot of manual labour required.

 

[RoyBrooks]

Wow $350 an hour? Thats allot, at $350 an hour I'll bring the b7500 over to play shouldn't be any more that 3-5 weeks. Seriously though where are you located? If your not too far away I might know some one.

 

[Kyle241]

Yes the dozer idea has been considered as well. I have a local guy who could come on-site as he as a Case 550 but I would love to rent one and get some seat time. It's been a number of years since I used a dozer when I was helping a friend prep his lot but I think I would pick it back up quickly. Also I have been looking for a small dozer for all the other work I have to do so perhaps it makes sense to buy my own and get done what I can when I can.

The only negative is the big brush pile that I would end up with. I am very nervous around fires as I had one get away on me one time and while I got it under control, I was in total panic mode as acres of pines trees were only a few feet away. I had DW call the fire department as I really didn't think I could contain it after many minutes of trying (a gusty wind had come up). So no more brush fires for me.

Dmay - yes the trees I want to keep are fairly well spread out so a small dozer can get in there and work around them easily. The trees to go are around 20-40ft high and if they are decent diameter, e.g. 5-6", I could easily buck them up for firewood. I would say there are about 50-70 trees that need to go.

RoyBrooks - yup, $350/hr if you can believe it. I'm out East between Ottawa and Montreal.

 

[Mousefield]

I'm more of a fan for using a mid sized excavator for the job. Have had both bulldozer and excavator do work for me and the excavator does a much nicer job. A lot of them come with blades now for grading. Nice thing about the excavator is he can pile the trees for you after you cut off the root and tops, makes it nice and easy to cut up for firewood. When they do roots for me they pick them up and drop them to get the dirt off the roots, much nicer for burning.