Clearing land options...

adegiulio · May 23, 2003

We have a 14 acre lot in NY state that we are looking to clear a portion of to build a house on. It has a moderate number of trees on it but a very heavily overgrown with brush (prickers, saplings, and tons of other stuff). It is quite flat. Usually a bulldozer would come in and scrape the top layer off, remove the brush and roots. Can this sort of thing be accomplished using a compact tractor?? I am trying to talk myself into buying a tractor (the JD 4310 has caught my eye). There is plenty of other work other than clearing that would make this tractor useful for me, but the ability to clear my lot would be the icing on the cake. Any advice would be appreciate.

One issue with the land is that the soil has a lot of clay. I would like to add some organic material. Would it be a good idea to bush hog the area, then plow and till it? We wont be building or planting for over a year, so rotting prickers and such shouldnt pose a problem. Or are we better off scraping and burning the brush?? What would be best to scrape with?

Thanks for the help. I have been lurking on this site for a couple weeks and have learned a lot already.

MossRoad · May 23, 2003

Welcome!

If you're going to build a house soon, just have the person that is doing the excavation do the clearing. It probably won't cost that much extra and will be done in a day or two.

However, that doesn't mean you shouldn't buy a tractor /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

adegiulio · May 23, 2003

Yeah, its not the clearing of the brush that is expensive, its clearing the trees where the price starts rising. We have a lot of trees that need clearing, and it would be much much easier to do it without all of that brush. The underbrush is so thick in some areas, it is impassible. We want to have some friends (with tree cutting experience) come up and take them down, but we need to make the area accessible...

Thanks for the reply though

rancar · May 23, 2003

"...very heavily overgrown with brush (prickers, saplings, and tons of other stuff). It is quite flat. Usually a bulldozer would come in and scrape the top layer off, remove the brush and roots. Can this sort of thing be accomplished using a compact tractor??..."

It would be very difficult and time consuming to do this task this way. I'd suggest renting a dozer for a day or a weekend and hiring a skilled operator to scrape this layer off. It would be done then in a heart beat.

"...Or are we better off scraping and burning the brush??..." 

Yes....this personally is what I would do.

...Bob

JohnMiller3 · May 23, 2003

...its clearing the trees where the price starts rising. We have a lot of trees that need clearing... 

If you do it right... you can have your "cake and eat it too".../forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Have you considered hiring a logger for the trees, share in the generated revenue... then take that "new found money" and pay a dozer operator to remove the stumps and clear the rest...

...and now you have the best of all worlds... /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Trev · May 23, 2003

There's nothing like a real bulldozer for this kind of thing. You could rent one, then spend half your rental time learning to use it, or just hire a pro to come in and do the job. My experience is limited here, so I hired the pro. I think I probably saved money, but had less fun. Life is always a tradeoff. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Bob

adegiulio · May 23, 2003

well, if we do use a dozer (which I think I am judging from the responses here), I am going to have my friend do it. He is an excavator around where I live now (northern NJ). I'm sure I'll jump on the machine just to try it out.... /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Egon · May 23, 2003

Trev:

The land of off/on has been conquered and you have returned to the world of communications!

Watching a dozer with bush rake would be my choice.

Egon

soarkrebel · May 23, 2003

John miller said it. in my neck of the woods if it has good timber you can come out smelling like a rose!

you could make more than enough to pay for the clearing. check into this .
make sure you don't pay someone to clear your trees and they take your money and the timber buyers too.

Anonymous Poster · May 23, 2003

Egon, Trev's probably using Viv's computer, after all he is a gooburmunt employee, and he runs computers for the gooburmunt, so his is probably still apart.