Ditching job

[Hay Dude]

No, not quitting my career
Just bid a good mile or more of ditching, double it if you count both sides Customer reviewing contract and it seems like itll be a “go”.
No problem renting a mini ex & smooth bucket. I made quite a few calls, but nobody has a wrist attachment for bucket for rent in my area.

Anyone do this lately? Hope to be underway soon and post a few pics.

 

[Root Cause]

Some Good news. Thanks for starting the day out right. Good luck.

 

[Hay Dude]

Thanks!
I start every day out right Root Cause! I thank the Lord for another day, and keep fighting the good fight best I can!

 

[sea2summit]

I haven’t run an excavator in nearly 20 years. Backhoe, not quite as fun but gets my jobs done.

How big/what type of a ditch? Just road edges or actual drainage?

 

[Hay Dude]

These are hay field drainage ditches. They carry water from a nearby road, across the hay fields and into a nearby river. The ditches are mostly about 15’ wide and pretty shallow, maybe 3-4’ deep. There are also some smaller ones that are about 6’ wide feeding into the main bigger ditch.

 

[sea2summit]

That’s gonna take a minute. I’d be interested in how big of a machine you use and how long it takes. Keep us posted.

 

[Hay Dude]

That’s gonna take a minute. I’d be interested in how big of a machine you use and how long it takes. Keep us posted.

Inquired on renting a 6,000lb machine w/ 36” smooth bucket. Would prefer 48” smooth bucket, but that puts me in a bigger unit (more expensive).
Havent decided size yet.

 

[jyoutz]

That sounds like a job for a full sized excavator, not a mini.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

Too bad you don't have a scraper for your tractor. You are going to be moving thousands of yards of material.

 

[Snobdds]

6k pound machine and bill by the hour?

 

[Hay Dude]

The ditches are long, not very wide and they are shallow. Ill try to share some pictures.

 

[Hay Dude]

6k pound machine and bill by the hour?

Im going to bid it as an entire job.

 

[Hay Dude]

Too bad you don't have a scraper for your tractor. You are going to be moving thousands of yards of material.

The property owners is going to have us build an earthen berm behind their stone grist mill to help redirect future flood waters. My plan is to use tractor with high cap loader bucket to shuttle dirt about 1/2 mile to earthen berm

 

[plastikosmd]

^ that last part sounds awful

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

The property owners is going to have us build an earthen berm behind their stone grist mill to help redirect future flood waters. My plan is to use tractor with high cap loader bucket to shuttle dirt about 1/2 mile to earthen berm

Not sure where you are located but it sounds more and more like a scraper would at least be a good way to start. You can pull off long shallow strips and ride up the berm to dump in a strip. The tractors you have listed probably would not pull a 22 yard one but I bet it would one like this. Maybe you could start this way and finish with the X?

https://www.rentalyard.com/listings/construction-equipment/for-rent/list/category/1082/scrapers-pull

 

[Engineer42]

Hope that berms not too high. I would imagine what you are cleaning out of the ditch is pretty wet.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

...good mile or more of ditching, double it if you count both sides... The ditches are mostly about 15’ wide and pretty shallow, maybe 3-4’ deep. ...My plan is to use tractor with high cap loader bucket to shuttle dirt about 1/2 mile to earthen berm...

^ that last part sounds awful

Agree.

2 miles, 15 feet wide, 3 feet deep in the center. I'll calculate that as having a constant slope that would yield an average of 18" depth. That is 8,800 cubic yards of material or 587 full to the top 15 yard dump truck loads. That would take a long time with a loader.

I may be bad off on what I am thinking in my head, without being able to see it though. Also, it's easy to play devil's advocate behind a computer screen . I'm not trying to pee in anyone's Cheerios.

Maybe I'm reading this all wrong. I'm thinking you are creating the ditches. If you are just cleaning them out, what I just did will not be even close to accurate, and you are probably on track with using an X but I would get a big one. It's still a lot of material.

 

[Hay Dude]

I’m just cleaning them out and they are not really all that bad. There’s a stone road most of the way to the earthen berm. Last 400’ is over soft area, so dump truck won’t work.
Looked into the possibility of renting an off road, front load dump vehicle, too.
1/2 mile of ditch. Both sides 1 mile

 

[ovrszd]

I'm in the scraper group. Even a 5-6 yd scraper will be five times faster than an FEL. Course, if you pull the scraper with the FEL tractor you can take a full bucket with you.

Load the scraper with the Excavator, go dump, repeat.

 

[4570Man]

You need a bigger mini. A 3 ton will suffer with that size bucket.