Dozer work -- How much will it cost me?

The Dougster · Feb 23, 2010

For all the good it will do you, here are some numbers ...

Last year I hired a guy with a really big dozer to dig/construct a stock tank.. he charges $150/hour and it cost me $5,550...
Recently I hired a fellow with a much smaller dozer (JD 550) to grub mesquite trees.. he's charging me $72/hour... He is doing a great job of clearing the dirt from the root balls and pushing the trees into piles...

Like someone else said, get a few of them out there to give you and estimate...

20 20 · Feb 23, 2010

The Dougster makes a point. I have a friend that had a ____load of dirt that needed to be pushed over a bank. As luck would have it he hired a {close friend

} for 100+ an hr. His friend left and within 20-30 min a local contracter showed up with his dump truck and dozer. He asked what happened to the dirt, then told him......he was going to push it over for FREE. He wanted to dump 2 or 3 small loads of roots and figured he'd make a deal and push all this guys dirt for letting him dump there. Just goes to show sometimes shopping around makes a HUGE difference. My friend told the contractor to go ahead a dump he didn't mind. The contractor still felt he should do something so he helped him with a couple of loads of material for his drive, delivery and spread it.

tractorjackleg · Feb 23, 2010

You want a good sized excavator out there. Pines have a tap root and without the whole tree intact they will need to be dug out. Even a big dozer would struggle with bigger stumps. Most guys are probably going to want to charge by the hour. Without seeing it there is almost no way to guess what kind of price you are looking at.

herd · Feb 23, 2010

20 20 said:
Have you looked into rentals, you can rent something the size of a 312 cat{ex} that would work quite well? They are not all that hard to run, plus you'll have a blast doing it yourself. Just a suggestion, poppong roots isn't like digging a pond or foundation.

What would something like that rent for? I have the same problem and actually am thinking about buying a ''track hoe" to clear my five acres, then sell it (the track hoe). I have only one "ballpark quote, " and that is at a minimum of $5000. I have lots of pine stumps, 12-18'' so the ole "tap root'' plays heavy on the cost.

Topstrap · Feb 24, 2010

If you're going to do it yourself and in not a big hurry digging around tree and pushing it over before cutting is a LOT faster but also have to be more careful. Having a hoe with a thumb makes it easy to grab the tree and then cut limbs off and cut into managable size logs for future firewood.

I don't know of any reliable excavator that will price a job over the phone without seeing the site first.

Topstrap

MarkV · Feb 24, 2010

I think it is going to cost a lot more than you expect. It takes a real big dozer to pop out 12 -18" pine stumps cut low to the ground. An excavator would be my choice and you need a pretty good size one to be efficient.

It has been about five years, but here I was quoted $2500 per acre to remove trees and stumps. That was with the contractor getting the tree value also. At the $200 per acre you were hoping for a large dozer would have to be able to clear more than a acre per hour. I don't think that will happen.

MarkV

20 20 · Feb 24, 2010

herd said:
What would something like that rent for? I have the same problem and actually am thinking about buying a ''track hoe" to clear my five acres, then sell it (the track hoe). I have only one "ballpark quote, " and that is at a minimum of $5000. I have lots of pine stumps, 12-18'' so the ole "tap root'' plays heavy on the cost.

The 312 size{30,000lb+} would be about as small as you'd want to go. ALLTHOUGHT smaller excavators could do the job, it would just take longer. I use a machine now that is under 4k lbs, just takes time, plus I'm only doing a couple a year. When I rented {few yrs ago} It cost me around $3,000{for a month} plus an extra $600 for PU and delivery.

Mini excavators in the 8-12K lb range are going somewhat cheap right now. That's if you don't mind spending a little more time doing the job. I'd allmost bet though if you bought one you probably would NOT let it go.

herd · Feb 24, 2010

20 20 said:
The 312 size{30,000lb+} would be about as small as you'd want to go. ALLTHOUGHT smaller excavators could do the job, it would just take longer. I use a machine now that is under 4k lbs, just takes time, plus I'm only doing a couple a year. When I rented {few yrs ago} It cost me around $3,000{for a month} plus an extra $600 for PU and delivery.

Mini excavators in the 8-12K lb range are going somewhat cheap right now. That's if you don't mind spending a little more time doing the job. I'd allmost bet though if you bought one you probably would NOT let it go.

tkx 20/20, actually I was thinking in the range of a 12000# mini-ex and you are entirely right, I probably wouldn't want to let go of it afterwards. My thought tho is to buy the mini-ex, clear the 5 acres, dig a pond (about 2 acres), then sell it and buy a backhoe.

Trackhoe hourly rates around here are $110-115 per hour and a $2000-$2500 minimum. I figure it would take about $5000 to clear the 5 acres, which also includes a huge windrow of limbs, etc from the clear cut.

20 20 · Feb 24, 2010

Herd can I ask a stupid question, Why would you sell an excavator and buy a BH, usually it's the other way around?

I've owned and run BH's and they are great machines, but compared to a excavator they don't hold an once{JMO}. The mini excavator with a blade is a supper handy machine. I've seen them with tow packages {for hauling a wood trailer etc.} and countless other attachments. I was thinking the other day, if I were forced to get rid of all but one of my machines which would it be???????????............I'd keep the mini ex hands down. The thing is so handy to have around,I'm not sure how I even got out of bed before

herd · Feb 24, 2010

20 20 said:
Herd can I ask a stupid question, Why would you sell an excavator and buy a BH, usually it's the other way around?

I've owned and run BH's and they are great machines, but compared to a excavator they don't hold an once{JMO}. The mini excavator with a blade is a supper handy machine. I've seen them with tow packages {for hauling a wood trailer etc.} and countless other attachments. I was thinking the other day, if I were forced to get rid of all but one of my machines which would it be???????????............I'd keep the mini ex hands down. The thing is so handy to have around,I'm not sure how I even got out of bed before

Not a stupid question at all 2020; in fact, my approach may be stupid after reading your insight from your personal exp. What I was thinking is the the BH is more mobile and possibly lest maintainance plus I'd have the use of a loader on a BH. Guess I could add one to my tractor and keep the mini-ex and be ahead of the game.

Tks again for the insight. Who makes a good mini-ex in the 12000# range. Of course, I would buy used.