Hey guys, need a little estimating help

[tmc_31]

I am bidding a land clearing job out in far West Texas. The owner wants 8 acres cleared of a low scrub brush and the brush hauled off.

My plan is to use the dozer blade on my skid steer to scrape up the brush into piles and then use a grapple rake to shake out as much dirt as possible and load the brush into 30 yard roll-off containers.

How can I estimate the cubic yards and tonnage of brush that I will be hauling?

 

[CobyRupert]

Don't have answers, just 2 cents:
For cubic yards the amount you can compress/compact the brush in the containers will be a big factor.
For tonnage, the amount of soil on the root ball and moisture content will be a big factor.

Up here, we'd just push it in a pile and burn it.

Edit: According to the gov'mint ( http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dep/recycle/approvals/dsconv.pdf) :
"Brush" is 4 cubic yards/ton, or equivocally 500 lbs/cubic yard. I think I also saw this number for wood chips. These numbers "seem" pretty high for brush. Though if 75% of the weight is dirt on the root ball and your "packing it in", maybe not.
Whew! You ask hard questions.

 

[tmc_31]

Hey Colby,

2 cents welcome.

There probably won't be a lot of roots as they just want me to scrape the surface, no grubbing.

I will be using a skid loader to put the brush into the container and compact it so compaction will be somewhat limited.

No burning here, we have been under a burn ban for a while now.

Tim

 

[CobyRupert]

Did you see my edit above? All I know is when I load tree "tops" / brush / sticks w/ leaves stacked onto my trailer (8' x4'w x (say) 4'h) = 4.7 cu yard, the brush can't weigh more than ~200 lbs. (40 lbs/ cu yd.) . That's a big difference from 500lbs/yd quoted above. It's just not very dense but takes up a lot of room.

Looking for comparables: Here's another source: (http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/ansci/livestoc/as1282.pdf) Is scrub brush close to flax? At 44.8 lbs/cu. ft at 11% moisture? = 1209 lbs/cu. yd.
Yeah, my numbers are all over the place and just adding to the confusion. Sorry. :confused3:

 

[vulcancowboy]

Could you rent a chipper/shredder and blow the chipped material into the container?

 

[tmc_31]

Hey Colby, thanks for the update. That is helpful. The weight limit on the container is 10 tons (net) So I just want to be sure that I won't go over that amount. The roll-off company has a surcharge for overweight containers. 500/yd would probably be ok, 1209/yd, not so much

Tim

 

[paulharvey]

Do you have a contact with someone running 40 cy "trash trailer" semi dumps. I don't mean trash as in waste management; I mean the tree debris type. Around here; 30 cy roll off dumpsters are $350 per pull for C&D waste (construction and demolition) but a truck, driver, and trailer would be $60-75/hour. Find a mulching place to dump clean tree debris for free/cheap. Stock pile the debris in a long windrow, and then call for truck once you have an entire days worth. Don't think you can load with the skid steer though. Do you have a full sized loader; JD-544, WA-250, CAT-930 sized stuff?

Another option could be stock pile the whole job and hire in a tub grinder, and the grinding company gets the chips or leave it on site.

I know I'm talking about really money here, but roll off dumpsters will eat you alive...

 

[Carl_NH]

What about cutting/mulching up the brush tops with a rotary cutter down to 8-10" high then using your skid steer/dozer to remove the rest? From the pics it seems there isn't dense 2-3" thick stuff so a rotary cutter should do it?

This would reduce the mass of material to remove by at least 60% or more I would think and your cost and time too.

 

[tmc_31]

Could you rent a chipper/shredder and blow the chipped material into the container?

Good thought. that would sure help with the compaction. From what the pictures show (I haven't seen the site up close and personal yet) it doesn't appear to have a lot of woody material in it. Looks like mostly just weeds. I would guess that there is a little mesquite in it, but not much.

I am going to schedule a trip out there to take a closer look next week so I will have a better idea then.

Tim

 

[paulharvey]

After the pictures finally loaded (anyone else have trouble viewing pictures using the app?) I would rent a skid steer mounted hydraulic bush hog for that job. Nothing looks over 4-5" thick, couple passes and be done; if customer would be OK with that.

Ringpower/CAT rents attachments like milling heads and brooms for skids; I assume they also rent hydraulic bush hogs and ?possibly mulcher heads.

 

[lumberjack1986]

That was my thought as well, rotary mower on a skid and go to town with no hauling required. If they did require hauling I would likely still mow then windrow with a root rake and load it out.

 

[yellowdogsvc]

thinking outside the box.
Containers for anything not shredded are hard to compact as brush is "springy."

For a job like the pictures, if it's all that low scrub, why not till up the ground then use a rock sifting bucket to get only the brush/roots and let dirt fall through? A fork grapple will do wonders if everything is shredded or tilled up first as you will be balling up debris without a lot of the dirt.

If you had access to a rock crusher attachment or subbed out that work, it would do the same thing and till that material back into the ground.

If you did just scrape the ground, I'd try and rent a rock sifting bucket and use that before you used the dozer blade. If you can let the brush sit a week in this heat, it will dry up a lot, too, and make it a lot easier to ball up/crush with a grapple and stuff in containers.

 

[tmc_31]

All good ideas guys.

Mowing is out as the owner specified that he wanted all vegetation scraped off of the surface. Letting the piles sit for a while and dry out (thereby reducing volume) may be a viable option.

I am now thinking that my best bet is to windrow the debris. Then I can get a better idea as to how many containers I will need. At the end of the job I can call for the needed containers and load them out with a grapple fork on my skid. I can windrow with this:


I have an appointment with the owner next Tuesday for an onsite walk-around. I should have a better idea what I am up against then.

I appreciate all of your ideas and suggestions.

I am still looking for a way to get a rough estimate of the volume of brush (in cubic yards) that will need to be removed based on the pictures I have provided and the acreage (8 acres) if anyone has any ideas.

Thanks,

Tim