Placing earth bags

[Cat385B]

Do you have an Avant tractor dealer anywhere close? They have several different attachments that would do the job. The boom extends, and the mid and large models would reach.

Avant's attachments

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www.avanttecno.com

I have never priced out a rental or lease on one of those compared to a telescoping forklift.

 

[Cat385B]

Oops, I missed the backhoe attachment part in your post.
Depending on the durability of the earth bag material, you could use a barrier clamp.

 

[pengyou]

Thank you all for your input! It is looking more and more feasible, but I still have a lot of homework to do. The common size is a 60 pound earth bags - I think 24" x 14" x 4" and would require using 28K bags. Using 36" by 18" x9" means about 7,000 bags in total, but it also requires heavy equipment (machine to place each bag and a pugmill mixer to mix the fill) - each bag weighs in at 250 pounds. These bigs are 15% bigger than the largest bags that have been used before. Why am I doing this? Earth bag buildings are fire proof, earthquake resistant (if designed properly) insect and mold resistant, quiet and MIGHT be cheap. I did not have time to do a proper soil test 2 years ago when I bought the property, but using info from properties around it, I might only have to add about 10 pounds of Portland cement to each bag to stabilize it...actual numbers will come when I can get home and do the test.