Backhoe To Backhoe, or Not.....

Cliff_Johns · Jun 7, 2004

I questioned the cost too, but as I've said before, I use the backhoe almost all the time I'm on the tractor. It is a terific tool for removing roots and stumps, for planting, for yanking out rocks etc. I don't think I will ever be without one again (unless I run out of money and have to sell it, but even then, they hold their value fairly well.)

Put in another vote for YES, DO IT!

Cliff

ChrisBWJ · Jun 7, 2004

Well if you guys hadn't already convinced me, the 10-12" diameter stump I fought tonite pushed me over the edge.

I'm convinced I need one. The wife isn't so sure. But I AM sure if I get it, she'll find plenty of uses for it!

Everybody cross their fingers that the prospective buyers on our house accept our counter-offer. If that happens tonite or tomorrow, I'll be calling Dan-the-tractor salesman to set up the time to put that backhoe on. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Thanks everyone for the comments!! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

mrcaptainbob · Jun 7, 2004

Have you checked this out?:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/transportationboard/?yguid=87228285

GregJ · Jun 8, 2004

Chris,
The way I look at it.... I bought a tractor to go with my BH. I use it WAY more than I ever thought. The conventional thinking is that BH's are for pretty heavy duty work, which they excel in. I have found that I use mine for the light, delicate work as well, when landscaping. I use it to "weed" in between trees and plantings all the time. It can be used to remove sod, etc. If you have any finesse work that needs to be done, the BH is the right tool. Of course it takes a little practice, but they really are a very easy tool to use. The BH90 is an incredible piece of equipment too. As far as burying stumps, my personal preference is not to. I have removed several large stumps with my machine and stored them in my stump "staging area" until I had enough to do a good burn. When you bury stumps, if you ever plan to use that area for anything, you will be dealing with a mess. When I first got my tractor I buried some stuff and I am still regretting it today.

I think I am safe in saying at this point.... Enjoy your new BH. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Greg

pekabu · Jun 8, 2004

I bought a bh for my TC24d. It's not a real powerful thing, but it's down a lot of work for me. If I could do all my work at once it wouldn't be worth it. But I have so many small projects, and probably some of the rockiest land around that day in and day out I am glad I have it.

Boondox · Jun 8, 2004

Excellent decision! Besides, if your wife is like mine, once those payments begin the chances of additional major purchases diminishes rapidly. Strike while the iron's hot!

Pete

ChrisBWJ · Jun 8, 2004

Well, our house buyers didn't work out... /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif, but I called Dan the Tractor Man and told him to start the paperwork. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Told him to take his time...the longer I can wait until those payments start, the better off I'll feel!! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Richard · Jun 8, 2004

Good for you !!!

I honestly think you will continue to reflect back on this post as time goes by and knock yourself in the head that you even debated it /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

ChrisBWJ · Jun 8, 2004

The wife and I were talking tonite, after I told her I ordered the backhoe. She said she figured I was going to do it. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

It occured to me somewhere along the line, that if I don't get it now, I may never get it. It's a lot easier to finance the $$ at no interest now, than to come up with that kind of cash after building a new house.

Plus it was fun way to meet a number of people on the forum and I always enjoy picking the minds of people with a lot more experience than I. It's a wonderful way to accelerate the learning curve!

Thanks again to everyone.

herdfan · Jun 9, 2004

ChrisBWJ

We're also in the process of building a new home, and used the same logic with our recent tractor purchase as you did.
I bought the biggest hoe available from the manufacturer for my new Century tractor (8 1/2 ft) and 2 buckets (18" and 36"). I started excavating the walkout basement using the FEL, but quickly learned that WV clay is too tough for that approach. I then started pounding away at it with the backhoe. This was VERY time consuming. The reach on these TLBs isn't enough to get the spoil out of the way, so I had my father in law use our other tractor's grader blade (no FEL on that one /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif) to remove it. We also hauled some soil out with an old dump truck I bought, but again, there was a problem with not enough reach to efficiently excavate and load the soil. I finally rented a full-size cat backhoe and did the work in at least 1/3 of the time as the compact TLB. In retrospect, a mid-sized excavator would have worked out even better yet.

I'm not trying to get you down on your backhoe purchase, because that tool will wind up saving you way more money over the long haul than it's cost. Just have a realistic expectation on the amount of work that can be efficiently completed with it. The money spent for a week or even a weekend equipment rental will free up several future weekends for the countless other jobs around the new house, not to mention getting the time to remain acquainted with your family.

I have removed countless tons of mudslide debris, dug up at least a dozen oak and maple stumps, installed several ditches and drain lines, and have lots more jobs planned for my hoe as well (including a pool, possibly running about 400 feet of a creek through some culvert to reclaim some yard, digging retaining wall footers, not to mention the landscaping jobs which we will both become way too familiar with soon enough!), so these hoes don't just sit around.

One last thought - Using your TLB to build up "sweat equity" in your new home may allow you to basically pay yourself with some of the construction proceeds and then use that money to pay down your tractor/backhoe loan, effectively spreading out the tractor's repayment over the life of your mortgage and possibly even writing off the interest on your taxes. Of course, free financing for 3 years is a pretty tough deal to beat!

Sorry for the novel.
I'm sure you won't regret your decision to get the backhoe.

Eric

JohnCt · Jun 9, 2004

I'm building a house in Vermont. I told the wife that the cost of the tlb is just part of the cost of the house. With house prices going the way they are I figure that the extra cost of the backhoe should be worth it. So far its paying off.Besides if you pay for it over 3yrs and have it for 20yrs or so its pretty cheap.

DavidB · Jun 10, 2004

( ..... I have aspirations of digging holes in the ground to bury more tree stumps. I'm sure we'll stumble across rocks and other things that a backhoe may be more effective or easy to use than the FEL. )

I would not bury stumps. It's actually illegal in many areas. Burn them or just hid them somewhere. With 20 acres you can find somewhere to put them... I've been burning for the last couple of weeks and we always enjoy it. We sit around the fire in the evening and enjoy being outside. The summer moratorium on burning starts in a few days and I've been getting rid of last winters debris and junk left over from cutting firewood.
I don't know if you can "justify" adding a backhoe. Like almost everybody has said though, it's a most useful tool. I allows me to do things that I couldn't (or wouldn't) do otherwise. If you work at your own pace you can acomplish a lot with it. If you have to have a large project completed on some timetable you might be advised to hire a big gun to come in and blast it out for you. Good luck!

Fireman_dcb · Jun 10, 2004

Just to toss my .02 in... I would rather rent a New Holland 75b or Case 83 hp 4x4 front end loader/ extand-a-hoe for the weekend - total cost of $375.00. Larger bucket to move the dirt/ debris, more power, all around heavier piece of equipment - frame, buckets and most of all - Its not stressing the frame of my little JD 790.

Doug

ChrisBWJ · Jun 10, 2004

The previous owner of the property dug out two 10 feet deep pits to bury stumps. They're about 20 feet wide and 30 feet long, in the two lowest points on the property. There is one open patch on the entire 20 acres that crosses the width of the property. It's about 60 feet wide. The rest of the property is 40-100 foot trees, five to ten feet apart from each other.

That open patch is an easement where a 3 foot diameter, natural gas transmission line crosses the property. I think they told me it's buried about 3 feet deep.

So, my options are to bury stumps and punky wood, or burn them. If I burn them, I burn them within 30 feet of a high volume/high pressure natural gas line, or within 30 feet of a forest. I'm not thrilled about either option. I love to burn.....Probably could consider myself a closet-pyromaniac, but I'm not to eager to burn down the property I just put myself into major debt for.

I may consider the burning option, closer to the woods during the winter if we have a good snow cover.

Now if I could only find a market for used tree stumps..... Know of any good bon-fire supply stores? /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

ChrisBWJ · Jun 11, 2004

Tractor with Backhoe delivered tonite!

Dug a little hole in the back yard for practice. Dug up a pair of my wife's pruners. Don't ask me how I managed to find them. I'm still baffled.

Then drove to the property and dug up that $7k tree stump that befuddled me earlier in the week.

Controls are going to take a while getting used to. Wife joked at me for taking 20 minutes to dig out that stump.....frankly it didn't seem like it took any longer than about 5 minutes to me! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gifThis is gonna be fun! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Kevin37 · Jun 11, 2004

( Then drove to the property and dug up that $7k tree stump that befuddled me earlier in the week. )

 Thats classic. The $7,000 tree stump reminds me of the $200 cup of coffee we get in aviation. My wife will appreciate the $7,000 comparison because I just requested a price quote from my dealer to add a backhoe to my JD 4710. Now I'll wait and see........
/forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Kevin

Henro · Jun 12, 2004

You know as funny as $7,000 tree stumps and $200 cups of coffee sound...

If you remember those little things you did by hand before you got a backhoe...and the hours it took to get them done...would you have paid $20 or $40 or more each time to have saved that time and hard effort?

From that perspective, if I had a little box filled with slips, each with $$ amounts representing what the small jobs I do with my hoe are worth to me, I bet the hoe would be more than half paid for already in under two years... /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Richard · Jun 12, 2004

( Dug a little hole in the back yard for practice. Dug up a pair of my wife's pruners. Don't ask me how I managed to find them. I'm still baffled.
)

Seems to me, THAT alone, has justified the purchase to the wife?

(or perhaps, did she "plant" them to give you that Tim Allen feeling???)

/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

ChrisBWJ · Jun 12, 2004

Naw, she didn't plant them, rather prolly left them back there last year when we were clearing some brush for burning season.

HOWEVER, I dug up a couple of rocks for her today. One of them was about 3.5 x 3 x 2.5 ft!! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif I think that alone convinced her it was a worthwhile purchase. Funny thing, this rock only looked to be about 1 x 1' on the surface. We were both pleasantly suprised once we saw how big it really was, and even more surprised when I was able to roll it out of it's hole. I haven't a clue how heavy it really is, and not sure how I'll get it to where she wants it to end up. That'll be a project for another day!

The wife got a little seat time today, and operated the FEL. It was easier for me to toss some of the small stumps into the bucket.

My son got a little seat time too (almost 10 years old), under VERY close supervision. He was really good repositioning the tractor a couple of times while I was to working the backhoe. I even let him dig up one small tree and a rock (again with VERY close supervision).

Hopefully I won't get flamed for mentioning my son got seat time. I know this piece of equipment is extremely powerful and dangerous, but I feel closely supervised, safety-intensive education is invaluable. I'd rather have him learn the safe way to do things and respect the power he has under his control, than be curious and uninformed. He knows that I decide when and if he gets seat time, and what he'll be doing. If he breaks that trust, he knows he won't be in the seat again. We have several other activities that have that same type of arrangement and he has been exemplary at retaining our trust. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

On the lighter side, it was good father-son bonding time, and he really enjoyed helping out. There are so many things I've had to learn to do as an adult, that I never got the opportunity to as a child or young adult. Their minds are sponges at this age, might as well take advantage of it!

gray · Jun 13, 2004

Hello.

OK, so I have some 2cents to throw in?

I love my backhoe. I orriginally got an L35 with a good hoe and a reach of 9.5 ft. I did have some need to have greater reach and it caused slower work. Last year I traded up to the L48. It has an 11+ reach and Most things are done without any troubles. On occation I wish for a extenda hoe option but the size of the L48 is about as large as it can be without causing issues on a tight site.

A short reach on a BH is limiting. I do not think many people would buy a small BH for basement work? I had a large track hoe do the last foundation dig then cleaned it up and placed the base stone and all other work around the site. I even dug in and placed the septic tanks deep on a side hill with it. It really did a nice job. Any smaller hoe is great for running lines and diching but not for large digs.

Get a back hoe that is sized for the jobs you expect but don't ask it to do the big ones it was never designed to handle.

Good luck.