Tree removal and road making?

[Jared Drake]

Tomorrow I'm going to look at 7 acres that's all wooded. I have a few questions, hopefully someone can help out. In order to have land cleared, does the tree need to be left standing for the dozer to do its work, or can a person cut the trees down and the dozer still push the stumps over? Also, for people who have had roads made, about how much did it cost? I know prices will differ from area to area, but I just want a ballpark of what folks have paid. Any advice would be appreciated, too. Or just anything you want to say.
Jared

[MountainDon]

Depends on the size of the tree and the size of the dozer. I'd ask the dozer operator what he wants before cutting any trees that must also have the stumps removed. It is much easier to uproot the tree if the blade or bucket can be used 6 or more feet up the trunk. Even then some of the larger trees were stuborn for the skid steer our neighbor was using.

We only paid for his fuel so I have no idea what a good fair price would be,

[metolent]

When the guy that cleared my lot and built my shell saw me pull out a chainsaw a few days before he was to start, he told me to cut down whatever I wanted, but do it as high as I could so he had sufficient leverage to just push them over later.  At which point I put the chainsaw away....  As to price, it was wrapped up in the overall package, so I don't have that insight. 

[jbos333]

I just had 475' of driveway dozed. Small trees, none greater than 12" dia. I cut the trees, left 1-2 ft. for leverage at dozer guy's request.

FYI it was 12' x 475 +/-, he did it stump removal and all for less than $500.00. Awesome, very neat job. Left 3 very neat topsoil piles, and a couple of slash piles.

Of course, that was just the initial topsoil removal. The rest I did with geotextile fabric , some drain pipe, about 220 tons of bank run gravel, and my trusty tractor! All told, I have about $3500.00 invested, not including my time. Turnkey quotes including complete tree removal were 5500.00- 6000.00.

[Jared Drake]

Wow. Pricey. What's the deal with that geotextile fabric? I looked it upon Google and I understand the idea behind it, but I've never heard of it until now. How necessary is it? Is it primarily for roads that are on a grade?

[davidj]

Around our way (rural N California - typically more expensive than most places) a decent-sized bit of earthmoving gear like a bigger backhoe or a small dozer comes in at about $100/hour.  A bobcat more like $70.  This includes driver and gas but, with the guys I've used, you also pay for travel time to/from the site and loading/unloading time.  A good operator can do a lot in half a day with appropriately-sized equipment.  Much less than 1/2 day of work+travel then you're paying too much for the travel time - smaller/slower equipment is probably more cost-effective.

For gravel, a truck that carries something like 10 yds is also $100/hour.  If you are any distance from the gravel pit (or up any hills, which slows the trucks down a lot) then the transportation costs start to dominate - remember it's round trip travel time.  I think it ended up workout out something like $200 for the trucking and $150 for each truckoad of gravel for my driveway.  A 300ft x 10ft driveway on level ground soaked up 6 or 7 truck loads, so something like $2K.

For smaller trees, a big backhoe had no problems with 4ft stumps.

[Don_P]

It depends on the trees as well. If they useable for the house as timbers, cabinets or trim I've sawn them at ground level and had an excavator or backhoe remove the stumps. I've tried having the dozer tip the trees over and the damage to the sawlogs was pretty bad.

[MountainDon]

I keep forgetting that some folks are lucky enough to have trees that are large enough to be usable as lumber.   

[diyfrank]

Leave the cutting to the crew. In my opinion nothing clears land more efficient then a excavator, a chain saw and a dozer with a brush rake. Fall the trees, limb and buck them where they lay. Use the excavator to deck the logs, pile brush and pop the stumps while trying to remove them in 3 or more piece to aid in cleaning the dirt out. Toss into the brush piles. Burn when and where permitted or chip and truck off.  Dozer's keep it clean and are generally fastest at road building.  Use road fabric and rock to bridge the wet soft areas.

If using light equipment it is usually better to push over trees tree length for the added weight and leverage. 

The cost depend on the equipment used, How fast you want it done. How well you want it built and possibly Inspectors you may need to please with what seems like unnecessary work.

If the trees have a value, find out how much before the hand shake.

[MushCreek]

At my place in SC, they push the trees over with a big excavator, and deal with them on the ground. Cut the stump and slash off, and stack the logs for timber/firewood. I have oaks over 24" dbh, and they just push 'em over. The southern pines are actually tougher, sometimes snapping off before the roots let go. The big machine is $175 an hour, but it doesn't take long.

[UK4X4]

I had my site in Colorado cleared - the whole area is aspen - and generaly inpenetrable brush below

Cost was about 5K - I had a friend cutting up the logs- they had a grippy tracked thing and a dozer

It took 3 days and they took away 4 truck loads of root balls and garbage at 250 a load
my friend took all the 0-6" boughs for firewood and left me the cut logs.

Pics can be seen here- the nearest town is an hour away - so all the gear and leftovers had a 2 hour round trip

http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=9588.msg124915#msg124915

You can see the size of lot they cleared but colorado aint the cheapest place in the USA

[Redoverfarm]

Tomorrow I'm going to look at 7 acres that's all wooded. I have a few questions, hopefully someone can help out. In order to have land cleared, does the tree need to be left standing for the dozer to do its work, or can a person cut the trees down and the dozer still push the stumps over? Also, for people who have had roads made, about how much did it cost? I know prices will differ from area to area, but I just want a ballpark of what folks have paid. Any advice would be appreciated, too. Or just anything you want to say.
Jared

It will be much easier to remove the trees if they are left standing.  Years ago I was contracted to remove an old orchard with a 450 track loader.  About 1 minute per tree.  Then the owner got the bright idea to sell firewood from the trees before they were pushed over and uprooted.  It took 3-4 times as long to remove them when they were left stumped off at 1-2 foot level.  So in essence what money he gained by selling the wood was quickly eat up with the added time of removing the trees afterwards.

The only downside is that you have to be there or have someone to work with the equipment operator to stump the trees.  I normally have a stageing area to place the stumps and trees. The trees can be cut anytime later.  The biggest problem is what to do with the stumps.  If you had an area that you could bury them at the end of the day the operator could take care of that before leaving since you would have all of the stumps seperated as the day progressed.

[Don_P]

If it is firewood I agree. But do heed mushcreek's observation on pushing over trees whole, they often snap. Structurally the wood has just been through a heck of a bending test. From the sawmill end it can get kind of exciting when a log has been torn up inside. So it does depend on the tree. I got 90 sawlogs off the current jobsite as I had time and had it stumped with a 310 cat in a day.