clearing equipment

[matsuscha]

I know this is kind of stupid - but my husband & I want to begin clearing our land site which is wooded w/mostly white pine, but on about a 20 - 25 degree (increasing) down grade.  What would y'all suggest as the best moving equipment for the trees? We are just clearing enough for the home w/a footprint of 24x42...  (Birmingham, AL)

THANKS

[Amanda_931]

It all depends.

What kind of foundation?

How "all natural" you feel?

How you want your yard to look--or how much exercise you need?

How awful is digging at your place?  

you can rent a bobcat or a mini-mite (teensy backhoe, might be the wrong name) in my area, and a good-sized, but still walk behind ditch-witch.

With hard-packed silt mixed with stones, and a rock shelves that might be soft shale or a couple of inches of limestone around (went through the former to set the mail box), I'd like to call the backhoe guy.  

Although if all I'm doing is taking down some small trees, and digging holes for posts, a tractor with an auger attachment will work.  No way I'd use one of those two-man augers in my soil,  if they catch on a rock they can sling you around--it's how Charlie Daniels broke his arm years ago.

Also pine trees are pretty notorious for snapping their tap-roots and coming down in snow or saturated ground or wind.  (Probably all of the pines, but I vivdly remember the long-needle pines in the sandhills of North Carolina doing this)  So you may want them a ways away from the house.

I've got a book somewhere that says that saws are better than axes if the trees are any size at all, by the way.  I've taken down 6-8" trees with a bow saw.

[glenn kangiser]

I use my John Deere Trackhoe with the backhoe off.  It has a loader bucket on the front about 6 ft wide with rock teeth.  I like it on the slopes the best as it is pretty stable.  I have worked it as steep as 30 to 40 percent slopes but some is a little spooky.

I use the Bobcat a little on shallower, but reasonably steep slopes but try not to get sideways too much and keep the seatbelt tight in case things don't go right.  

Any small  fairly powerful dozer would probably do, but with a bucket on the front you can also move things where you want them.  Mine holds about 2/3 cubic yard.  Tracks are more stable than wheels, especially sideways.

Re-reading your post, if you want to do it by hand -where trees are not in your house footprint, you could just cut them off at ground level with a chain saw -cut them up for firewood and stack to dry as you clean up.  Where there are stumps in the house footprint you could cut the trees leaving about a 3 foot stump if heavy equipment (backhoe or cat) will be available - they like the stump for removal leverage.  Another thing to do is locate some one with a stump grinder to take out the stumps after you cut the trees down,

I usually dig around stumps with my backhoe then try to push them out.

[matsuscha]

Thanks Guys, your answers really help.  There is rock in places, but I don't think we will hit it w/our posts.  I wrote the message after the first tractor Charlie took me to see looked like Farmer Fred used it in 1902 - I laughed all the way home & he was pretty mad! The tractor w/auger is what he is really looking at all day, but I will look at your John Deer, sounds neat.  We don't want to do too much more than clear the homesite at first, but want the machine to stick around to clear a lot more.   I just can't help seeing the thing on its side !

[matsuscha]

I just went to the John Deere site to see if your trackhoe looked like all the tractors we looked at the "rest" of the day! - I didn't see them associate a name w/any modle, but I did find one HUGE one w/tracks... what he is considering is more traditional 'tractor' which I am still worried about.  We thought about renting the bobcat type, but he wants it around all construction since we are self building a timber frame style shell...  Also thanks for the note on the Pine Taps - we went to the site today and there are also more oaks than I thought - one a gook 10" - but he'll (we'll) be using a chain saw.  Exercise definitely needed! but not quite that much!

[rwalter]

Well first I am assuming your going to cut the trees down first. At that point I look around and talk to some local excavators. My guess is that you'll find its cheaper to pay some one by the hour to come in with a 9 ton bull dozer than it would be to rent a bobcat. I was in a similar situation just last year. To rent a bobcat was going to cost me roughly $175 for 8 hrs of run time plus $100 delivery/pickup charge and $25 gas and insurance fees. All together with tax it was like $320. I found a local excavator who came in with his bull dozer for $55 per hour. He was done in a little over 4 hrs.

[glenn kangiser]

The Bobcat won't remove the stumps either- at least not likely.

The trackhoe is a bit rare - probably not easy to find to rent- as rwalter said- a local person to do it is probably cheaper.

[rwalter]

Glens right on that also. If it is a very small stump you could dig it out with the bobcat but it its of any size forget it.

[Kevin]

When I cleared my site we used a chainsaw to cut them down and chop them up them a backhoe and later on when we made a bigger clearing we used a mid size doser. Both work real well.
Kevin

[Shelley]

Agree with the guys.  Get an excavator who'll do the rough stuff.  A good one will be amazing fast.
Depending upon the trees, you might also find someone who wants the wood and will cut and remove them for no cost to you.

Check out Glenn's pics.  He's got a lot of big yellow, and a track hoe is a pretty specialized piece of equipment.

A tractor ....pretty useful piece of equipment especially with all the PTO add-ons.  But here's an interesting thing.  Depends upon how rough your property is and how much serious work you want to do.

Round here, the ranchers and farmers use ATVs for most everything.  Amazing what you can get for them.  Winches, box scrapers, blades, mowers, wagons, even a tiny hoe and some kind of fence post driver.  

Might check it out, but as I said b4 it depends upon how rough your property is and what you personally want to do.  We were planning on the 20k tractor but decided that since we weren't plowing or planting anything, a 4-wheel ATV would do nicely.  Our friend who owns the dealership found us two trade-ins that were only a couple of years old and not ranched out.  Paid less for both of them than we would one tired tractor with no implements.  One of them has a brand new winch.

Plus,  when the work's done we can haul off down the road towards the border and have some fun.  Can't do that on a tractor

[glenn kangiser]

Sorry I didn't put up a pix of it before - lost in an old computer, but now I found it.

This pix was just when I bought it.  Since then it has made about a mile of road on steep mountain sides - dug out my entire cabin site, done several septic systems, tons of trench, buried a bear, dug phone and power lines, removed shale behind a mobile home, removed and moved 8000 lb rocks, dug house footings,replaced a landslide and packed it and on and on.  A useful old machine.

Nothing special - an oldie but a goodie.