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Land Preparation
As soon as the weather breaks here in N.Y., I will start preparing my 45'x70' barn site. The contractor suggests removing the sod and topsoil before adding the extensive fill needed. I was wondering if anyone here has had experience using a box scraper for this task. The sod consists of field grass and weeds that I mow a couple times a year. I thought the cost of hiring a dozer might pay for the scraper. My main concern is that the teeth will plug with sod be too time consuming. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
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Land Preparation
I have a similar project. I am looking into small dirt pans as manufactured by Tri-Tech services and Buffalo Equipment. The dirt pan is a scraper & carrier combination which allows the rapid removal and transport of the soil to another location. These units are not cheap but are efficient for the removal of soil from a large area. For example, you could perform the same task using only a front loader, but it would take a long time.
Good Luck.
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I did that last fall for my little garage 24x32. I did it with my loader and a back blade. Was not that easy, but with patience and perserverence, I got it done. I was striping weeds and small brush off of clay. I probably spent 6-8 hours total doing it. I went down 2"-6", the 6" being where I had to level the base out and get the grade right to bring in 4" of sand to put below the slab. I wish I would have had a tiller, then it probably would have been pretty easy. Break up ground with tiller and push the dirt off with the backblade in reverse with the top arm extended to change the bite of the blade. Just have to go slow to keep the blade from digging too far down. That is pretty much how I did it anyway. Pushed till it was a good sized pile and then used the loader to move it out of the way and then back to pushing. Good luck!
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Land Preparation
How deep is your top soil? Mine is about 12", so 45x70 would be about 116 cubic yards of dirt. My 6' box scraper holds less than 1/2 yard so that is a lot of trips. It would be very difficult to make a reasonable pile of this much material using only a box scraper. Of course, if your topsoil is not as deep then it will be less work.
Are you going to be able to handle the fill you say you need with your tractor?
I had a 50x120 site prepared and needed over 250 cubic yards of fill (clay, shale and gravel) taken from another spot on my property, and about 200 tons of crushed stone. A medium sized dozer, track loader, dump trucks and vibrating roller were used for handling the fill. It took less than an extra hour (at $50/hour) for the dozer to remove the topsoil and make a nice pile. This was not the cheapest approach I could think of but it got the work done quickly and well.
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I don't have to move the material except just out of the way of the building activity for now. I will probably use the soil for fill and landscape around the barn once it is complete. I need something that would dig in maybe six inches and allow me to move the material away with my loader. Perhaps the dozer would be the way to go after all. My tractor will be sufficient to spread the gravel/sand fill mixture. Thanks for the ideas.
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A box blade with scarifier teeth will work real well for what you want to do. I have re graded 1 1/2 acres with mine. All I did was kept going in a circular pattern droping the box where I wanted the earth cut down and then raising it and circled around for another pass, this built up a pile in no time flat. Then I just spread the pile with the loader and repeated the whole process of building another pile. It went pretty quick. Give it a shot before hiring out the work, what have you got to lose?
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Cutter sounds like a PROJECT. If you have a molboard plow that will do the best job for loosening up the soil. Plus it will be a consistent depth and only get the top soil. You should be able to push backward and push more. Use tire chains to limit the damage to your tires from slippage on the damp soil with sharp rocks. Have Fun!
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Land Preparation
I think I'd check with the contractor to see if the site has any grade requirements. If so, is the contractor expecting the site to be delivered to him with specified grades, or is he going to do the final grading? That's an issue that would be good to be real clear about. Of course, if the contractor intends to grade the site, then removing the sod and top-soil burden wouldn't be much more work. A dozer and experienced operator would make short work of the project, grade requirements or not. Removing the burden and meeting grade requirements might be a little much for a compact and box, especially if it's a first time experience. However, just removing the burden with a compact shouldn't be too big a job. I would keep in mind comments regarding the amount of material that has to be moved though. Ripping sod with scarifiers does take a lot of traction. I can't rip meadow (similar to your field grass) in the sandy soil around here in one pass with my 6' box, 24-hp and turf tires, but two passes does just fine (maybe one pass if I had ag tires). The scarifiers don't clog with sod, but the box will fill up fast if the cutter is low enough to pick up sod while ripping it. I fully extend the scarifiers and then ride the 3ph to maintain traction and cut the sod just deep enough. After cutting, I usually can remove the sod with a combination of the box rear cutter and the loader. The meadow sod here tends to break into small chunks easily, but I guess the loader blade could be used to cut sod strips into shorter lengths if necessary. Dozing the sod backwards with the box tends to work much of our sandy soil off the sod, and I don't have to stop to remove too many sod piles with the loader.
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Thank you all for the suggestions. My 29hp isn't going to do much more than your 24hp Tom. I have a sub contractor hauling my gravel/sand fill and may just have him do the top soil removal as well. By the sound of it, I could use the scraper more effectively to finish grade around the building and re-work the driveway. I plan on my grass road being trashed after construction and having to rip the sod and fill with stone. Any suggestions as to what brand to buy. After the initial use, I won't have much to do with it except annual driveway maintenance. How much should I spend for a medium duty box scraper? I have another question pertaining to the drains. Would it be wise to try and place the floor and toilet drains at this point so that I don't have to dig the fill after the building is up? I would be guessing at the toilet location, but the floor drain locations can be almost anywhere in the center of the structure.
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We grow BoxWoods. Before we till the ground with a tractor mounted tiller, we remover the sod with a 2 yard track loader. This saves lots of tiller time & wear & tear on the tiller. Doing an area 75x75', it still takes a while using the track loader & all we remove is the sod. We did the samething when we built our shop. As for the drains - Yes! put them in the gravel. Use stakes to hold PVC in place. Once the slab is done you don't want to mess with it.
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