Alright guys just looking for advice. Maybe you can tell me if my thought process is accurate and if this is a good or bad idea in your opinion. I own 55 acres. I am really wanting to build a shop house on the property. I have 15 acres of it that I want cleared. It is grown up, with trees on it ranging between 1” in diameter up to about 10” in diameter. Not many trees at all exceed 10” diameter. To give you a better idea, I’d say 75% of it are trees 1-5” and 25% of it are trees 5-10”. After I clear it, before I am able to build a shop, I am going to have to do some dirt work so I can build a pad for the shop as well as build a road about 700’ long. Not a hilly terrain, but definitely not flat. I am somewhat experienced running equipment. I have ran tractors farming, a track hoe clearing property, backhoes putting culverts in, a track loader moving some dirt, but never a dozer. I really liked the trackhoe when I was clearing a piece of property I could stack my piles very nicely and shake all the dirt out of the roots before I stacked them so they burned great. But if I bought a trackhoe I wouldn’t be able to do any of the dirt work I want to do or build a road so I think I’m wanting a dozer or skid loader so I can have a machine capable of doing everything. My local fabick cat will rent me a new D3 for $7,000 for a month (160 hours) including delivery and insurance on the machine. I would more than likely be able to get everything I need done in that time frame. So my question comes down to, do I buy a machine, or rent that machine? I have a budget of $25,000. If I buy a machine I won’t be on a time crunch. I will have the flexibility of being on my own time frame and not stretching my self out with my work schedule at my job. If I rent the machine, if something were to tear up it wouldn’t be on me. If I own a machine and something tears up, i understand it can be very costly and it is certainly a risk of owning a machine. The rental cost of $7,000 at cat would more than likely cover the cost of of something were to happen if I owned my own machine… if I do buy a machine, should I get a dozer or a skid loader? A concern I have is some of the trees are so small they are more likely to flex over instead of uprooting. Therefor if I have a dozer I could keep the blade an inch or so under the soil which would probably uproot everything where as I couldn’t really do that with a track loader. Would be great if I could find a dozer with a root rake but not sure that’s an option for me. Any advice will be appreciated and maybe it is just best if I rent the machine and then I won’t have to worry about any headaches. Not being on a time crunch sure would be nice though. Thank you guys.
I would hire Treemuncher & his beautiful Barko to clean that mess up. On time and under budget is how he rolls. Way better than pushing all that dirt and dealing with piles of slash.
get a couple bids from local contractors, if you own the machine you pay for repairs. let them do the heavy work and then rent the cat and do road and your self
A D3 might be a little small and skid steer definitely too small. I'd suggest a steel track loader but I don't know if you have a big enough budget to get one that doesn't need a bunch of repairs.