Hi - new user here and I have a job I need to get the right equipment for. I have several people say to get a backhoe and others saying an excavator and yet a few more saying a skid steer can get it done. would like to get some opinions from the forum. the job is two part - first is to repair a septic and water line that is under ground running behind two cabins in a remote area of Texas. The second part of the job is clean up and remove the dirt and rocks that have fallen from an eroding hillside behind the cabins and are causing rain runoff to run in tot he back of the cabins - please see the pics and let me know what you think would be the best equipment to get this accomplished. here is also a short video https://goo.gl/photos/ENHaMHT8VvwC2pZ5A
like my first worry would to build a big *** steel retaining wall to hold that rock from crushing those cottages....
Lowest cost option: Move the cabins. Pour new slabs, jack up enough to get a series of short hardwood planks under the sills, and 3/4" PVC schedule 80 rollers under them. Use jacks, or a few dozen neighbors to push. It looks like ledge. Will it break easily? Would it require a hydraulic hammer to break? It's an expensive job, why were they built there? I think a big track loader with Drott Skid Shovel is the only single machine that'll do it all. Do you have a spoils dump on site? Willie
A backhoe and a track loader at least or a zero swing excavator and a track loader. And take your time. I would think there was once a 10' clearance from the foot of the hill or more. Not a cheap job. I guess the owner had a few slides , then a few more and it finally ended up like this.
If this is your property and there is no time limit, I would start with a hoe and a jackhammer attachment for it. Some of those rocks would have too be broken for the hoe to move them. Looks like quite the job, get rid of the stone around the septic bed/tank etc first, then I would do the septic and water line. You don't want to be driving over what you just repaired. Be careful, who knows what can give once you start removing some of that.
How do you do anything without stuff falling down and crashing through the side of the cabins? And the more you dig away, the steeper the bank gets unless you go higher up and dig the bank back. Even more of a chance of something rolling down the hill and crashing into the houses. Can you clean right around the cabins and install some sort of fence to protect them?
That look like Texas Hill Country to me...and to my memory, unstable ground. Perhaps a track loader with rock teeth on the bucket. Howard
If you want to use a skidsteer for a week, then I think that would do it. The material won't be packed, and you can get into it alright because it's all fallen on a surface, not a natural bank. You'd need a hydraulic hammer attachment, or another method of breaking some of those bigger ones. Of course if it gets wet you'll be out of luck. I'd leave a row of the biggest boulders a foot away from the wall to lessen the damage from falling rock in the future. I didn't put those cabins there, so that's not my problem. A backhoe would be nice if you can get one, or even a skip loader without backhoe. Be careful operating in that narrow space though, the swing will get you in trouble. If you're good with the controls, then being able to pull the material out onto the flat and then getting a load might help, but it's also a lot of time to set up, pull, then turn around to scoop. The skid steer can just take more loads, it's not that far to dump. My guess is it's a lot easier to find a skid steer and hammer for rent than a backhoe and hammer.