Hello again, My father and i have decided to commense on new project for our property. We currently own 601 acres, which is considered to be a large tract here in my area. We have plans to clear 300 acres, With either two 25 acre ponds( lakes ) on the property or one big 50 acre pond. Dad wanted 75 i told him 50 were plenty big enough. My parents have also cosigned for me, And i will be purchasing a triple-wide. To put on the property. I will also grade me a pad for a bigger home later on. So i can sit there and look at it for a while, until i can afford a bigger one. We also plan to construct an ATV/ Offroad truck trail . Something we have always wanted to do. I was wondering, what would be the most cost effective way to clear the land first, and make room for a company of our choice to come in and start grading for my new house/ And the trail. Should i call lumber companies, and see if they would cut it for a reasonable price.\? Or should i just let the contractors do the clearing too? I am sure we could make money off the timber. most of it oak/pine. With about 10 acres of swampy area How would you guys approach this project? And what size company do you think we should be looking at to the lakes/trails. etc. Thanks again! -Michael-
Around here to clear an acre is around 3,000 to 4,500 dollars. So youd be looking at around a million dollars to clear that much land if the contractor had to do it. I would see if you could get a lumber company to come in or local mulch suppliers who constantly need a fresh source of wood. How deep do you want the pond? The cheapest thing for you to do is go buy an old D8 or D9 and do all the clearing and dirt work yourself on weekends. It might take a while but wouldnt be to costly. If you could find a cheap scraper to work with the dozer it would speed things up alot on digging the pond. Can you burn brush there? You could push the the trees up into smaller piles and burn them. A 50 acre pond 5 feet deep is around 400,000 CY
Thanks. We will probably call our friends in the lumber business. And they will be happy to know they have a fresh set of trees to cut on. As long as they take care of the property, and stay on our lines. We dont care what they cut. As long as they stay within our property lines. We had decided that we would want the ponds, a maximum of 20 foot deep, at the deepest areas. ( we plan to get good fishing out of it one day ) And Various depths around edges etc. So im guessing one big 50 acre pond would be the best answer? -Michael- We have already started looking for d7-d9 tracors, with scrapers. And a 320-330 size machine. We won't burn the brush on our property, the county doesnt like it. And we always seem to get someone poking his head in, somewhere he doesnt belong.
Call a a few loggers, if you have much good timber you should be able to have him log it and still make out with enough to buy/help buy an old cat.
I build many, many ponds in a year. All i can say is you have a LLLLLOOOOOOTTTT of work to do. With wood prices in the gutter now a days you will not become wealthy having timber cut. Lets talk about the ponds. I've never built a pond over 4 acres, let alone 25 or 50 You said in another post that you would not burn the material. Then my queston is what in the world are you going to do with 25+ acres of brush logs and stumps. I mean you will have a pile 2 acres in size 20' tall. around here if your pond dam is over 15' it has to be engineered/ done by the laws/ anything lower than 15' no permit required. I forsee spending some big bucks just to get permission to back up 25 acres of water. By all means it would be cheaper to leave all the stumps that will be atleast 3' under the water, but everything else would have to be removed or else you will have one swampy mess to deal with. How big of a dam would you have to build?
Rather ambitious project.:cool2 Depending on the size/quantity of the timber you should be able to get anywhere from $1000-$2500 per acre for the timber from a logger. Now I am basing that on a clearing job I had logged last year. Like dirtman said timber on the stump prices are week but they cut and haul and then give you a check however small the check may be. Now if you cannot burn the stumps and slash then you will either have to have them ground or trucked off site. Obiviously trucking would be astronomically expensive so the only option is grinding. The last job I had cleared the clearing sub cut all the timber (the timber becomes theirs), grubbed stumps, ground all material and hauled it off for $3000 per acre. Having 300 acres cleared this way would be $900K. (I am assuming my local cost basis - your cost could be different). I would suggest an air curtain and convincing the local authorities to allow you to burn. Do you have enough of a water supply to fill 25 or 50 acres? As far as the wetlands go - if you disturb them without a Army Corp permit you can be in some serious trouble. As far as permitting a lake, that is something that you need to check your local rules and reg's pertaining to lake building. I would definetely get a civil involved and of course a surveyor. You will need a surveyor to flag your clearing lines and the surveyor needs a set of prints to layout from. You should be able to get an arial topo for the property that would be fairly accurate for the civil to design from. Good luck.
Depends on the size of the watershed and whats downstream, will probably need permission from the Army Corps of Engineers. We built a pond with a surface area of just under five acres with a 25 foot tall dam with 23,000 yds of fill that was just barely under the Corps guidelines for a permit. Couldn't imagine digging a 50 acre lake, has to have a structure to have that much surface area. Lot more to building a pond than just pushing up a little dirt with a dozer.
Sounds to me the goverment will have a blast with this project.
Youngone shoot me a email with your contact info, I would be interested in looking at your timber with a buddy of mine, [email protected] .Have a market for wood fiber .
Had a talk with the county today, and we decided that we would burn the brush/scrap. As long as it was in an open area, and would not cause fire to the surrounding woods. ( has been a problem with this in my area ) We will also have to have atleast one forestry person come out before we burn. Banghead ) Yes we have the water fill the pond, and as of right now. Our county should approve it. We will have aerial photos soon. I hope to be able to post them on here We have called all of our logging friends, and we cut a deal with them that basically said. " you cut it you can have it, you have up to 400 acres to cut. And 350 acres is valuable wood. " And they agreed. We're not trying to make money off the wood. As long as they haul it out. And get it off the property we can worry about the stumps and everything later. We've worked with these guys before. Their good, and will take nice care of our property. They've been in a slump lately. Lost alot of land at tax time, their more than welcome to do this. They also own other machines, and they will pile everythignt that needs to be burned for us. Because to get to the good wood, you have to clear a road throught he invaluable wood. You guys got any ideas on the atv/offroad trail? I know some of you guys have to do that on here As for your question about how big the dam would have to be dirtman. My answer is. i dont know honestly. Smarter people in this world to figure that out I told dad that he still had time to turn back on this project and he said, " been wanting this my whole life, let's do it." Just like me alot of ambition. If we decide not to buy our own machines, how big of a contractor do you think we could use to get this done in a reasonable ammount of time. And what would you guys consider a reasonable ammount?
should'nt be that hard to figure out how big the dam will be once it's cleared. I do it all the time Guess I'm smart ... lol I think if there is nothing but stumps and all the brush has been piled up It should be around $1500-$2000 an acre to remove and pile the stumps (I'm assuming the stumps are 12"-18" in size and around 50-75 an acre) Using a 50,000 lbs machine. Of course this is just a guess as I have not seen the site. From previous jobs I've done I can usually do about a acre a day just digging and piling, this is not including burning the material. With the amount you are talking about stumping you gonna need several machines. The bigger the better. Maybe you can bring home a D11 from the mine one weekend
I'm sorry for seeming to step on any toes here. But if you have 350 acres of softwood and hardwood mix, to just "give" the wood to the loggers to get the land cleared isn't doing the local logging industry any good. Suppose there were some neighbors in the middle of negotiating a timber harvest, for profit, and you come along and "give away" 350 acres of merch timber. Kinda cuts into any deals anybody else might be working on. Of course it is yours to do with as you choose, but I would suggest you find an RPF, have them cruise the timber, get an idea of what it's worth. You might be surprised how much money is involved.
from all the posts have you learned nothing? do it yourself, however old you are no matter what kind of dirt you want to move you can do it yourself. rent a scraper dozer whatever its just dirt, if you can run all the stuff productivlly like you say you can digging a hole should be no prob. have faith in what you say you have learned and do it, and post the pics. it sounds like your looking at an empty canvase, make it look like you want.
young one PM me when you can....interested to know where in VA you are...i may have some ideas for you
Of course they agreed to your deal. Who wouldn't want an extra check for a couple of $100k more than what they intended to make on a project.:beatsme You have a large project ahead of you that will consume large amounts of $$$$$ before it is done. Off-road is over $3 per gallon and just a 953 burns 50 gal a day. You need to make what little money you can on this project while you have the opportunity. Another important item to discuss in addition to schedule and contractor selection is - Budget. If you are planning on hiring the work out: Permitting - NPDES, Etc Civil engineering and surveying - $50,000 Erosion control - whew! just a guess, doing most of it yourselves $45,000 Grubbing and burning 400 acres - low side estimate $1000 per acre- $400,0000 Excavating lakes and building dams - just a guesstamit, say 1M CY @ $2 per CY or $2M So it looks to me that you should have at least a $2,500,000 budget for this project. We need some pics of the of the site.
:idontgetit opcorn
Sounds like you have quite the project planned....as everyone says just make sure you get all your permitting done properly....You dont want anything to come back and bite you in the ***. Unfortunately in this world we live in its not as simple as just going out and digging **** up :Banghead One suggestion I have is go rent one of those huge blowers that makes your fire hotter when you go to burn the brush other wise you will be burning for weeks on top of struggling to get the thing lit again if it goes out.
sounds like you are dreamin.
This project is do-able, definately, but at what cost? I suppose at the end of the day, that's up to your old man. Honestly I don't know what I'd do with a 50 acre lake, nor would I spend hundreds of thousands of dollars building one, but hey, different strokes for different folks.
There are a number of online sources where we can get aerial views (Like Google earth), and USGS topo maps (like Maptech Mapserver), for free. What are the lat/long coordinates?
Some photos of the area would be good.
I with cm1995, you have to call in some timber guys and let them tell you what the timber is worth, could be enough to get a jump on the cost of the project. You could have some cherry of good hard woods worth a lot of money, even the softwood has value. I wish I had that much timber !!
As for the timber i would do like said above.You could even log it out your self.Get a saw mizer saw and cut your trees into lumber.There is where the money is.I have a barn full of walnut and oak lumber that i have sawed into lumber drying. As far as the brush and cut of stuff you could just pile it and you would be surprised at how fast it will rout out and decay over the years.This isn't in a the city limits ,so why worry about it laying around for a while.PLus i would do the clear in stages not all at one time.Whats the hurry ,you have been this long thinking about doing it. You need to check with NRCS too see if you could get cost share(money) help on the dam,it might be in a watershed that they are wanting to protect for soil erosion reasons.They will come survey and lay out the dam.It will need a large overflow pipe and probably,maybe a concrete spillway. If you get cost share they would maybe even cost share on the clearing of trees for the pool area for the lake. As for 50 acres you will need permits i'm sure.Your talking several thousand yards of dirt.You could also do some surveying on your own and get some ideas.Get your instrument out and take some cross section and elevation shots for the dam.Check out the water line and get some shoots of it and you will be surprised how big an area fifty areas is. I fact with out surveying, it will be hard to tell if you can get enough height in the dam to back water up over fifty areas.Good luck.
I'm sorry, but am I the only one that thinks this whole deal smell a little fishy? The profile YoungOne that have made such an lightning career as a operator in a few months and are now moving into land development. By the end of the year he should own a major construction business if he keep the same pace. We have seen very little pics so far of his "career" So I find it timely to ask; are this profile YoungOne for real, or it is just a kid or dreamer pulling our leg?
It does smell a little fishy.
I'm reading this post and I'm confused, wasn't this the kid YOUNGONE in other post talks about all his experiences and running jobs and now running big mining equipment and now he can't figured out how to dig a lake. Not just a little 5-10 acre lake but 50 acres!
Fishy smell, lake building, haha . I've kinda wondered all along with some of the questions he's asked, I just didn't want to be Mr. Negative. If I was all young and gung-ho I'd post pictures of everything I did every day. After 20 plus years it's just the same old crap.
I've seen red flags for a while, but just kept my thoughts to myself. Glad to hear I'm not alone.
Me too. I'm not the type to **** in someone's Cheerios, but this is getting to be a bit much. Actually, my BS meter pegged a few months ago when his boss bought him a new D8 and lettered it with his name (his screen name, not his real name ) I didn't want to be the first to say something- hey, truth is stranger than fiction, right?- but the lack of even a single picture speaks volumes.
Still waiting on those pictures...............any pictures opcorn
Okay guys listen. At work i can't get pictures because of the rules. That i wont break. And the only way that i have to take pictures is a cell phone. And you will get the pictures before this weekend of the property. We had the lumber companies come out today, and one gave my father a reasonable rate of an 1900$ an acre for the timber. And that is what we will settle on. ... Why would i come on here and lie about my experiences? Most of you work for other companies. And thats how you learned. I came here to get information, and talk about equipment just like you did. I've always said that i am willing to learn. And i do WANT to own a company one day. That doesnt mean i will. It's different running equipment for the OTHER man. It's alot different when it comes to being your fathers budget. ... little mad now. i'll write the rest later. -Michael- Young with ambition, learna little bit. And then get :bash
I think if you were looking at it from our point of view you would totally understand.
I agree From day one it has seemed like someone who hasn't had any experience at all kept going on to bigger and bigger things. No pictures is kinda hard to swallow, not just cause we want to see them, but as some sort of proof that you are actually doing these things. I understand, as do many others that taking pics at work are sometimes frowned upon, but a photo of one machine or somthing sure wouldn't be a big deal. And not to P anyone off but one of the largest ponds we have ever built was Lake Joy in 1970(before my time, but look at the pics I have had posted on it) which is a 60 acre lake, 72,000 yards of dirt in the dam, emergancy spill way is over 100 yards wide, 4 scrapers(2 rubber tire, 2 dozer/pan's running 6 full days a week). 4 dozers going as well. And it took alot more than a ok boys looks good, go build it from the DNR and County and townships to get the ok to build the pond. I like many of us here have had my BS meter at peak for a while. I guess lots of talk and no show make it very hard to swallow. If you are truly speaking the truth than I appoligize but if not, better to fess up and be truthful, it gets you so much further in life. You can't BS a BS'er and you can't fool Heavy Equipment Operators on Heavy Equipment Topics. Trbo
EZTURBO, good point, if he was talking about cooking, or baking a cake, anything he said would sound good to me. :drinkup
...some things are OBVIOUS, and then some things just don't add up. I was thinking about going down to South America, perhaps Argentina, buying a couple million acres, exporting the soil back up here to the US to replenish what has been exported over the last 100 years...I'm not sure if I might hire some operators, or just do it all myself..any takers?
Well it all depends on whether you are planning on using a barge or dump trucks....................:deadhorse:beerchug
You got a 4100 shovel/grader/dozer operator in young one if you take him with No offense, but ive been watching and wondering for a while now, im with everyone else on this one
I'm with you. My angle is to purchase the soon to be obsolete NASA space shuttles. We might not carry much but our speed will make up for it!
This thread seems to be turning into a roast n ow. Once it started, many seem to be piling on. I do have a question though. What company is it that is running 4100's in an aggregate operation. I have not heard of any shovels that size in the quarry business. I know most of them don't run much bigger than 100 ton trucks, and a 4100 would just not do loading them. The tonnage that a 4100 loads in a shift would supply most large quarries for a week.
Pics anyone? I asked for pics and was reminded that he no can do :duh Yeah...I knew that. But I'll ask again.... Na.....forget it. I was also reminded that my posts are long. :iagree:jerry I'm still trying to figure out this one
OK guys, I think the point has been made that there is some question to the reality of this thread. Let's let it sit until Young One comes back with an explanation. Thanks.
Any pictures of this rather ambitious project? Give me the address. I'll google earth it and post the arial view of it if you would like. use the PM though.
Sent you a PM of the address dirtman.
Posting property pics for youngone I gussing the trailor park is in the center an the property surrounds it? Due to the rural location I can zoom in much closer.
Here's another satellite photo site. If you click the "ask.com aerial" one on the top left it has slightly better resolution for this property.
Okay let me TRY to explain these pictures a little bit better. Thanks dirtman. Okay if you take a look at attachment 13514 You see "shady LN " and a pawprint from google earth. Everything below and to the left of "Shady LN" all the way left until the fireline. And all the way down to the open field. The open field you see at the bottom of the screen is land a lumber company owns. It is leased to a hunting club. Mostly bird/ turkey. We do allow them to hunt on our property some though. You cannot see it, however extending from "Oak LN " is a state maintained road leading out to the property and the field. We also gain our access to our property from this field, and behind " Shady LN " Everything on the edges of the open field at the bottom, ( left edges ) over to the powerline on the right, And back up to shady lane is our property. If you look closely in the bottom left of the screen you will see a baseball field our neighbour land owners have built. And to the top left of that you will see a small White building ( is really a big shop ) There in the past year they have started a rock quarry there. Rumor has it they have enough rock to run for atleast 100 years. We'll see. Does it help any? I will try and get on PAINT or something. to try and make it easier for you guys to understand. -Michael- Sorry this took so long.
Lets see if this works. Basically what i have done here is outline our property with the surrounding owners. The yellow outline is Our property or family owned. A big tract, that we let alot of hunters/ fishers use. Especiallly along our side of the powerline. We are currently trying to find the best location to put what we want. We have a big river/ creek running the the area. So water is not a problem. But i do think we will need to wait on permits etc. We could probably start it, but if we DID decide to go big. Go get permits later etc. The blue outline is owned by a lumber company own and is leased to a hunting club. The red outline is the shop i was talking about the the mining area. Everything to the left of our property line is owned by forestry or an individual owner. Will probably end up in the mine's hands. As they pretty much run the show here in our county with the ammount of cash they are able to spend. hope this helped -Michael-
If you right click on my 3 pictures you can save tehm to your computer, then open them in paint. You can draw/ circle the areas that you are talking about clearing and building the ponds. I think that would give people an idea about what you want to do on the property. It's clear now. Where the pond/ Ponds going? Thanks
Thank you sir. Computers arent for me. Especially software etc. But i think you posted this after i made that first post before i posted the one with paint. -Michael-
This looks like the most likely spot for a dam for a lake. Are you sure you want to clear everything? It's pretty normal to just clear where the dam and the water (pool) would be. More area can always be cleared later for roads, houses, etc, giving you the option of having nice trees already there that you can leave for landscaping and shade. I would bet a nickel you can't get a permit for a lake that size without considerable effort. Here is what the basic plan should be: 1 Pick a proposed dam site. Do this with topo maps and by walking the site. 2 Clear a 100 feet wide area or so the length of the proposed dam site. 3 Have a surveyor survey proposed dam. 4 Have dam engineered. 5 Get permits. 6 Clear site. 7 Build Dam.
You have many good points in your post. And actually this morning, a friend of my dad's came over. And said that it would be a considerable effort to build a pond so large. But it would be easy to build a bunch of small ponds, and clear the edges around so you can walk around it if you dont have a boat etc. Dad hasnt made his final decision on how much land he wants to clear. The logging company is coming out to look at the property tomorrow. And will give us another estimate on the property etc. -Michael-
It looks as tho farther upstream on the branch would be better.Closer to where there is a small creek coming into the branch from the right.If you can get the height you need in the dam there and the gorund being flater you will get more area in the pool of the lake. The flater the ground in the pool area the more acres in the pool you will get.The steeper the ground in the pool area the less acres.Unless you dig dirt out of the steep area as in a barrow area. Usually a lake with a large pool area(acres) isn't as deep as a lake where you are taking the barrow(dirt) from the pool area.Alot of places won't let you take dirt out of the pool area.If you have to use a barrow area you will need srapers or over the road trucks and etc. Plus a way of loading the trucks.More expense. The area where dam was first showed,also looks to be close to the property line draw on some of the first maps Another thing is? Is there is rock on your property that the quarry would be interrested in.If so let them get the rock out and them you have a lake ,plus income from sale of the rock.Good luck:beatsme:usa
Great question sir. We are going to have our land tested for rock very soon. And if they are interested in it. They can buy the rock from it, and we will keep the lake etc. Like you said. -Michael0
From about the second mail I read of his, I have been very skeptical and as time has passed and I have read more of his posts, I kept thinking to myself someone is going to say something soon surely, especialy when he started jumping on production equipment that he had never been on before in his life and hit the companies production targets right off the bat, yeah right
Well id say find a good land clearing crew i know of one we travelwe might be out that way this summer
South America sounds like a great idea. If I sign on as an operator, I'll need an AC cab with surround sound speakers to listen to the music. Here's another thing you should consider: With shipping costs so high nowdays to move the soil back to the US, would you be looking at a conveyor belt to cut costs?? If so, I know a man who knows a man who might be able to help. (fees could be forwarded direct to me & I will pay him). In any event, you will be left with a large lake!!!!!!!.........C ya.........Ray
The project has began, and is going great. I will take pictures will my cellphone soon. And btw... Put me inthe same machine, in the same pit. For the same ammount of time. And i will move the same ammount of dirt as you. Nineteen or not. -Michael-
yep count me in too, ide like to see the numbers crunched but im in. sounds like a long haul i hope you get enough blades. ill need a/c and a satelite stereo too, {perdiem would be nice}
And btw... Put me inthe same machine, in the same pit. For the same ammount of time. And i will move the same ammount of dirt as you. Nineteen or not. Ummm, no you won't.
Ok, I don't know what Virginia is like with regs and permits. But a project that size or even MUCH smaller here in Wisconsin would take a year or better before we could even think of moving dirt(heck a project to remove an old driveway bridge and install a new arch plate took over a year to get approved and only 3 days to do). So, lets just say that you knew someone who knows someone who knows somone, and that someone well knows someone and you got the permits moving lickity split. You are on your OWN project now, and still NO pics. As far as moving the same amount of dirt. I've been on a dozer since I was 16(24 now) and 2 years ago we cleaned up an old farm. To bury most of the old buildings we dug a large hole and pushed them in, and then covered them back again. I was doing pretty good, moving dirt both ways. But just over from me was my uncle( on the EXACT same machine, lol the serial numbers on the two dozers are only 30 off) and Harv always seemed to have more dirt in front of him than I did. Not that I was slacking, but just the little tricks he had and knowledge that he had learned over the years. There are some things I have learned and a LOT more that I have yet to learn. When I am almost 70 I hope that I will have as much knowledge as him, but to think I could out DOZE him, lol I doubt it. I've said it once and I'll say it again, you can't BS a BSer and you can't BS dirt movers on dirt topics. Trbo
opcorn .................... still waiting on pics of this rather ambitious project. The ignorance and arrogance of youth is extremely apparent with this statement.
Come on guys, a fast track project like this just leaves no time for pictures. If you take pictures you wont be able to out produce the old timers you got working with ya:stirthepot Keep making yourself look like a fool. I understand being young and wanting to get into the trade. I was there one day. You arent going to fool any of these guys here. They have all been around the trade for a long time. Ive been in the trade for five years and Im just starting to get respected for my knowledge. Most of which is what i learned from the first dozer operator I worked with. He took me under his wing, showed me what was going on, and how to do it. I could have his job today if i were still at the same company. Have I learned every trick in the book? Hell no, will I ever stop learning, sure if i get ignorant. If you dont learn something in this trade everyday your not paying attention. Keep this bs going, no one will ever want to help you. Remember, the only one that looks like a fool is you. Well, this little guy looks like hes a fool too. :shf
opcorn
I think we've probably learned all that we can about clearing large tracts/ponds from this thread. Once there are some pictures to post, Mike, you can put them in the work pictures section, where we'll all admire them. In the meantime, let's put this one to rest before it gets out of hand.