I was approached to do a job of clearing off some trees on ground that needs tiling, I've done plenty of land clearing and drainage tiling, but this one is different than anything I've come across before, its too wet to use equipment to doze off and can't be tiled till its cleared off, the stumps have to be removed before it can be tiled and until its tiled there's no way to get the trees out, its so wet in the winter when its frozen hard I don't think it'll be frozen hard enough to carry even a small excavator let alone anything else. Its up against a line fence and the neighbors don't get along to go in from the back and the neighbors refuses to tile his side to attempt to dry it up from behind. The total area is maybe 6 acres, mostly junk trees like boxelder, elm, mostly dead ones and a some larger 3 foot plus trees of popular, oak and maple and even some larger box elders. There are springs in the area pumping water year round and we need to add even more tile to dump into this area but don't want to compound the problem till we get whats there drained first. Any ideas? We've thought about clear cutting the area and pulling it all out and then piling it up and burning it, but then I've got the stumps to take out and no way to get to them with anything to dig them out. We've though about using matts to lay down then to drive in on but I don't think matts would hold us up while trying to dig out the stumps, not to mention how to get the matts out when they literally sink out of sight. We've looked at the stumps if cut ground level to use as matts to walk in on and dig a trench as we back out to open it up so water can drain out, but don't think it'll work, the stumps aren't spaced even remotely right to straddle and I'm worried about getting my excavator hung up on stumps stuck in the mud and be literally done with no way to pull it out. We've thought about cutting logs and laying them down as we drive in and use them as portable matts amongst the stumps and once in, dig out the stumps and back our way out as we grub the stumps, but I've never done this, is it a feasible plan, will it work?
Randy, I don't know your ground, I just know what I did on my job. Low lying ground, standing water with no place for the water to run to. Trees no bigger than 16" or so cause their weight would push them into the muck and kill the tree, species were soft maple, box elder, and locust. I waited till the dead of winter and cleared all the standing material. I think i did the job in early feb with temps of 15 - 20 degree high for the day. Cut and chipped everything. Then i waited till the summer when we had had a dry 2 weeks and when in there with my mini excavator and started at the back grubbing everything up, and piling it. It was too soft to think about gettin a truck in there, and no one had a light deere lgp dozer with rake so I dug deep holes and burried everything right there. I had to stay on the un grubbed ground or I'd sink in, and I had to clean up as i went, as there was no second passing the ground. a few days after I had burried the stuff it actually dried up enough for me to track across it again and smooth it up with a mud pipe. I figgure that the holes filles with grubbin acted like wells and sucked the water up for a little bit. Then we seeded the place and now its pretty nice lookin joint, and the water still sits there, but you can manage the property. Thats what I did on an acre lot... looks pretty good today... What I might try in your situation is to cut and clear all the standing material while you have froze ground to work on. Once all that material is gone, get the big excavator out and dig 10' deep trenches say 100 yards apart,make sure they are wide enough that they will not colapse in on themselves. And slope them to drain to accessable ground. Now wait till The the last week of the longest dry shot that you think your going to get. Get a pump and drain them trenches dry, let the farmer irrigate with the water all summer, but you need to get that water down and keep in down for several days before you start workin. Then start beside the trenches and see if the ground will support the machine, grubbing and cleaning up and you go out. Again, I had to stay ontop of the root mat to stay up, if i got off it the rocking of the machine would sink me into the mud.
In Florida we work in swampy conditions quite often. Is there any hard bottom and how deep is the water? Often times we will flip swamps like stumpjumper said. If needed dig sumpholes and drop a pump in for a few days.
The tree line is just in front of the swampy area, but I'm thinking if I take the bigger trees out the root ball holes will become bottomless in minutes, as for a bottom in the worst areas I'm thinking there is virtually none. I've done a swamp without trees in it a few years ago and there was no bottom in that at all, to the point of if I attempted to drive my excavator into it, it would sink instantly out of sight, we just tiled a strip at a time and as it dried we worked inward towards the center till we had it dried up eventually, I'm thinking this is the same deal, but full grown trees to contend with instead, the worst areas have the trees killed out already from excess water, and all those are downed and dead laying there yet and in need of cleaning up before tiling can take place somehow. Years back someone dug a trench part way across the area but it filled as fast as they dug it, I was told they dug it 10-12 feet deep, but before he got it backfilled water was running out the top of the trench and thats not the wettest area either, but one they could actually dig in and get around in. We've thought about the strip trenches but were wanting to use the grown trees laid down to walk out on and dig a trench sideways beside my machine, but not sure if it would work or not to hold up the machine to dig, maybe just tracking on but once I tried to dig or grub stuff, I'm afraid it would create too much added weight on the logs and they'd sink with me along with them, I've never done that before, but its how I'm thinking it would work.
Back years ago before dad took over the landfill the company he worked for got all the soft ground jobs here. Dad was the operator, He would get six or 8 trees to hol his machine up. Dad would do his trenching and move the tres behind him each time he had to move up. He also did alot of grubbing that way. Go to the back on his tree mats and then work his way to the front. Piling the material for burning. Some places if the growth was thick enough he would bury the brush in narrow trenches and make a makeshift french drain. Our ground doesnt freeze up here much. Short mats could also be used to. Dad mostly used trees though for his work. I used this method with smaller trees with my mini excavator. On digging a ditch that the ground had to be cleared on.
Being in coastal SC, I do a lot of swamp, marsh and ricefield work. I use a 45,000lb hoe, and my b-in-law uses a 22b dragline for the real long reach work. I also build and maintain roads for, and clean up after, both swamp and dry land loggers. For real soft ground, if there are a bunch of trees, I will push the trees down and walk on them, or if the trees are sparse or non-existent, I have some mats made of 12" x 12" oak timbers, the mats are 20' x 6'. If I am on trees, I try to keep an unbroken, tangled layer at least a foot (two's better) thick everywhere, and use caution. When I work on mats, I turn them perpendicular to the tracks, and for hard pulling or pushing I try to sit on 3. On the mats, you are safer than on the trees, but you still have to pay attention to make sure you don't slide off. Using either method, it is vital that you not leave any stumps under the mats or trees. They can make the mats settle unevenly, and then you are on slick slanted wood, or they can break the mats. The worst that the stumps can do is get hung up in the undercarriage, and with nothing solid to sit obn to tilt yourself off of them, it makes a real bad day.
The wait til it freezes part would be perfect for right now any other year. Heard you guys were supposed to have some areas hit near 60 today. Right now i'm liking the work your way in, tile as you go and do it in stages. If there is NO bottom to it you can't bank on digging down to somthing solid and if you end up in the middle and burried...well you know. Might even go a combo, dig your way in...and use mats to make sure you dn't bury yourself. Even now I am going to say there wont' be too much frost in the ground all year, unless the bottom drops out next week and stays there til the end of March. Good luck to ya. Trbo
I went to look yesterday at the project, looks pretty bad yet, there are at least three six inch tile lines dumping water full bore into the mess not to mention the springs that are pumping right along I'd say equivalent to at least another one or two six inch lines. I'd say we could get most of the trees out except the larger willows out in the middle of the swampy area's or about a couple dozen two foot plus willow tree's spread out throughout the worst of the swamp. I was thinking maybe in the summer or fall I could grub out the bulk of the stuff and lay down a matt of trees to get me close to the willows and then wait until winter when its froze hard and attempt to grub them then. I can tile a large line up almost to the swamp or at least within a couple hundred feet of it and get at least one of the six inch lines hooked up and draining, now for the pump idea, theres no way any small pump could ever keep up, I've never been around the larger 4 or six cylinder diesel engine driven pumps before, do they work good or will they continuously loose their prime if they sucked the hole that I dug dry? There is a narrower opening coming in from up above the swamp where I could dig a hole to catch the uphill water into and suck that out and pump it around the far edge of swamp, the backside I can't drive to but can walk on easily, will those pumps pump water say 600 feet with enough hose if its about level? And how do you re prime them if you had a pump slightly bigger than what the water runs in the hole. I was thinking maybe let a pump run for a few weeks and pump the water down the tile line I'd put in until it at least dried it up enough I could tile around the outside edge past the swamp and up to the hole, where the land lays it would be impossible to do right away, I'd have to cross the worst spot first to get further up the hill.