hey there. i need some help estimating. i have a bank of dirt to remove behind a building. it is roughly : 250 feet long. 20 foot high. 40 feet wide. how many cubic yards would that be? i will be moving it 100 yards downhill to a fill area. if you can vision this: the building sits in the side of a hill. it is backed up against a slope. i am going to cut the slope back 20 feet away from where it is currently. i will truck the dirt downhill 100 yards and spread the dirt in front of the building on the downhill side. how much per cubic yard would be a fair price? i will be using a caterpillar 320c excavator. a mack full size tandem. a caterpillar d6d dozer. and a caterpillar 268b rubber track compact track loader. below the fill area will be 250 feet of metal staked and wire backed silt fence. it is 50 feet offset from a stream. i will have to put double rows of silt fence. how much will the material and labor cost for two rows of metal stake-wire backed silt fence? after job is completed. the cut area will leave a 1.1 slope. it will need to be hydroseeded with weeping love and fescue. this area will be 1 acre. the fill area will need to be hydroseeded with 1 acre of weeping love and fescue. 2 acres total. hay will need to be blown on the 2 acres. and before the job starts. i will have to clear 2 acres of trees and brush. and burn. only the cut area is wooded. the fill area is not very dense. maybe 10 trees and brush. so the rundown is: -2 acres clearing. -2 rows of metal staked wire backed silt fence @ 250 yards. -moving (X) amount of dirt 100 yards from a bank to fill area downhill. the soil type is crusty, crumbly tightly packed soil. the type that you would need a pick and mattic for if you were shoveling, but an excavator would penetrate it. no slate. -2 acres of hydroseeding of weeping love and fescue. -2 acres of hay blowing. if anyone can help me i would appreciate it. maybe this can be good practice for someone? price can be general. i understand regional pricing varies..... i am north of atlanta georgia. thank you guys!
wouldn't this be 7,407.4 cubic yards of dirt? 250 x 20 x 40 = 200,000 200,000 divided by 27 = 7407.407 cubic yards. that is banked dirt. loosened up would be? or swelled...? hardpan would be the soil type i suppose. would hardpan represent : 50 percent swell? according to this: Material Swell % Load Factor Clay - Dry 40 0.72 Clay - Wet 40 0.72 Clay and Gravel - Dry 40 0.72 Clay and Gravel - Wet 40 0.72 Coal - Anthracite 35 0.74 Coal - Bituminous 35 0.74 Earth - Dry 25 0.80 Earth - Wet 25 0.89 Gravel - Dry 12 0.89 Gravel - Wet 12 0.89 Gypsum 74 0.57 Hardpan 50 0.67 Limestone 67 0.60 Rock - blasted 65 0.60 Sand - Dry 12 0.89 Sand - Wet 12 0.89 Sandstone 54 0.65 Shale and Soft Rock 65 0.60 Slate 65 0.60 Traprock 65 0.61
No offense intended but is this your first bid job?:cool2 A few suggestions - You should know what kind of production your equipment available will produce in a day, taking into account the jobsite conditions. Figure up a daily production of how many swelled cubic yards your equipment can move in a day. Then figure your hourly costs for each piece of iron for how many hours in your work day (same hours as your production day). Divide your daily production (CY's moved) by your daily costs and you will come up with a price per CY. Don't forget profit and overhead, this can be figured in an hourly rate per piece of iron or added at the end of your estimate. No one on this board can give you a price per CY for this job without seeing it first hand and understanding your production rates. The same goes for clearing and grubbing. I can get DOT silt fence kits (300' of fabric, wire and T-posts) for $300. That's a buck a foot for materials. Get your local pricing for the materials and then figure your labor and equipment rates for installation. As far as hay and hyrdoseeding go, I still don't have a set rate for either, although I have done more than I care to mention. Each project is different, at least what I have done.:beatsme Pay attention to your swell factor, this can put your bid out of the ballpark compared to experienced dirt movers in your area.
hey there. thanks for the reply. no this isnt my first bid. what i was looking for was a general price on a typical job this size. i am trying to compare what people on the forum would price a job like this for "generally" to see how inline i am with my ideas and prices. you are right. if it is sight unseen, it is hard to price. so, in general terms, i just wanted ideas of what jobs like this cost in general. it really is just a simple job as i described. the cut is behind the building. the fill is in front of the building downhill. my equipment is paid off. i hire one operator and myself. and fuel cost. and wear and tear. on the silt fence, i was thinking $3.50 per foot. so 2 rows of metal/wire backed silt fence 250 feet long would be $1750.00. on the hydroseeding, i was assuming an 1100 gallon hydroseeder. 2 tanks per acre. $250 per tank of hydroseed for hayblowing. basically $900 per load of hydroseed with hay included. 4 tanks with hay blowing = $3600.00 is this out the ball park? the seed would be 2 tanks of weeping love with lime, fert, and hydromulch. and the other 2 tanks the same but with fescue. so the dirt would be my remainder to iron out. the swell factor gets a little tricky. thanks for your input and any additional i would greatly appreciate.
oh, and the clearing. i would assume actually...1 acre of clearing. burn brush on site.
Sub the dirt moving to somebody with a tractor and scoops. Load, transport, dump, and compact with 1 machine
dirt Im just going to throw a number out there I usually hire, hyro seeding out, these guys have the stuff and they know how to use it clearing two acres, depends on how thick, $4500 moving dirt, HUMM, one truck, Humm $6500-$8000 slit fence $1500 Hydro seeding ?????? I might be in left field with the price, but I havent seen the job are you sure you can burn onsite, Im in SE also and we cant always burn on site, plus it takes alot of time and diesel fuel Dont work for nothing, you will end up with nothing
thanks willis. you are right on the money. that is what i was thinking. amazing. i was a little higher but really close. i do not have to get compaction at the fill site. but i will still dump in benches and lifts for common sense sakes....
$3.50 a foot is what I price DOT wire backed at and then adjust a mark-up according to the job and the customer. I just finished a job moving 8K CY's of material with a trackloader, compactor, 2 dump trucks and a dozer to spread. It was a short haul, on-site. The job was priced at $4 per yard. We had to deal with a very wet fat clay material we did not anticipate (but that is another story ) and compaction testing every 8" with a 98% spec. Needless to say it wasn't a great job profit wise but beat sitting around the shop staring at each other. That job should have been priced at $4.50 per yard in order to make a decent profit. Since you do not have to worry about compaction testing and you are moving the material onsite, I would shoot off the hip pocket and say your job would be in the $4 range per yard, that would be banked yards. Clearing and grubbing is tough to call without seeing it. Also what Willis said, check and make sure you can burn it. I am finishing up a logging slash burning job tomorrow - our burn ban runs out Monday and we will not be able to burn until Oct.:cool2 It doesn't matter whether you own the equipment, rent it or make payments - it still costs the same to operate. If you are not pricing in repair/replacement costs for paid for equipment you are shortchanging yourself.
thank you cm1995. so in my mind, i assume that a trackloader in this application is more expensive to operate than an excavator. i am not sure what the exact formula for this difference is but it is considerable. not that i dont like trackloaders..because they have their place. one good thing about a loader is that it can load, then go spread, and semi-shape up. also, not having to compact and spread in thin lifts reduces cost. also, i can burn more time because the economy is so slow that i would use one truck. since i would use 2 operators, i would haul about 10 loads, then get out of truck and spread the dirt with dozer, then go back to hauling. this isnt optimal, but i am in a financial state where i just cant afford to deal with many operators in this poor economy and bureaucratic world. sorry to rant.
No need to be sorry, trust me I feel your pain - rant on. I don't want the financial and red tape burden of hiring any employees either at this time, the economy is just too fragile. The job I described above I partnered with a friend of mine -my equipment and his trucks/employees. I ran the dozer, my partner ran the loader and everyone swapped around on the compactor. It worked out well as he kept his guys busy and I was able to exercise some iron and bring a little $$ in. My equipment is also paid for but billed out at regular rates per hour. Even though my D5 is paid for it's undercarriage is on run-out, just spent $2K on a muffler and two hoses, etc, etc. During these tough economic times you do what you have to do and any money coming in is a good thing. When times get better, I am going to actually set up an "equipment replacement" account and out of every check we receive for job payment, a % of each piece of equipment's revenue (however it was estimated - hourly or daily) is going to be put into this account. The % I would use would be the same as what a monthly payment would cost for each piece of iron. This account is not to be touched except for major repairs or equipment purchases. It's easy to run paid for equipment in the ground and not put back any money for replacement - I have seen it many times in my area. Well, that's my idea let's just hope things get better so I can implement it.
As far as track loaders vs excavators, yeah a track loader is more expensive to run per hour. The problem I have is my biggest excavator I have right now is a Bobcat 334D.:tong However I do have a 953C and read my signature line.... However, a track loader IMO is a more versatile piece of equipment. Like I have said on the board many times, if I had only one piece of equipment to depend on to make a living it would be a track loader. Well that's the biggest my biggest piece of iron right now and I am glad to have it. Actually for your operation, with you and only 1 driver, a track would be the most efficient. 1 machine to clear/grub, load and spread. It would eliminate one piece of iron and it's associated costs. But if whatcha ya' brung was a 320C and D6 then that's watcha run.
My price for a job like you describe would be 5.00 / cy and we would use a 953c trackloader also and posible the excavator too. The loader would be the first choice of equipment to be put on the jobsite.
thanks guys. so..you would charge 3.50 per foot of metal post/wire backed silt fence (which would be double row next to a stream) @ 250 feet X 2 rows. $1750.00 then the dirt, $4.00 per cubic yard of dirt X 7500cubic yards = $30,000.00 ? then, hydroseeding and hay i know is gonna be $3600.00 dang. i just dont know if i can get that much. but that is what it SHOULD probably cost. -- about trackloader. my experience is, they are very versatile. and expensive. in some regards, i would love to use one. i live in steep mountainous ground. sometimes rock, sometimes clay, sometimes in between. but it is hard to use a loader without benching way more than i would bench with an excavator. the excavator can reach above and below the bench. different perspectives. but a dozer is tougher and does grading better than a loader, but cant carry material. an excavator has more breakout force because of the small bucket size, and can dig below grade, ditch, slope, and load a truck. but not really finish grade within reason. except kinda finish grade slopes. i like that an excavator is swinging more than walking. less fuel. i also use a large compact track loader as a supplement to not having a trackloader on site. smaller, but very effective and easy to transport and versatile for other obvious reasons. i really love the new caterpillar track loaders. they seem to have such finesse and smooth control that they could be as accurate as a small compact track loader is in a bigger scale. very sweet. hate to buy that undercarriage though..haha. so this job, i asked a few other contractors in the area what they would charge just to have an idea and they said numbers like $13,000.....without materials and grassing and silt fence. and one was $16000 without hydroseeding and included silt fence. i kinda suspect they would cheat with regular silt fence. single row. what is dirt being moved for generally right now by larger companies? some places in georgia i hear it is back down to $1.00 a yard! wow.
I feel your pain and go through this on a regular basis... I would let my equipment rust for that price.:cool2 My father told me long ago, "Son, there is no sense in working and loosing money, you can loose money and sit at the house".
I'm having a hard time understanding your dimensions and volumes. You describe the existing bank measuring 20ft h x 40 ft w. Does the face of the bank rise vertically or is it sloped? You say that you're cutting back the hill 20 feet, but list the width of your cut at 40 ft. Also, you state that the finished slope is 1:1. Where is this reflected in your calculation?
sorry for the confusion. the bank already has a 1.1 slope. i am asked to make 20 feet of space behind the building so i am cutting it back 20 foot to the proposed ditchline. then another 20 foot at the top to make a slope down to the 20 foot that will be the ditchline. so, since the existing is a 1.1 and i am cutting back to a 1.1...i just figured the chunk of dirt as if it were a square chunk of dirt. the swell factor was what i hadn't calculated in the beginning of this thread. sorry for the confusion and thanks for the help so far guys. when estimating, it is handy to compare other ideas to make sure what prices are at this year. it sounds like dirt in a bank like this is at $4.00 per cubic yard? where i live it seems to be between $1.00 and $2.00. way too cheap.
I just don't see how anyone can move the dirt for this project for $1-2 per CY. If it was a mass grade job with 1/2 million yards that would still be cheap, if you could do it for that.:beatsme
If it was 75,000 yards, I would gladly do it for $2.00, plus mobilization, plus clearing and grubbing, plus other unknowns, like rock, mud, etc. For 7,500 cy, $4.00 to $4.50 sounds about right, with the other items added.
makes sense JDOFMEMI. i agree. thanks. does anyone have a good example of a rock and mud contract clause or disclaimer?
What about topsoil strip and respread? If you are going to be responsible for stabilizing +/- 2 acres upon completion (hydroseeding) I assume you will be stripping and respreading 2 acres of topsoil... at 6" that is +/- 800 cy... to strip/stockpile/walk in/respread? What about matting that 1:1 slope so that when it monsoons this summer all of that lovegrass doesnt wash? I was looking at some production numbers recently and figuring a given fleet capable of moving 10000 yd3 per day it was looking like $0.87/yd3 just in fuel cost at $4.00/gal? Something like :"This proposal does not include the cost of excavation/transport of any [solid rock, mass rock, trench rock, unsuitable soils] should the need for such activities arise, further negotiation/compensation shall be required" same goes for dewatering.