I thought i knew how to dig a pond with my D5G, but after reading a bunch of posts, maybe not! I have a 50' x 75' hole to dig, 7' deep. Material is dry clay. Owner doesn't want large banks, so i expect to spread the spoil over a 75 or 100' around the edges. Not sure on how steep to make the sides. I could dig it with my ec240, and dress with the dozer, not sure which would be best. Owner wants a fixed price. How should i do this?
If a Pond is what we call a Ground Tank (for livestock to water at) the sides should be a 3 to 1 batter and 90% are dug with a Dozer. The going rate here is $1.80 to $2.00 a cubic meter, our country around here has no rock under it, if theres a chance of rock the price has to reflect this. There is a formular to work out how much dirt will come out of hole with a 3 to 1 batter but old timers desease has got me and i cant remember what it is.
sounds like a perfect job for my D8 and D7 pulling pans. Hardcounty's unit cost sounds a bit low for around here.
diggin 7ft with a 5 and pushing it that far will take awhile, anyway you could rent a bigger dozer?
You are looking at moving around 2200 CY with a 25% swell just for the 50'x75'x7' hole. Then add the slopes that the owner wants to your total CY. I agree with Greg, $2 a CM/CY is low for a small job. Smaller the job, the higher the price per CM/CY. With fuel at $3.50 or so a gallon for off-road, $5K for that job seems skinny to me. I would probably bail the dirt with the 240 and dress with the D5, preferably have another operator on either the hoe or D5 to make it go faster. Set the hoe up cutting the 50' wide section, it should be able to get the dirt close enough to the banks so the 5 doesn't have to travel as far.
why am i whining? yeah, i agree. with all the sniveling i do about prices 5 k seems way low. but if it is clay and you have a good sized hoe and a dozer. what are the two pieces worth an hour. i get $150 an hour on a 210 and $145 on my 850h. , so round it to 300 an hour by 10 hours a day. 3 days total, so for me i would be around 10k, but your market may be different. i would shoot for a minimum of $7500. and your gonna have to hustle. plus how well does the client want it shaped? what about the inlet and outlet? good luck, try to get as much as you can!! regards, cd :usa:usa
I would be in the $3.50 a cubic yard range on this one. Take D8K with Cat No. 80 pan and a small finish dozer. Cut, haul and spread with D8 and pan. Use finish dozer as required and to finish grade. That comes to $7,700.00 US. Should be in and out complete finished in three days by myself. Finish dozer not needed full time on a job like this one for me.
one question are you digging a hole in the midle of a flat field or do you need the spoil to build a dam, it sounds more like a lagoon the way you are describeing it. If it is an ag pond the NRCS around here uses $1.40/yd for there estamates. but if it was site prep work I would be close to gregs numbers. Also I just ran the numbers and it is only 2064 cu/yds with the slopes included Length x width x height /27 50 x 75 x 7 =26250 /27= 972 cu/yds slopes 3:1 are 21 feet in distance so just picture to triangels on tope of each other and you have a cube so you only have to figure 2 sides for the slope yardage 21x7x50=7350/27=272 cu/yds 21x7x75=11,025/27=408 cu/yds added together - 1652 cu/yds multiplied by 1.25 for swell and you get 2065 cu yds. Hope this helps so the math lesson for today is to figure area of a equilateral triangle take LxWx.5
I believe I'd bail the dirt with the 240, and dresss it with the d5. I'd figure about $7500 US dollars, dunno how many Canadian ones that is.
By the way, from a SE-US cowman to a SE-IA one, I love your signature line.
Yair...I honestly don't understand. Eights and sevens with scoops? Excavators...even finish Cats, bloody hell! multiple machines to build a puddle hole. What world do you blokes live in? A hole that size is a couple of days work for (say) a Komatsu 65. Look at it this way. Fifty foot is just five slots and it's only three maybe four floors deep...get real fellers, five grand tops.
That will get some bites.
Your right SE-Ia Cowman it's around 1200 for the base hole with a 25% swell. I think I am getting dyslexic or it's just the heat.:dizzy I looked back at my chicken scratch from last night and I just replaced the 1 with a 2 in my post. ointhead As far as choosing a machine to do the job, the OP has a 240 and a D5. If I was him and had that job that's what I would use. IMO in this economy you use what you already have on your yard, no sense in paying the rental house if you have machines sitting. Greg would use his 8's with pans and CD would use his 210 and 850. I would use my 953. All would get the job done and hopefully make money. What would you charge for mobilization?
get real?? different strokes different folks, thats all i can say. maybe someone will want to dig it with a 7500 mini that never breaks down and is the best.... who knows. i guess you guys guys do it different down under:tong:tong
Yair...a question for Greg up thread with scoops (pans) behind the Sevens or Eights...on a job like that how would you blokes rip? Thanks.
I just did about the same job this week. Will be complete by noon tommorow. I have 28 hours in it using a D39 Komatsu. There was a little rock involved that slowed the process. I told the owner 3600$ , he was happy and from what I am seeing I will be getting little over 100$ an hour for that tractor. I run it for 85$ but like you the guy wanted a firm price. So both parties are happy in the end. Actually should be about 112.50 per hour. I feel you can do the same with that 5G. The only thing about the hoe is less compaction . Every pass with the dozer will give you a bit of compaction or take the hoe and wipe it down real well. We have heavy clay as in push the blade down raise up the front of the tractor to get a cut started. Then take about 6" a pass. I'll photo my job tommorow. My job is round does yours have to be square?
Yair...what can I say? Most dozer operators THINK they know how to push dirt but in fifty years of watching I have seen very few that can. This interesting thread illustrates that point very clearly...clients are paying dearly for lack of expertise. Not to pick on Dickjr (because most blokes are the same) but you cannot move dirt efficiently by jacking up the nose and taking a six inch cut. Good on him for making money on the job...and it illustrates how out of touch some of the other commentors were on pricing, but he would have done even better with a bit of proper training as to how to make his tractor more effective.
Bit sweeping there, Scrub Puller. I've seen more dozer operators that can operate than can't, and some of the indifferent ones have got better with time, usually when they've worked alongside better operators. If the nose is jacked up the machine isn't heavy enough to penetrate and no operator can get over that. Mind you after 50 years watching you don't need a pup with only 34 years experience to point that out.
NRCS may estimate it at $1.40 but that does not make it correct. It also means that they will cost share a $1.40 a yard and owner has to pay the rest. As far as scrubpuller goes, I drop the blades and hook up the pans when ever I can. I can't push 18 yards with a blade on a D8 any way you cut it or 11 yards with a D7. You push with a Komatsu 65 all day and I will cut and haul with D8 and pan and lets see who's got the biggest pile the end of the day.
Scrubpuller, Assuming it is clay won't need to rip it. Cut it with the pan. If going gets really tough will put a D7 push Cat in the mix. If it gets worse than that drop the ripper in the ground.
The only time I raise the front is to start a cut , which I thought I said, need maximum penetration. There are a lot of things that stand up to get maximum penetration.
Somebody said it a ways back, run what you brung.
LOL at scrubpuller? A dozer that size cant take much more then 6! Its a D5, it dont have the ponies nor the weight to take a foot cut
Yair...a few issues here I reckon. First off the penetration thing...with a blade or with a scoop unless you’re working sand or loamy/ peaty top soil then to get maximum production it is necessary to rip. (I just ducked for cover then) Just because you can push it and get a “good boil going” without ripping doesn’t mean to say you’re being productive ...but you are burning fuel and cutting edge. Ripping time is seldom wasted. I have proved it building ring tanks...a ring tank is basically a thirty foot wall pushed up around a paddock, a small one is shown here. http://www.panoramio.com/photo/46259159 I worked on these with a motley crew of hired in dozers and cross sections taken for payment soon sorted the men out from the boys. From my experience over many years...and the old Caterpillar how to films...you absolutely have to rip. And that is just the start of it. Once you’ve got it ripped you have to know how to work your slots. Fair dinkum, I have seen fellers rip (and when I say rip I mean cross rip) and then back out over their block and start pushing from the back!! Once you have it ripped you line up for your push and back out onto the ripped area about one tractor length. The blade will bury with very little effort and the objective is to get the tracks working on the interface between the rip and the next floor down. In other words you take out the full depth of the rip in one pass. In practice you will find that as you come back for the next push you will bulge one bladefull out and then back up for another...some times in “ball bearing” country you can have two or three bladefulls moving in the slot. With this style of dozing you get less “ boiling” in front of the blade, in ideal conditions it will just sit there as if being carried in a scraper. I could continue on down thread if anyone is genuinely interested...I have a very thick skin and I’m used to copping flack. I was interested in Gregs comments. It seems he works his drawn scoops as if they were scrapers. I have always worked them different...and a tidy cut is not part of the equation. Cheers
Greg our NRCS is useing the $1.40 for earthfill estamate then they pay 1/2 of that but we still work by the hour some small ponds will still get close to the estamate but not very often. Scrub the dirt we have in this part of the northern hemisphere dosnt usually get riped because it dosent help. I have ripped both ways and only cut slits in the wet stuff it dosent heeve or crumble some of it wont hardly come off the blade and when it does it is like driveing over a suv we call it tiger shi--t. We do get lucky every once and a while and get some sandy clay that will crumble and lay out in nice lifts.
Yair...gotcha Cowman. There a few exeptions as I mentioned...although your tiger sh#t sounds a little different LOL.
Scrub Puller, I won't say I have a tidy cut when "hogging" out the material before getting towards the bottom of the cut. No ripper used in conditions like being discussed here because if the material were ripped first it would not load as good and would not get good boiling over load on the pan. Nobody does work around here for $1.40 per yard on jobs like that.
Yair...Greg I understand...although I am never adverse to a bit of pumping when it comes to loading pans, a well ripped floor, bog it in, two pumps to get it falling off the low side and I'm out. It doesn't make for pretty though. Any pictures? I would be interested to see your set-up with the rippers on tractors that are set up to run scoops. ih100...when I said in fifty years of watching I have seen very few dozer operators that can push dirt that is absolutely true...most were competent operators but had never been taught correct bulking out and slot dozing techniqes. I have been able to double a tractors production on bulk pushing by a few minutes explanation to an operator...if they know their bickies it does'nt take long before it clicks. Even if you are paying by yardage it was annoying to have a tractor on the job that is not giving out it's best...I had one bloke on a D7 that could out produce most Eights...untill I had a whisper to the operators on the Eight. Some of course wouldn't listen and had been doing it their way for thirty years..rah...rah...rah...who the f##k was I to tell them how to push? The technique improved a lot when I published monthly yardage numbers, as I said, it sorted the men out from the boys. And yes, I have forgotten the numbers but toque converter Twenty Ones would often outpush the same vintage D8's.
I have the traditional set up Scrub Puller. Pan hooks onto the Cat drawbar in the traditional manner. If we rip, it is a separate Cat with traditional ripper on it and blade on the front.
wow, I feel inadequate. I'm building about a 7 acre pond with my little D-31 and Cat EL 240B. But then I measure time in months, lol :tong
Yair...gotcha Greg. I just thought you may have had a set up where you could pull a scoop with a ripper equipped dozer. I get a real kick out of talking to you blokes (and a little stirring sometimes) it sure helps to pass the time. Cheers
I cannot agree more with run what you brung. In the past I have tackled many large jobs with undersized equipment. It does not matter as long as you made money and the costumer is happy with the end result.
If your working the sand loam dirt like in western Iowa then a nice tidy cut in the borrow pit or pondarea isn't a facter.If your working in muddy conditons or heavy claylike i do then i like a cut that drains and not a cut that looks like a bomb went off in it.Or at least get it cleaned up before quiting time that night.Especaily when they are calling for rain. Nothing more irritating then coming too work the next day and having two foot deep water holes in your cut or fill.There a time too hog dirt and a time to smooth things up.
:thumbsup I agree so much it's in my signature.
Run what you brung. That is another reason I use Cats pulling pans. I have them, they work out well on this kind of work and most important make me money.
Yep, that's what makes the insane world of earthmoving profitable (we all have to have a mental imbalance to be in this industry:dizzy). Wouldn't want to do anything else.
Yair...its funny how things crop up. Been away a few days and pulled up along the track to watch a little Fiat/Allis pushing out a hole. He was pushing slots but was working back to front. To make matters worse when he'd pushed the slots out he straddled the rills and turned them into slots. The rills between the slots are the "cheap dirt" and if you start at the back and bust them out into the slot you can clean them out real quick. The main thing is to preserve those slots and work with them to the end. I was never too particular about cleaning out each floor...you always do the first rip in the direction of the push, this knocks the rills down and provided you're getting in there it isn't as rough as guts when you do the final rip across. As mentioned up thread if you are not round the clocking it pays to clean out nice and tidy at shifts end and we usualy used to dig a sump and run some levels for drainage if it ever looked like rain. Cheers.
One thing I've come to realize in digging my pond It takes a long time to move dirt, but it doesn't go very far......... in digging out my pond and building a dam with most of the dirt, it takes a lot of buckets and dump truck loads to remove it.... but yet it doesn't seem to build up very quick Maybe I need to buy more/bigger equipment ointhead
I have been looking for someone to clean out my pond for almost a year now. If you have experience at this, I'm sure there is money to be made in just about any area of the country. It seemed like a big mystery who can clean out a pond no matter where i asked.
no offense intended but i am guessing you do not want to pay by the hour.........reason being cleaning ponds is a guessing game that is hard to win...who knows what is on the bottom of that pond...how much sediment...hopefully the operator will not dig through the sealing layer of the pond....hauling mud and sediment sux....cleaning up your tracks after a pond job can take as long as cleaning the pond...machine needs to be large enough to clean full depth in one pass...hopefully the pond can be fully drained easily...easy to get stuck in a unknown bottom...etc.........usually ponds do not get cleaned because the owner wants a firm price......the best way is to do what i did and go rent a machine and do your own pond yourself.....
That's why I bought my dozer to clean out by pond.