Can any one give me some advise about diging in frost. Ok so I need to put in about 7 five foot tall sono tubes for the house that im building. Im have a 120ex excavator with a 30" bucket. I am on a tight budget, so I cant buy any new atachements. I need to do this next week. I am guessing that I have 2-3 feet of frost to deal with
Put new teeth on your bucket and scratch at the frost do not try and chip away at it. Scratch in one spot them move your bucket over one or two teeth and scratch some more. You should eventually get through it.
2-3' is alot of scratching with a 30" bucket. If you have a week before this has to happen , how about tenting the area in and heating for a week to drive the frost out. More costly solutions would be to use a small jackhammer and auger on a excavator. Good luck.
Put some coal down a day before you want to dig. Light it up and the next day the frost will be gone.
will it melt 2-3 feet of frost??
Up here we get about 5 to six feet of frost and it does the trick
I have a friend that works for a company that has a drill truck, It can drill through frost no problem, I might go this route, that way I am not beating on my equiptment. It al depends on his price. My teeth are preaty good but I still think It will take for ever scraping away.
I don't think your frost will be as deep as you think. We've had a snow cover all winter and the snow insulates the gound. Hay bales or concrete blankets will draw out the frost too.
I have to agree with steve. We are only about 5-8 inches deep at most. As an option I have hammer drilled a series of holes with an 18 inch long bit and dug post holes in frost over 30 inches deep. I have also used a tarp over saw horses and a salamander heater with an 8 inch stove pipe elbow on the end to blow the heat down on the ground. try digging a little with good sharp teeth on the corners of the bucket and you may be surprised at how it goes.
I was digging yesterday with my mini ex, mostly it was a couple inches of frost, one area that was at the edge of a 'bank' had 6-8", though I suspect it had been exposed without snow for a chunk of the winter.
Last week I was ripping down to 5 1/2 feet to get through the frost. No snow to insulate and traffic to pound it in. Was using a JD 200lc and a ripper wouldn't want a smaller machine. Heat is your best bet.
Solutions ? Reading all the material, I'd suggest get the drill truck and get it over with ! Other options, 4 -6 laborer's and a 185 cfm air compressor and jackhammer, and dig out by hand with post hole diggers. Other way, get Frost Tiger Teeth by Hensley, for the dig. Spendy but they work. But you also over dig to get down to the elevation you desire. Bigger hole. Consider the backfill material also, non frost suceptible, as also on the bottom of the hole. No clay,organics, etc of the material that cause frost jack heaving ! Only clean, sands or gravels. Sonotubes do heave, if not founded in non frost suceptible material ! The result is binding doors, broken windows, uneven floors. Tricky ! Surprises later !
unfortunatly the ground I am diging in has been exposed all winter with no snow cover, aswell it has been driven over and over by my lull and backhoe. So I am asming there will be alot of frost. I will give it a try this morning and that will give me an idea what Im up against. And yes I plan on backfilling with fresh unfroven sand or gravel.
Friend of mine just had a frozen water line at his house, from the water main to the curbbox. Water main was plastic so the good old welder wasn't going to do the trick. City PW director grew up in the UP of Migh. and said they used that trick all the time. This was frozen down almost 5 feet on bare ground. Took about 4 days to get it thawed but it did the trick. Trbo When the wife gets home I'll post pics of the "barrel" thawing, shes got the camera.
Are you talking about the coal trick? I scrached at it today with the excavator for about 10 min and only got through about 1' of frost in a 3'x3' area. I am still waiting for the price to have them drilled, or i will just try to dig them
Yeah I was talking bout the coal trick, thawed my friends house line out the other day, on bare concrete. Took a few days to do it but with the city putting in plastic water main its kinda hard to hook a welder up to thaw out from the main to the service valve. Trbo
good job there nice idea!
Thawing the Ground For a faster set up then Coal or Wood we have used a Propane (Weed Burner) Torch. Cut a hole in the end of one of the half barrels and stick it in. Also you can cover the half barrels with some Batt Insulation. Works good. Cat 236 Alaska
do you need a special permit to burn in the road like that in the picture(wich ironicly looks simmilar to my st. hill and all,and ivv naver seen or thought to do that, what about a fire marshell?????????????
great pictures!! I might look into that idea on my job, my only thing is, I have frozen dirt, and I think when it starts to melt it will turn to mud and alot of water, and maybe put out the fire? do you leave a vent for the charcoal or will it stay lit without one? thanks again DAN
you should not have a problem with water putting the fire out. I have butchered for 35 years with the fire on top of the ground under the kettles with no problem. You get a little mud but it evaporates most of the moisture out of it the longer it burns. The biggest trouble is keeping the beer from freezing without boiling it! Old roofing tin works good for keeping the heat in also.
what is a sono tube? :beatsme
They are cardboard forms that we fill with concrete to form cilindrical piers. They are usualy 10"-24" diameters 4' in length they are used to suport decks, porches, and small buildings.
thanks, thought it might have been something a bit more technical though with a name like that LoL
I just took the pics, the Public Works Dept was doing the job as it was there baby(anything from the main to the curb box is theirs.) The welder in the pic is our old welder we had for over 25 years, sold it to the guy to do just water pipe thawing. We bought a lil bit smaller one, so couldn't do any more thawing(that was the main reason). I don't know much more about the task but do know in 4 days or so he had water again. Trbo
You're right about that ridiculous name for a big toilet paper tube.:lmao
Dozing in Frost I am looking at starting a site prep job early this year and I have never worked with frozen surfaces. If there is 6 - 8 inches of frost how will a D6T handle in these conditions? Thanks
Well I got the two important tubes in today!!! There was exactly two feet of frost!!! I just scratched at it for awile and finaly broke through!!!!! thanks for the help guys
How long did it take you to get through the 2 feet of frost?
it took about 20 minutes on the first hole, but about 30 on the second one!! I just kept scratching away untill I finaly got through
It sounds like persistence is the most economical approach on this one. A 6'' layer of hay works wonders if you can wait a day or two. With the frost being as deep as you say, I´d cover a 10´x 10´area for each tube. If there´s any wind, a tarp on top of the hay will work in your favor.