Hello all! I'm a couple of days into a week's rental of a Deere 120 excavator. It's a big investment for my broke butt and I want to get the most out of my rental time. I'm trying to accomplish two main tasks - Clear all brush and roots, and most trees for what will be my back yard and hopefully some pretty grass. About 2 acres. - "Thin" out the brush and most trees under 8" or so surrounding my soon to be lawn. About 4 acres. I've had pretty good luck so far, it's not my first time on a digger but I'm no professional. After clearing trees and stumps, I rake in and out going just teeth-deep and I can get most of the large roots up, pinch them with the thumb and give it a shake, and make small piles that are dirt free enough to add to the burn pile. Where I'm getting kind of stuck is when I come back to level and grade using an I-beam, I keep rolling up topsoil piles that are too mixed with small roots to smooth out and leave in place, and too filled with dirt to burn. What do you guys normally do with these piles? I have plenty of room on the 11 acre plot to transfer it somewhere and bury it or leave it piled up, but I don't want to leave a mess that will add time to any future work I decide to do in that area unless I have to. I can't afford to pay someone to haul it off site either. Any tips are appreciated. Regards, Adam btw I'm having a ball!
Welcome to the Forums catcontrol!:drinkup Normally on a site work project where clearing and grubbing is performed, the topsoil is stripped and stocked for later use, wasted somewhere on site like a non-structural area or hauled off. With your project you obviously don't want to strip your topsoil because you want grass there eventually. Rake as much of the large roots/sticks up with the track hoe and dispose of them - nice that you can burn where you are at. Depending on your time frame of getting a stand of grass established, I would use a skid, track loader or tractor with disc or a rake to back drag the area and get the remaining roots out. You won't be able to get all of the roots out without spending a lot of time going over it and that's normal. The smaller stuff will break down and rot over time which just adds more nutrients to the soil. On a clearing and grubbing job I'll use my track loader to rake the area and the smaller stuff just gets stripped with the topsoil. As the topsoil is re-spread any of the larger woody material remaining is worked out during re-spread.
Not sure what machines you have to use, but a skid steer and grapple or rock bucket would be great to use to clean up the area and shake out dirt, once the area is policed up and cleaned the best you can, disk it many times, forget anything with tines that digs, only a drag or something like that to level and smooth it out afterwards, then go to work with hand labor and pick up sticks as you go. If you have a lot of root hairs sticking up that gives it that wooly look, go over it with a brush mower to give it a hair cut of sorts to clean it up better, once grass is growing a lawn mower will do wonders, if its yours of course, if its someone else's keep disking and using a brush mower till its clewed up and looking good, then more hand labor to clean it up. If your on a budget, like we all are, do the big stuff and burn the piles with the excavator and then bury the stumps and take it back, cheaper tools are available for the rest of it, is about the best way to go.