So I'm buying some land that I'm building a small house on. It's unimproved, other than an old road cut into it that is old/ has no gravel. It is at the end of an unmaintined road that is pretty rough. The whole property is old forrest (all trees other than the road, hardwood and pine). I understand this type of thread is tired, but if you will humor me, this isn't a pipe dream (except for maybe what equipment I can afford), it's happening right now. I'm just starting to figure out what I'm doing, but know that if you spend the time to reply, your advice is appreciated and isn't for the purposes of "bench racing". First of all, my total budget for equipment right now is probably around $42k. What I need to do... Fix the road from the highway to my property. It is washed out pretty badly and is barely navigable by a 2wd vehicle. It is not maintained by the county, but is an easement on the adjoining properties. Bring the road on my property up to snuff by putting in some sort of erosion control (culvert) in a potential washout and graveling the road. Removing trees and stumps, especially from the building site (some of the trees are BIG and will have to be cut down and removed by the equipment. Grading the building site. Digging the basement/ footings for the small house. (Not sure yet exactly where we are going to put it, but it will be a slab or basement (the whole bottom floor will be a garage, and there will be some slope). Digging the trenches for the power from the road (pretty far away) and the lines from the well to the house. After I do all of that. I will sell the equipment if I can't afford to keep it and finish the house, but would prefer to keep it and use it to do jobs. My immediate idea is to buy a midi size excavator (like a cat 314 which seems to bottom out around 35k), have it delivered, and use the rest on a single axle dump. In the future, I would try to pick up a rig that could haul it so that I could hire out for jobs. Thoughts? Eta: if this wasn't the right place fot this thread please forgive me/ move it.
thoughts fwiw. the last thing I would do is spend 35k on a machine thats to small to do much of what you are trying to do. look at rental first either with or without op.for getting your road in shape and getting the site prepped. once the big stuff is out of the way then look for a machine that will handle the small stuff
In my mind an excavator that size could do that stuff, but again I'm uninitiated, and wouldn't know, which is why I asked ( again, thanks for your input, I started off looking at smaller machines). Time isn't really an issue, budget is. Want to have the whole thing (including building the house) done within a year. Thanks for your response, I have a lot to figure out.
1 ] repairs will eat up your budget 2 seconds. $ 2 ] what do you need a truck for , more repairs $ 3 ] insurance and license for out side work $ 4 ] best bet is to hire it done and save $ 5 ] ask around and find a reputable contractor, they can do it faster and the repairs fall on to them. i had to replace the joystick in my skid steer 2100.00 transmission and steering clutch in my cat 23000.00 this does not include a few hoses and service oil changes. these are repairs , equipment purchase is on top of this. sorry { not trying to rain on your parade but toy owning is not cheap }
at any rate good luck with your project. starting from square1 is always a task
I found myself in the same position in 1990. Bought a piece of property to build my house on. I had worked in construction for 10 years but never owned a piece of equipment. I was very familiar with the capabilities of different machinery and I decided on a tractor/loader/backhoe, a John Deere 410. It will do everything you've mentioned plus can be used as a moderate crane for lifting. My home is 1000 feet from the road, I dug my own utilities ditch, installed my septic field, my well line, backfilled the foundation, dug stumps, built a road into the woods, lowered my boiler into the basement and many, many other jobs. It paid for itself many times over and 10 tears later after a quick paint job I sold it for $2000 more than I bought it for. Other machines will do specific jobs faster, an excavator will ditch much quicker and a dozer is better at grading but for a good sized lot and time on your hands I still think that's the route I'd go. I did have my driveway cut in with a D6 as there was extensive shelving to do plus I had him dig the foundation. It was much faster to have it done that way. I did the rest of the excavating for the house myself.
Well I have a question for the question What is your skill level on welding/turning wrenches cause **** is going to be broken How many acres are you playing with Do you plan on the upkeep of the acreage if it is of acreage or paying someone else How familiar are you with heavy equipment Lastly how well do you think outside the box to make things work that were not meant to work?
Didn't say what size house, anyone can build a "house" within a year so as long one room is over 10 x 10 feet it's considered a house
OH no, not around here! You need to line the government pockets to be called a "house". And follow their anal probing factors to the letter.
They say you can have good, cheap or fast. You might get two out of three. Sounds like he wants it fast and cheap. Might work, but generally if you're asking the question, you don't have the needed skills...
I'm not nearly as experienced as a lot of the folks here but I'll agree with a couple points... With that budget, assuming it's for machines only, you can get a pretty good used backhoe and rent a sizable excavator for a few weeks and take care of a lot. The backhoe will continue being useful for a long time and the excavator can take care of your trenching and tree removal. If you have time you'll be amazed at what you can do with a backhoe, but like @Spud_Monkey said you'll learn to be creative also. You'd likely have about $10k leftover to play with (maybe dump truck money) and lots of stuff done. Some of this depends on lot size as well, how much road are you doing? If it's a lot hiring it out will be the way to go. Getting someone who knows what they are doing for a grading project will be worth a lot. You can do it with a backhoe but it'll take a long time to learn to do it well, when a dozer (with operator) can do it in a day or two. And you'll be happier with the dozers results. Also, the folks above are well intentioned but experience means they know when a little bit of laughter says a lot about a project. Don't get discouraged but also don't get kicked in the pants by reality.
Well...I have a very similar story, I'm a little farther ahead than you currently are, maybe my experience can help you a little. My main questions about your property are: 1. What kind of ground are you on (clay/sand, wet/dry, flat/hills) 2. Do you know anyone (very well) with equipment that you could borrow at low to no cost 3. How stubborn and dedicated are you (almost a rhetoric question - the fact you want to tackle this, tells me you might just be as stubborn as I am haha) Before getting into the story - a couple pieces of advice: 1. For the bigger projects, hire in the guys that know what they are doing. It really is money well spent, and more importantly, time well spent 2. Don't let anyone ever tell you that all a dozer needs is "new tracks" 3. Be willing to spend 2x the time and 2x the money on things as you think you might. The money part is more easily estimated, but time is not. 4. Be willing to call for help when you need it, and even when you don't need it. I'm still learning this one. I bought my lot in late 2018. Fairly flat, VERY wet due to clay soil, springs all over, and shale being only 4-6 feet down. Almost completely wooded, most of the trees young growth but some that were 2 feet or so in diameter. Started playing around about the end of January 2019, just with my mothers 40 horse new holland bucket tractor, clearing trees to cut the driveway through about 700 feet of woods. It only took a weekend of that to decide on the need for heavier iron. Now I very well could have chosen the dry spot right next to the road to build, however I'm not that kind of person. I decided on the dry spot 700 feet in, across the wet-holes and all - an insurmountable task for some, but a bigger and better challenge to me. My aunt and uncle happened to have a john deere 350 bulldozer, with a winch and 6 way blade. Perfect for what I was doing, all it needed was "new tracks". I worked on that from end of February to beginning of June, nights and weekends to get it back into good running condition. I estimate between myself and the random help I got from friends, there is over 400 man-hours, around 30 lbs of welding rod, and lots and lots of beer, into a complete undercarriage repair, steering clutches/brakes, miscellaneous fixing of broken parts/welds, some engine parts, and lots of other random things. Not to mention, over $10k into it, more than its worth. Luckily my aunt and uncle were splitting costs with me. But still, more than I bargained for, but I'm a stubborn mule, I wasn't giving up. What I ended up with was a reliable machine though, I don't like working on things after they leave the garage. In hindsight I could have saved money by looking for used parts or even a parts machine. During the time of fixing that up, I kept looking at excavators, and just couldn't swallow the cost. So I ended up with a Ford 555 Backhoe, at a third of the cost of an 8-12 ton excavator. So we're now in June 2019, and my plan is to have a local excavating company come in, put in a pond back at the house building site where a couple springs come together, and in the process dig a boatload of shale out to build the driveway with. During June and July, since I'm stubborn and can run a chainsaw and dig ditches, I clear the stumps and make way for the driveway, add a LOT of drainage to get things dried out, and clear another whole acre of trees at the pond site (I really didn't know how much ground they needed opened up to get shale, so I just kept cutting trees till the day they showed). End of July, the big guys show up. After the first day, they had the pond lot cleared of stumps, and we had half the driveway built. They spent a total of 4 days at my place, and at the end I had a beautiful 1 acre spring-fed pond, 10 feet deep, and 700 feet of a 2 foot thick shale driveway. I think even after I get the house built, I'll still be most proud of the driveway because of everything I had to do just to get to that point, to not be trudging through mud with 5 gallon cans of diesel fuel and tools. It cost me about 8500 bucks. Money WELL spent. For the rest of the year, piddled around with the backhoe and dozer doing random stuff, I was pretty burnt out from the non-stop run I had from February to August. I was also getting low on funds and decided to keep saving and not hastily make too many decisions on what I actually wanted for house/garage/lot layout. During the time of piddling, the backhoe lost reverse. The backhoe was useful, however I spent about 50 percent of my time running it just getting it through the mud. So I worked on it enough to know it would have to be split to be fixed, and gave up on it, dumped it for a bit less than I bought it for, and did what I should have done in the first place, I bought an excavator. You could say that I should have just sold the backhoe and paid someone else to do the rest of the future work, but I like digging. What else am I to do after my regular job, watch netflix? Not my style. I will say the single most useful thing I have ever purchased was that excavator. I can do in 2 hours with the excavator what took me 8 hours with both the dozer and backhoe. An increase in productivity, and a hell of a lot more fun. The hindsight from fixing the dozer and having the backhoe was absolutely necessary to pick the right excavator, I wasn't cheaping out, I wanted something that had everything I needed and wanted. I got an 8 ton John Deere 80, with a hydraulic thumb, blade, quick coupler with digging and grading buckets. This year, 2020, I cleared another 2 acres of trees, added $5k worth of gravel for a parking lot, put in a septic, dug a well, ran power, and placed a small mobile home that was given to us. It was another rough non-stop stretch from March to September getting all that done. In exchange for using my excavator, I was able to borrow a farmer friends 450G dozer, which did a ton of work pushing the big stumps and ripping up topsoil that I could use to build up low areas. I also did a lot of borrowing their dump trailer and tractor. Without them, I would not have gotten this far this year, or would have been paying for dirt or someone to do the work I did. Have I saved money? If you count in the costs of heavy equipment, I'm far from it. But counting that out, I would say I have spent about 2/3 of what it would have cost to hire everything out. That starts adding up the farther along you get. For reference I'm about 36k into getting to living here, If I hired out everything I estimate it at around 50k or so. Not to mention the good times had with friends and my Fiance digging stumps and moving dirt and whatnot. My Fiance and I have been living here since mid-July, when we finally had to move out of our rental house. We spent the first month with no electricity or running water, and bathing in the pond until about mid September when I got the mobile home re-plumbed and re-electrified and got some hot water in. It's been a hell of a ride, still a long ways to go but I worked hard for it and its got my name on it!!! Next post I'll try and get some pictures in.
Lets see if I can get some pictures up here. First day... cutting trees for driveway Initial look at where the pond should go Dozer project...I can make a separate thread if anyones interested in that whole project
more pics First day having the dozer on the property Driveway goes here now... Where the driveway pops out of the woods at the building site Pond cleared before big guys came in
and more... 10am on the first day the big guys were there Finally can drive all the way back from the road!!! Pond finished Driveway coming into the building site
and some more Excavator My Fiance pushing stumps Big stump Digging the well (rented another excavator with a jackhammer to get through shale)
Some more Setting well tile (sewer pipe..plenty of water here so smaller pipe is fine) raised bed septic Trailer set. Up so high to gravity feed into raised bed septic. House will eventually go to the right of trailer, there is enough grade to make the gravity feed for the septic
More pics of fiancé
haha not a chance!
aighead has some good points here. I actually liked trenching with the backhoe a little better than I do the excavator, just was a little slower hydraulics and since my property is so flat, it was easier to keep a slight grade and not screw up my ditches. The largest excavator you can usually rent without having to have your own insurance (atleast here in upstate NY where I am) is an 5-6 ton machine. It'll do a lot of work for you, but just isn't machine enough for the bigger stumps. My 8 ton excavator, on the big stumps like in one of my pictures above, takes me about 20 minutes to pop - i have to dig all the way around, and come at it from a lot of points prying (and praying) to finally get it to wiggle. Then its a lot of pull one side, pull the other, then backup and repeat to get it up and out of its hole so the dozer can take it away. You can rent larger 12-20 ton machines, however your money is much better spent on having someone show up that has that kind of machine and knows what they are doing. I still would lean towards buying a machine of that size, if your OK with getting efficient with it, and OK with the possibility of a large repair bill in the case something goes wrong. And aighead hit the nail on the head with grading, I'm very glad I had the experienced dozer guy come in and put 3 inches of crusher on the driveway to finish it off, he really knew his grade, pitched it correctly, and I have not had even one pothole begin to form. I spent enough time on a dozer the past two summers to get very good at being able to do grade, but its easy to screw it up and the good guys can do it twice as fast as I can.
I actually disagree with petepilot on a 314 cat size machine being too small, for what you are doing it will probably do everything you want. If your doing a foundation that is quite deep or long (say longer than 40 feet) you may find limits of its reach, or if you have to chew through some really rocky ground, but other than that I don't see it being a problem for stumps, ditching, and the smaller foundation it sounds like your planning. At times, especially working close quarters in the woods, actually might seem too big. Now I've done a lot of work with my little 8 ton machine, but I'm most likely going to pay someone to do the foundation digging. I'm sure I can figure it out and do it, but someone with experience will definitely do it faster and better.
Does it have to be a Cat? You are just paying for a name. A lot of the Cat stuff isn't what it used to be. I wear Volvo underwear, but when it comes to excavators, I'm a big Linkbelt fan, and I think Linkbelt is made in the United States.
I really appreciate all of the responses. Thanks Mattjohndeere2 for taking the time to write all that. That's a lot to think about. To answer some of the questions: The road from the highway to my* (haven't closed yet) property is serviceable. My future neighbors use it, it's just really rough and needs the holes and ruts fixed. The road on my* property I think is actually pretty nice, it just has never been used, and there is one section that is fine now, but I'm worried about future erosion at if the road is in use. Looks like the road was cut in some years ago, and there is no sign of any gravel having ever been put on it, and it was never used but goes all the way to the home site (maybe around 800 ft). Property is 9 acres. Planning on leaving it all woods other than clearing the build site. Planning on a 24X40 house. The site is on a ridge and is pretty flat. If I get an excavator, it doesn't need to be a specific brand. I'd just be looking for the best machine I could get for my budget. 314 cat was just an example. I'd put my mechanic skills well above average (in general, not among the subset represented here), When it comes to automotive or anything smaller. If something I have needs fixing, I generally figure it out. That being said I don't have experience working on anything bigger than a truck, and no experience with diesels. With that being said, I'm a mechanic of necessity. I generally don't take stuff to other people to fix. I'm sure there would be a learning curve to wrenching on equipment, but would be planning on doing it myself. Eta: the terrain is GA clay under a layer of topsoil.
No problem, I've been wanting to share my story, its definitely a long story short but it would take me a couple hours to type the whole story haha. If your neighbors use the road also, would they be inclined to split some fix-up costs with you? I assume if your up on a ridge or hill that its pretty dry even being clay? Not familiar much with Georgia terrain.
Don't be afraid of a diesel, that will be the nicest surprise of all after working on gas engines. Don't buy a junk engine, but most will be the least of your problems. Transmissions, tires, hoses, hydraulics will all be more trouble typically. If the road is a lot of the ongoing maintenance, then a mid sized (100HP+ or-) farm tractor with a good blade would work, then a mini excavator to dig out the dirt around the trees, then pull them over with the tractor. Long term find a wheeled grader blade for keeping the drive in better shape than a three point blade.
Haven't met the neighbors yet, but that could be a possibility. Yeah, groundwater doesn't seem to be an issue at all.
Got a lead on a cheap low hours case tr320. Thinking about picking that up and renting what I need from there.
Not a chance. Link-Belt and Case are identical, both are Sumitomo machines. Made proudly in Japan.
I need some details: How long is the shared road? How long is your driveway on your property? What kind of material has been asked. Clay, sandy, etc. Before you do anything to the shared road, find out if your neighbor needs anything in your trench. Sharing the cost of trenching is a big savings. Same goes for the shared road improvements. On that line, I would suggest hiring out that shared portion.
Really, I thought there was a post on here before about linkbelt and case having a plant in the US. Are they all off shore machines, or just the smaller weight classes. We have 3 145s, a 235, and 2 350s, all bullet proof so far. To each their own, but I find different manufactures have different strengths. I have always liked a Cat Dozer, and we have always had good luck with them. We had a 320 hoe, that was problem proned. As well as a 308 that everyone here hates. But another company here had a 308, same machine, and it worked great. The last good cat loader we had was a 966F. Our G and H were like job security for the cat guy. Same as our 972, and our first 980M. They bought a new 950GB, I think, few problems when it first came, but seems ok now. Need ear plugs to run it though. The newer 980M seems great. Volvo loaders have been consistantly reliable, except for the 2 G series, but a few thousand bucks to remove the emissions crap, and they are good so far. Pretty good here for keeping the equipment new except the grader which they will run into the ground, most of the paving equipment. I think it has only been ten years since they got rid of a couple old back rollers from the 40s. The asphalt plant itself is from the 50s, pretty sure that was made in the USA
160 and up I believe. I'll look tomorrow, I believe there is a Sumitomo tag on our 210C
I know they are owned by Sumitomo, but thought they were made in Kentucky. Wouldn't surprise me. That's why the rich get richer I guess
Shared road is ~1 mile. Driveway is ~800 ft. There is an electrical unity box for the neighbor at the start of the driveway. We are the end of the road. Material is clay. Still thinking about buying the case tr320 an a single axle dump and renting from there.
Everyone’s circumstances are different, therefore perspective is never the same. I’ve seen a lot of guys that are willing to take some extra time, and a little ingenuity, do a hell of a lot with a reasonable sized older backhoe. Obviously a huge excavator will crush trees/stumps etc., but it will fall short in a lot of other areas. Backhoes are extremely versatile. For the 40k range, I personally think it’s realistic to find a decent backhoe, a smaller skidsteer with auxiliary hydraulics, and an equipment trailer. These machines would all be well suited to making some cash on odd jobs after you’ve completed your project as well. Maybe more suited than most other machines that are more suited to specific types of work. Best of luck with your decisions, and may the ghosts of old equipment’s past bless you and hopefully you don’t spend that year working on mechanical nightmares!!
Working on an 800-ft road with your own little dump truck isn't bad. Doing anything with the mile long road would be pretty frustrating. The rock cost would be phenomenal to anything at all out there. That was why I suggested hiring out that shared road and getting people to pitch in on the costs.
man, I did a 600ft driveway and I would accept nothing but end dumps. I am just a guy that wants to go big and get it done. However, I was a guy spreading that media with a 50hp tractor and box blade. I could have smacked it with the dozer but I just didn't want contamination from the tracks and I know how to grade with a box. She came out looking like a mint penny. Almost looked like I had skilz.....lol
I asked my wife how long the road is and she said it was a mile, so that's what I posted. Last time I went up there I measured it with the trip odometer in the truck and it was only half a mile (which is closer to what I thought) so that's good. We're closing this week. I'm still thinking about picking up that case tr320. The price SEEMS right, and I want it, but the research I've done so far has me scared. Thoughts? They seem problematic from the reading I've done. Its a 2013 with ~ 1300 hours, open cab, privately owned. The seller said it runs and operates great, but the tracks are worn and his mechanic said they are fine for homeowner's use, and he would only suggest replacing them for commercial use, whatever that means. The price still may work with budgeting new track in the near future. The owner said he is a homeowner and the machine is bigger than what he needs.
I would never buy a ctl for home use. They are expensive to run and are not a multi tool. They move materials and level material. I would be looking for a backhoe.
I agree, I don't like the sounds of that Case unit. Don't give in to the quick and easy, go with the advice people are offering and take some time.
The reason I'm interested is price, under 20k. I think I'm going to go take a preliminary look at it, without my checkbook.