Mini digger time estimate

How much can you do in a weekend with a 1 ton (+/-) mini digger and a skip loading mini dumper?

Or to turn it around, I have 2 jobs:

1) Load 6-8m3 previously kango'd concrete into a skip 15-30m away.

2) Move the top 300mm of topsoil from an area about 100m2 to lower parts of the garden. Dumper probably not required - can probably drag it with the grading bucket once dug up and loosened.

3) Dig back a 1m high bank a metre or so over a length of about 8m. Soil will be move within digger-arm's length.

Weekend feasible - or am I'm off by a country mile? Let's assume I am not super proficient with a digger - but that I managed to learn a tractor with back-acktor in about 30 mins to trenching competance a few years back

Reply to
Tim Watts
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I think that you are being optimistic if you haven't regularly used the digger before - scooping up loose material isn't as simple as it sounds :( Make sure that the 1 ton digger you hire has the ability to use the dozer blade as a 'dust pan' to the grading buckets 'brush' On my 3/4 ton Kubota K008 they don't quite reach each other by about 6 inches which is a right royal pain.

You are welcome to pop down and have a play with it if you want.

AWEM

Reply to
Andrew Mawson

On Thursday 22 August 2013 16:40 Andrew Mawson wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Hi Andrew,

That's both a very useful bit of info and a most generous offer :)

It might be more sane to break the job in two hires - weekend rates from Heathfield are fairly inexpensive.

I also suspect I will not be able to estimate the skip volumes that perfectly for concrete disposal - so perhaps I should do the "easy" bit first until I fill a 6yrd. The "last" bit is both the shed base (there's a shed on it now, another precondition) and fiddling around with the top lawn with some major vertical resculpting!

What I really want to do soon is to regrade the front lawn and the lower back lawn. Both are ropey and lumpy and are annoying the hell out of me.

Part of the front lawn might get dug out a further 4" and filled with railway ballast, compacted and dressed over with clover as a car hardstanding that is green.

Know anyone that sells railway ballast (reclaimed)?

Cheers,

Tim

Reply to
Tim Watts

Tim,

Do you have anything to carry the concrete in in smaller quantities - I can probably accommodate it if you can shift it ? Save you the stupid money for a skip and take the panic over timescales out of the digger hire. I can lend you a smallish trailer if you have a ball hitch

As it happens this weekend - well Sun / Mon we're putting in a bit of hard standing, and I was going to 'use up' four pallets of s/h concrete roof tiles as the fill, but your concrete could go in there instead if you want.

Contact me off line re railway ballast.

Andrew

Reply to
Andrew Mawson

Won't that shift from under where the tyres roll? It's all fairly uniform large ish lumps, no range of bits to bed together and make a stable surface. You need MOT1 for that, which may produce a surface that clover won't survive on where they tyres go. I suspect you really need those plastic grid things at least for the tyre tracks on top of compacted MOT1.

Do they bother reclaiming it? Judging by the amount that is strewn down the sides of embankments they don't, though I guess they have to in tunnels and cuttings...

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

They wash it and put it back!

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Reply to
polygonum

On Thursday 22 August 2013 21:11 Dave Liquorice wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Not IME - ballast really locks *very* well (that's why they use it) - even loose it is a bastard to move. Shovel wont go in - you need a fork with curved tines. It has a better draining characterist than Type 1 MOT due to the proportion of voids to solids.

It is actually exactly what I want - used it before and I know how it handles.

Fairalls in Godstone, Surrey did - but they were close to a number of railways (Brighton slow, Brighton fast, Redhill-Tonbridge)

Specifically - it is washed[1] and relaid a number of times in situ using a ballast washer engineering train. When the granite lumps are breaking up to too small a size, it is usually taken out and replaced. This can all be done with the track in situ (but lifted by the train doing the washing).

I believe it at this point it becomes saleable as hardcore as it is not longer the correct grade for the railway.

Ballast washer unit:

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[1] The accumulation of fines and dirt ruin it's characteristics.
Reply to
Tim Watts

Not always granite. There is a history of using materials such as steel furnace slag. However I seem to remember that it can cause problems with track circuit signalling due to its relatively high conductivity.

Reply to
polygonum

That's what my physics teacher at school always told us - but many long years ago

Jonathan

Reply to
Jonathan

Do american railways discharge the bogs onto the tracks? Wouldn't want to be breathing that dust

Reply to
Andy Burns

Yeah but they have some hefty machinery and 1000 tonne trains to vibrate it together into lock. B-)

Fairy nuff. Agreed MOT1 will forma very hard firm surface, just not convinced that a mere 4" of ballast will lock together well enough not to slowly move away from the tyre tracks.

Fascinating, I knew they had trains the lifted the track (complete) shook the ballast, replaced the track and bedded it back down. Didn't realise they washed it as well but that makes sense to remove the fines etc that will stop it locking.

Thanks Tim.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

1 tonne is pretty small are you limited for access ... a 1.5tonne would be better

Could be w/end if it's dry and you do long days

Reply to
Rick Hughes

MOT1 will just become mud under the wheels IME.

It might be better with MOT3 (IIRC) as it has voids and drains rather better.

Reply to
dennis

On Thursday 22 August 2013 22:07 Dave Liquorice wrote in uk.d-i-y:

6" is what I used last time - but that had an 11 ton truck on it (not mine). Not one stone moved - it was that solid.

I agree 4" is branching into the unknown but I'm fairly confident cars are going to have little impact on it - it will be set into a virgin dug-out and will extend well beyond the wheels in all directions.

I had a mate who was a train driver. He drove engineering trains in the days of BR (as well as freight and passenger). I don't think he drove a ballast washer or a track layer (they are a bit specialist) but he was on site at the time, driving the train loaded with top up ballast or loose CWR (continuously welded rail).

Reply to
Tim Watts

On Thursday 22 August 2013 22:10 Rick Hughes wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Hmm - not that limited. Perhap 1.5t would be better.

Reply to
Tim Watts

If it's any help, digging out 4-5 cu m of soil and transferring it to a farm trailer took me three days using a mini digger.

Good luck with that, that sounds like a day's work based on the time taken to grade my drive.

Fairly trivial. If it took as long as a morning I would be surprised.

Pushing your luck, I reckon.

Reply to
Steve Firth

On Friday 23 August 2013 12:22 Steve Firth wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Wow. OK - and concrete lumps are worse as the digger will not fill its bucket with them - it'll probably get a couple of lumps each time if lucky.

Thank you.

Sounds lik2 2 seperate sessions are the best best. Session 1 - attack what I can get at *now* (without moving sheds and stuff).

Session 2 - wrap up, where I should be able to accurately estimate the size of skip 2 and the time taken.

Cheers!

Reply to
Tim Watts

dont piss around. Hire the biggest digger you can, At least 3.5 tonne for the above

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Yes, I agree, wow! It does seem rather a long time to take to move soil using a digger. I once dug a soak-away of about 1m across x 1m down, so about 0.8m3, in less than an afternoon using nothing more than a shovel and a spade. At that rate I could have shifted 5m3 in about the same time as Steve with his digger.

He doesn't say how far he had to shift it though. If the digger had to travel some distance for each bucketful instead of being able just to swing around and drop it, that would certainly increase the time taken significantly.

Yes - although I suspect it will make a lot of difference how big the lumps are, etc - and you've got quite a distance to travel with them too. It will probably take longer than you think.

Reply to
Java Jive

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