Suggestions for moving bagged topsoil via a wheelbarrow?

[harryagain]

It was my intention to simply fill the barrow using a spade but wondered if I might be missing something that could really help matters?

I've got a 1T engine hoist and can't help feel that could play a role - perhaps by hoisting the bags in the air and my ripping a hole in the bottom above the barrow? Of course, it sounds straightforward but is bound to either not come out or will end up with the whole lot burying the barrow in one go.

Any tips or other words of wisdom? Even simple things like slicing into the side of the bags and shovelling from there rather than from the top?

If you can get help, try and get extra barrows too. BTW, you can hire conveyors if it's practical to use one. A pointy shovel is much easier to use than a square mouth one for a job like this. (Sticks into the soil much easier)

[mogga]

You might. I know I wouldn't want to move more than 1 bag of soil a day though.

We did have a team of 4 people move a huge muck pile in one day. It took them 5 hours moving it though. One of them had been digging and moving tonnes of soil for various other projects before though.

[John Rumm]

You should be ok I would have thought - I would not describe myself as Mr Fit in any sense, and yet I have done two bags of soil or, or a bag of ballast into a mixer and out again in the space of a day without it finishing me off completely ;-)

[Mathew Newton]

I think I'll soon know once the stuff arrives. Whilst I can measure out a c ubic metre to give me an idea it'll be no substitute to actually seeing it for real. I'm bracing myself for a sinking feeling when it becomes apparent how little a dent a full barrow load will make from a bag too!

[zaax]

You'll be able them drag is when they are 2/3 empty

[Vir Campestris]

Well.. Wickes (to choose someone at random) sells 85 litre wheelbarrows.

A cubic metre is 1000 litres. So that's only a dozen loads.

Andy

[dennis]

If he has ordered 7 "tonne" bags he will have a lot less than 7 m3. They hold about a tonne of gravel or sand and are only about 0.8 x 0.8 x

0.8 m in size. If they held a m3 they would weigh about 2 ton when filled with gravel.

[Mathew Newton]

That's the theory; I'll have to see how well it translates to reality! ;-)

[Mathew Newton]

It was ordered by volume; four, 1 cubic meter bags.

And I think it is *those* bags that I've got pictured in my mind so when the cubic metre bags turn up I'm sure my thoughts will be how big they look!

Yes, the supplier (Rolawn) say they'll be around 1.7 tons each (note this is topsoil I'm getting).

[Andy Burns]

They tend to be sold as 850Kg bags, not 1 tonne.