What would you do??

I am now a married homeowner with a honey that has made a LONG list. We bought a house on 5 acres and need to clear about 3 acres of it. I am not going to chop any of the big trees until we have cleared the under brush and can see whats healthy. Here"s the dilema, to rent a dozer to clear the underbush its 1000 bucks for a week plus 250 dollars to deliver and pick up. The guy at the rental store said that many people in our area (Brazos Cnty TX) have rented a tracked skid steer and had great success. The majority of the scrub brush is yaoupon about 3inch in diameter. The skidd steer will cost 630 for a week and I can pick that up with my truck and trailer. What would you do? I have a whole week off work to do this. So time isnt a huge issue. Also the skidd comes with a grapple bucket to move the debris. Thanks for the advice.

Caleb, at best you've got your work cut out for you. About a year ago just up over the Michigan line I saw a dozer starting to clear a woodsy area, I'm guessing about the same size you're talking about for some new homes going up by a lake. I thought, "Man, thats going to take some time". Passed by about a week later and was all cleared. Were probably maples and/or oaks in passing without taking a real good look, and densly grown in with a lot of brush. Don't under estimate a dozer and a good operator, I guess. That stuff's still gotta be cut up, but 3 acres if the wood's any good oughta be well seasoned by this coming winter, and winters to come. Got a fire place or wood burner? Get one if you don't.

Good luck, you've got your work cut out for you.

Mark

You would know your ground better than any of us would, but three acres isn't that much ground to cover. Then there is the "man toys" aspect of all this. Make sure your wife doesn't read this.

I wonder if the dozer is available on a daily rate, and what it would cost to have the work custom done. A good dozer operator could probably do in a day what would take an amateur all week.

What's your disposal plan? Do you intend to push up slash piles and burn them? You may need that skid steer longer than a week, or you could use a utility tractor after the initial clearing is done.

Now I think you've answered your own question. Seems pretty clear you want to get the skid loader.

Now. She made a LONG list. Remember that as soon as you've got this done she'll jump on you for the next one. And sometimes doing the to-do list can run into big money fast. So I would rent neither, and go clear it all out with a chain saw and drag out all the brush either by hand or with a log chain tied to the bumper on the pickup. Remember you're in no hurry, a lifetime is a long time and if you get too johnny-on-the-spot with that list, she'll run you around until you find yourself walking down the road talking to yourself. Even better to drag all the brush out by hand and make her help.

A tractor with a westendorf loader in low gear and half-throttle beats any skidloader. If you're in a hurry to get this job done, that is.

How big is the dozer? I could clear 3 acres in a day with a small dozer, say a d-3 cat.

That"s one of the things that happens around here is somebody purchases in the country to be closer to nature.
The new owners go out and cut down and cleanup their lot so it looks like a golf course.
Now the new owners are all angry with farmers, & hunters because all the cute little creatures are gone.
Well maybe the critters are gone because the new owners removed the food and habitat?
Around here I just cut the thorn trees and push them into a pile. Makes great spot for bunny rabbits.
Tomorrow I"m picking up two new foam filled tires because I"m tired of flats.

Unless your doing long distances hauling materials, a skid steer and especially a tracked one will do circles around an AG tractor and loader. No comparison. You do need to have more operator skill to run a skid steer effectively. Stumps and rocks are hard on the rubber tracks though. If you've never run a skid steer or done brush work, hire it out. Too many potential problems with getting seriously injured or having major repairs to the machine. Even a bigger skid steer with tires could probably do a nice job in a hurry if the ground is firm and the trees aren't too big. As was said, a good operator can make a difficult job look easy and do it much faster. Dave

A tractor, ripper and take your time,when it's done you still have the tractor and ripper.

I agree with Mark. If you don't have some type of wood stove, or wood burner. I'd sure as heck put one in. The way Fuel Prices are going, I'd burn as much wood as I can.
I heat my house with wood. I don't burn any Furnace Oil at all. Personally, I'd forget both the Dozer, and the Skid steer, and buy a decent Chain Saw.
I'd cut all the wood you can, into 12" or 16" lengths. The smallest I'd cut the branches, would be 2" in diameter. If the big blocks are 10" and above, Split them in half. Pile the wood on top of skids, or planks in rows so the wood will dry quicker, and by mid October, put in somewhere dry. By far wood is the cheapest wood to heat with.
You can get good used chainsaws quit reasonable, on eBay. Or you can take the money, that you plan to use to rent the doz er, or skid steer.
a Husqvarna, as far as I know is the top saw right now. Stihl is next in line. Get something with at least 16" bar length, and capability of at least a 24" bar, that way you don't buy too small, and wish you bought bigger later.
Up in your Google box, enter Arboristsite.com.
when you get there, register your self, like you did for this website, go to chainsaws, forum, and ask for suggestions, and recommendations for chainsaws. It wood be a real shame if you shoved all that into a pile, and Just Burn it. Man this winter is going to be a lot like last year. Signs are already showing, of an early winter. If you don't cut it as fire wood, I guarantee it during the winter months, you will be KICKING YOUR SELF IN THE PANTS!!!
Personally this is what I'd sure in the world would do. Bruce.

Before you rent a machine you might want to check on hiring someone with a machine that comes with an operator that knows how to run it.
Neighbor rented a backhoe for a week did so much damage he had to hire a guy to come in and fix his mess.Operating heavy equipment correctly ain't as simple as it looks

Work is the best stress reliever. And you'll see more than your share as long as you're a married homeowner. I'd buy a decent (not from HD or walmart) chain saw and a good brushcutter that has both string and blade cabability (harness and handlebars will keep you young), put yourself together a good collection of shovel, rake, axe, and pick, and get ready to enjoy life. Keep your stuff in good working order and invite the author of the Honeydo book to spend a few hours with you. Worse thing you can do is let her watch a home-improvement program or video. My wife really believes that you can remodel a house in an hour. While I'm at it, don't let her read magazines like Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and anything like them. If she starts, just trade in the saw and other tools for a spoon and pocket knife, you'll want all the quality time in the brush that you can get.

Good Luck,


Dave

consider a small excavator. you can dig individual plants without moving anywhere near as much dirt with it, you can pull up and move the plants 30-40 ft with out moving your tracks. you can make passes through windrowing the vegetation, then go back through converting the windrows into piles. An awful lot of work gets done on sites very fast with these simply because of the swing and reach, and it really doesn't take that long to get pretty quick running one. From my experience its easier to learn than a skidsteer.

I'd think that if you're just clearing out underbrush so that you can get a better look at what you have... then you want to do as little damage as possible. Get a good chain saw and a spacing saw and go at it with that.
The thing with dozer's is this... You go into that mess with your typical dozer from the rental store, you won't have a forestry package... so you lose lights, you bust glass, you drop trees on the roof, you tear the exhaust off, you get rocks stuck in the under gear because it's not guarded properly, ETC. BT/DT spent many hours clearing land with a dozer that IS guarded. These things happen to seasoned, professional operators, not just rookies. That's why forestry machines are specially guarded for their work. How much damage do you want to pay for at the end of the week??
On top of that, if you're crawling around between trees that you want to save, you will do damage to the roots and often to the trunks of the larger trees, no matter how hard you try no to damage them.
So... again, I would suggest that you thin it manually, see what you have, and then clear what you want clear later on.

Rod

Hire it out to a guy who knows how to operate the equipment. Probally could be cleared in less than a day.

10 years ago I had a 2+ acre creek bank project done. Finished in 3 hours with the right tools and skilled operator.

if you have that nasty texas scrub type stuff,that eats you alive if you try to get off into it [ guess how i know] there is another way to clear it, you'll have to call around to see who has this but there is a attachment that goes on a skid steer [ get the tracked skid steer only dont even consider the wheeled ones] its called a masticator, im not sure im spelling it corectly, but it eats this stuff up, one of my customers has one from cat, he bought his and it was high dollar, but he has hundreds of acres to thin, on the thiner stuff ive seen his operator nail a acre in a hour and a half, and take a day in a conifer forrest type area he was chewing up trees 4 to 6 inches in diameter, down to scrub oak, might try that

I'm NE of Dallas. I did the same thing 5 years ago. Hire out the work. As mentioned below, you don't want to be responsible for the equipment. Unless you're very familiar with the machine you'll be renting, a professional will save you money and do a better job that you can. Good luck.

Caleb,
Check around here, there are several contractors who can clear the whole property for you and push it up into piles for burning or there is one company that will grind eveything and leave the wood on the ground for mulch. Check the BTU magazine in the back. Most operators will work for $100 per hr. They bear all the expense and if anything breaks they fix it. I can give you some names. Once you get the property cleared like you want it you will need a donkey to pet and he will make a great pet. Contact me.

Just did some clearing like that, rented a Asv tracked skid loader with a MegaMulcher(I think that's what it was called) attachment. The attachement is design to grind up anything in its path up to 4/5" trees, and no disspointment here, it worked awesome. It made short work of an otherwise teribble job. Scrub brush is all gone and everyone is happy.

I think everyone missed the real problem here. First line and the root of the problem...."I am now a married homeowner with a honey that has made a LONG list." Nuff said? LOL!

Thanks for the replies. I have a 3720 JD with a loader but I dont want to tear it up any more than I already have doing this. I own a craftsman chainsaw(I was told they are made by Husqvarna) and it works well. I know I dont have enough time to go through the whole thing with the chainsaw. I called an operator of the little skidsteer mulcher monster thing and they wanted somewhere near 2 grand. I thought that was kinda high. My neighbor is friends with a guy that owns a large dozer operation and I have yet to call him. My biggest problem is that I love operating construction equipment (I am very good at most everything but a grader) and dont want to watch someone else. Im not a city slick moved country and Im not clearing ALL the land, almost two acres are going to stay natural because I want the critters to have a home. I dont plan on cutting any live trees big enough to make firewood other than one big one near the house that just died this spring. Thanks for the replies and I will keep you up to date.