Land clearing Hire/Rent

Have 24 acres with some brush and small trees have grown up over the years about 20 feet from the fence line. I have equipment (list below) but wondering if renting a CTL with a drum or brush cutter would be best bet. Could also hire someone but renting sounds like best route.

Seeing about $2K to rent from Sunbelt and could be CAT would be similar.

The land that needs clearing is hill sides, some kind of steep but not overly so. To use 955 might need to add some more cab guards, it has ROPS. Wouldn't feel comfortable getting the TLB in the area.

If you have never run a CTL with a mulcher then hire someone to do it. Why I say this is learning costs $$$$$$. If you PM me your details, I can pass it on to someone in your area so they can quote it

Thanks for the reply, I'm on the KY/TN border East of Nashville about an hour.

I'm not against hiring someone, but other then a roofing job I've been disappointed from folks I hire. Not that I'm a perfectionist, far from that, just looking at the job found I could have done better. This is mostly the reason I have all the equipment I have now. Time is money and machine upkeep cost, but most in my neck of the woods cannot be counted on

Tones nailed it, thrs more to it than just running over trees and mulchers are stupid expensive to maintain not to mention you will tear something up I all but guarantee you. By the time you rent a machine, buy fuel, replace the broken parts/teeth, get hit with a damage fee and pay for insurance on it which you will have to have a policy that covers replacement cost you could have sat in the shade drinking beer and watched someone else do it for you and saved money..

Maybe, have been taken to many times but time will tell. Hope to hear from someone who has rented one

If all else fails I can get it done with my 955

All, I'm probably like you. Years ago bought a 420D after I paid someone too much to dig 1500' of water line and I still ended up doing the cleanup work. Now have accumulated a C6500 dump, a D4G, a 289D, a 299D3, couple of tractors, and so on. And my day job is still in an office. Burning diesel around the property keeps me sane.

But- I have an AFE disc mulcher. Based on input from this forum, I bought it for my own use over a drum mulcher, because it supposedly cost less to operate, and may be better in rocky ground. And we have a lot of rocky ground. What I've found in clearing is that unless you can actually get into the ground, the mulchers (or anything actually) will leave small stumps. And as Tones said, there is a definite learning curve to operating. The disc mulcher also seems to leave more stringy material, and there will be longer pieces dropped that are challenging to go back and chew up. When I cleared some hillsides (stuff been un bushhogged for 20 years) with the dozer, I ended up with large piles that I have not yet been able to burn. The little saplings were too small to push out readily as they just bent over, so each one had to be rooted out with the corner of the 6 way. I had more damage to the topsoil than I anticipated. In hindsight, I believe a root rake would have been better than just a dozer blade. This experience caused me to buy the mulcher.

But- your other mention is a brush cutter. I have a small cheap one I use around some tough spots. But I have seen some of the heavy duty ones running that sure look like they can get close to mulcher work, without all the cost. Thompson Cat in Nashville has one at their annual demo day, and you can knock down most things, run back over to cut up, and if there are no rocks you can backdrag to pulverize similar to a drum mulcher. My experience seems to show less of a learning curve than a mulcher. For use like I understand you have, I'd sure give thought to that and take the occasional large tree with your loader.

There was another point here- there are a ton of operators out there hiring out that kind of work, that frankly are probably working for cost. It is probably a pretty good chance you can hire it done for not much more than rental, fuel, and time. The land clearing forums on FB are full of guys complaining about folks operating at or below cost by guys who just financed a machine & went to work to cover the payment and fuel. But doing that takes the fun away from you. If you hire it out- as we all know- the price you pay may not necessarily correlate to the quality. I've paid too much for poor quality, and have sometimes been very pleased with the value I got from hired work.

Just my opinions.

To quote a dozer man I hire, if you tear stuff up pushing dirt its your own fault. But trees want to kill you.

Thanks RT, appreciate your thoughts

and terex totally agree.

Some guys over at the forestry forum also mentioned about a PTO driven mulcher. Looked them up and could be another possibility to place in the mix. My 95hp tractor would work. Maybe a used one and resale when I'm done.

@ 95 hp, work will be slow on anything larger than 3". You will also require a hydrostatic transmission or a creeper-gear transmission in order to use a tractor type mulcher. Otherwise, you will be stalling the tractor constantly and/or burning up clutches. These PTO mulchers should work great for maintenance reclears (light stuff) where you can run over the material in a forward facing direction and hold a consistent speed.

Personally, other than my modified excavator, I only use purpose built land clearing machines to work my projects. Anything less is not built heavy enough for the constant abuse and horsepower requirements of this type of work. This keeps the cost per acre lower for my customers and keeps me working faster.

I am surprised if Sunbelt is now renting mulchers. Few rental places offer these due to the amount of maintenance and especially repairs required to keep them operational. Most places that I've looked into for special projects only rent for a month as a minimum term and also include the cost of a new set of teeth on top of that. It gets pricey, fast. My local rental house sends most of their rental request leads to me. I'm now working on my 24th year of mulching. Trust me, it takes a hard head and a willingness to repair to stay in this business.

Thanks, now that you mention hydrostat I can agree, would be rough on clutch, so I'll scratch that.

Update
Buddy down the road hired a guy with a mulcher and was paying 165 an hour. After about 6 hours or so, he stopped the guy and bought the whole outfit from him. Paid $68K for a Takeuchi and mulcher head with 240 hours on it

Might be borrowing it some time since lending him my stuff before

make a root rake and a tree pusher for the little cat D3. amazing what you can do.

When worked for the Utility as Mechanic we saw a great deal of severe service mowers/ROW clearing equipment, 6' Bush Hogs with 1/4" steel decks and 750# flywheels, drum mulchers by Kershaw on machines that required special permits to move. Enough busted glass to convert to Polycarbonate windshields where those did not fare much better. Is not much fun working on these, severe torque, severe blade erosion, throw rocks like shotguns, go thru vegetation like grain thru a goose. Right of Ways required everything you all noted as could be bluffs, stone outcrops, thick brush standing 4" apart for acres and acres. Personally I would hire it done as do not have the time anymore(AND Retired) to beat on these types of machines EVERY Day used.

This is what he has

Would be investing in Expanded steel for the Cab Door.

Would agree, the glass is no protection

Glass could be a weapon.

The industry standard is 1/2 thick lexan, NO GLASS windscreens on any machine involved with mulching. Expanded steel is a no go.

Tones said:

Expanded steel is a no go.

Click to expand...

How so?

Buddy says his machine has polycarbonite for door and overhead