How long to clear 5 acres?

[DK13]

I have 5 acres that is wooded and is mostly 3-8inch trees with some decent size trees in the mix. I'm renting an E50 11,000lb excavator with a hydraulic thumb for 7 days here in a couple weeks & I'm wondering if this will be enough time to clear it? I'm just putting them in a pile and going to burn everything. I'm very familiar with excavator operation & snapping roots, but haven't had much experience in knocking trees over/plucking smaller trees up. I've uploaded 3 pictures of the land.
Thanks!

 

[skyking1]

that's pretty sparse. I'd say yes.

 

[ianjoub]

A 7 day rental may only allow 40 hours.

What is the soil consistency? Where I am it is all sand. Stuff comes out very easily.

 

[Tinkerer]

Welcome to HEF, DK13
Clear it ?
That is little vague as to what you are going to do with the trees.
If you are going to remove them off of the entire 5 acres that will be a lot of travel time with an excavator
I dunno, some of those bigger ones will take a little time depending on your skill level with a tracked excavator.
Does it have a thumb on it ?
That will make a big difference in the time it will take to handle those little ones.

 

[DK13]

A 7 day rental may only allow 40 hours.

What is the soil consistency? Where I am it is all sand. Stuff comes out very easily.

Welcome to HEF, DK13
Clear it ?
That is little vague as to what you are going to do with the trees.
If you are going to remove them off of the entire 5 acres that will be a lot of travel time with an excavator
I dunno, some of those bigger ones will take a little time depending on your skill level with a tracked excavator.
Does it have a thumb on it ?
That will make a big difference in the time it will take to handle those little ones.

Yes it has a thumb. I am going to clear almost all the trees but maybe 15-20 big trees. I'm just going to put the trees & brush in 4-5 big piles as close to me as possible so I don't have to drive a lot

 

[Delmer]

Carrying to one pile per acre, I don't think it's enough time. Some of those trees look big enough to eat up a lot of time. The little ones will pull and pile where you can reach them reasonably quickly. Having to dig roots, then dig further out because you can't break big roots will eat up time, carrying them to one pile per acre will eat up a lot of time.

The soil is a wildcard, hard dry clay could make it tough, dry sand could make it easier than damp sand. I doubt it's wet.

 

[Tones]

To speed this operation up use a single tyne ripper and combine it's use with the thumb. There's less ground disturbance also. Build lots of small heaps. 2 reasons, 1 less travel time and 2, the fires won't get hot enough to kill the enzymes in the soil . Don't get gunho dropping trees like smashing them down, take it easy and lower them, it saves a lot of cleanup time.
Once you get the hang of it an acre a day should be easy to achieve.


PS. When ripping out trees only rip around 3 sides, the 4th side is a hinge and prevents the tree coming back on you.

 

[mowingman]

No, you can not get it cleared and stacked in a week. Last year, I just retired from land clearing. I did about 300 acres of woodland that looks similar you yours. Stacking everything in piles is going to eat up your time. If the excavator could just work at popping trees and rootballs out of the ground, you might be able to do it in a week. You need to get a tracked skidsteer, and hook it up to a root grapple bucket. Let the excavator yank out the brush and trees, and use the skidsteer for moving and stacking the brush and trees. The excavator will be very inefficient at moving stuff into piles.

 

[Tinkerer]

No, you can not get it cleared and stacked in a week. Last year, I just retired from land clearing. I did about 300 acres of woodland that looks similar you yours. Stacking everything in piles is going to eat up your time. If the excavator could just work at popping trees and rootballs out of the ground, you might be able to do it in a week. You need to get a tracked skidsteer, and hook it up to a root grapple bucket. Let the excavator yank out the brush and trees, use the skidsteer for moving and stacking the brush and trees. The excavator will be very inefficient at moving stuff into piles.

Dk13 won't get any better advice than you posted, mowingman.

A single tine ripper could be worthless on some big trees depending on the tree species and the root ball it has. IMHO.
I spent a lot of time removing some big trees with equally big tap roots.

 

[DK13]

To speed this operation up use a single tyne ripper and combine it's use with the thumb. There's less ground disturbance also. Build lots of small heaps. 2 reasons, 1 less travel time and 2, the fires won't get hot enough to kill the enzymes in the soil . Don't get gunho dropping trees like smashing them down, take it easy and lower them, it saves a lot of cleanup time.
Once you get the hang of it an acre a day should be easy to achieve.


PS. When ripping out trees only rip around 3 sides, the 4th side is a hinge and prevents the tree coming back on you.

good advice. Do you think an acre a day is doable after I adjust with an 8 hour engine limit per day? 56 max engine hours for the 7 days I'm renting it. Also I am renting a Yanmar 80 now from someone else that doesn't have a 40 engine hour max (8hrs/day - 56hr max) & get this. It's $50 cheaper & they're going to deliver it to me!

 

[skyking1]

you get 40 hours for a week rental. If you go over hours you get to go over days too.

 

[mowingman]

I believe you can probably do an acre/day, if you are an experienced operator. This is digging up brush, dropping trees, and pulling out root balls. You will not be able to move and stack, just leave everything on the ground for later cleanup. If not very experienced on digging up trees and brush, you can waste a bunch of time on that excavator, before you know it.

 

[mudober]

Wrong machine for clearing in my opinion. You would get it done much quicker and finished off with a track loader like a 955l or a 953.

 

[CM1995]

Welcome to the Forums DK13!

An 11K lb mini ex is woefully small for clearing 5 acres of what you pictured in 7 days. Your trees and terrain are similar to ours. A 6" hickory for example is going to give an 11K lb machine fits.

If I was bidding this job I would price a 321/325 55K lb hoe combined with our 953C for 5 days to clear, grub all the roots, rake the surface and burn the piles. Now that would leave a topsoil surface ready to hydroseed, not lawn quality smooth but pasture smooth.

Just my $.02.

 

[southernman13]

Spot on CM

 

[Lagwagon]

Welcome to the Forums DK13!

An 11K lb mini ex is woefully small for clearing 5 acres of what you pictured in 7 days. Your trees and terrain are similar to ours. A 6" hickory for example is going to give an 11K lb machine fits.

If I was bidding this job I would price a 321/325 55K lb hoe combined with our 953C for 5 days to clear, grub all the roots, rake the surface and burn the piles. Now that would leave a topsoil surface ready to hydroseed, not lawn quality smooth but pasture smooth.

Just my $.02.

CM out if interest is this with the 2 machines working in unison or dig then rake?

 

[CM1995]

CM out if interest is this with the 2 machines working in unison or dig then rake?

Working in unison. Take the larger trees down with the hoe and the scrub with the loader. The hoe can knock the root balls clean and the loader can carry or drag to pile.

For burning I prefer to do a pit with spoils cast to the rear of the pit to deflect the heat and use a solid log as a fire poker. Keeps the machine out of the fire.

Burning some brush from a condo job.