Compact excavator.
Discussion
Bit of a piece of string question but if you had a compact excavator (1.5t ish) how much soil could you shift in a day (8 hours)? Putting in a wetland area thats going to be about 6 metres diameter and will be shelved (half will be about a metre deep the other half around 30cm). So about 19 metres3 in total by my maths. Flat site and easy access. No idea if this would be simply achievable or too much for a day. Anyone got any experience on this kind of thing?
eliot said:
just looked at hiring a 1.5t excavator and you can only get them for the week.
The one I hired was a 1.5 ton Kubota with 2 buckets and it was quite new and cost £115 inc vat and delivery, they dropped it off friday afternoon and picked it up monday morning. It looked like this
jeebus said:
eliot said:
just looked at hiring a 1.5t excavator and you can only get them for the week.
The one I hired was a 1.5 ton Kubota with 2 buckets and it was quite new and cost £115 inc vat and delivery, they dropped it off friday afternoon and picked it up monday morning. It looked like this
A lot of the hired Kubotas have chip in the key, which makes them a lot harder to steal, you will have to pay a fortune if you lose the key though.
You might get a choice of buckets, a grading or ditching bucket is a wide one with no teeth, handy for quick loading into skips, and levelling off the ground, and your digging buckets will be smaller, 1-2 foot wide, and usually have 2-4 teeth on them which makes it easier to break the ground. A grading bucket can be too wide and it can just spread the weight and not actually dig down.
Teeth are brilliant for making holes in gas mains, water mains, and pulling out electric cables, so do a full survey of where you'll be digging, try to find a services drawing for the house, and go round and find where all the pipes should be, look for stuff like lights or power going to the shed etc.
Also lift any manhole covers and get an idea of where the drainage is going.
If you hit power, water or gas etc, you'll need to call the relevant people, if you hit a sewer, get yourself a stihl saw with a diamond blade, and cut off the jagged edges, then get a section of clay pipe from a builder's merchant, and a couple of bandseals, which are rubber couplers with jubilee clips on them, as most likely the pipes you'll find are ancient salt glaze ones, and modern ones tend be have thinner stronger walls, so have a smaller outside diameter.
Remember to get a measurement of the pipe before you go!
You might get a choice of buckets, a grading or ditching bucket is a wide one with no teeth, handy for quick loading into skips, and levelling off the ground, and your digging buckets will be smaller, 1-2 foot wide, and usually have 2-4 teeth on them which makes it easier to break the ground. A grading bucket can be too wide and it can just spread the weight and not actually dig down.
Teeth are brilliant for making holes in gas mains, water mains, and pulling out electric cables, so do a full survey of where you'll be digging, try to find a services drawing for the house, and go round and find where all the pipes should be, look for stuff like lights or power going to the shed etc.
Also lift any manhole covers and get an idea of where the drainage is going.
If you hit power, water or gas etc, you'll need to call the relevant people, if you hit a sewer, get yourself a stihl saw with a diamond blade, and cut off the jagged edges, then get a section of clay pipe from a builder's merchant, and a couple of bandseals, which are rubber couplers with jubilee clips on them, as most likely the pipes you'll find are ancient salt glaze ones, and modern ones tend be have thinner stronger walls, so have a smaller outside diameter.
Remember to get a measurement of the pipe before you go!
Seems reasonable, assuming you get to grips with using it pretty quickly.
They are great for digging but laoding can take a while and, as has been said, if you need to move your spoil any distance it might be betterto hire a little dumper truck too. Cause they're effing slow.
You might be better with a backhoe for a large-ish area like that. See if you can find a one-man operator, should be abotu £200 for a day and he'll do so much more in a day with a 3CX than an inexperienced driver will with a mini digger.
I've done a fair bit of work with 1.5mt excavators and once my house was finished, wished I had just bought a 2nd hand backhoe and then sold it when I was done. As long ad they're in good condition they don't depreciate much and I spent a fortune on hiring the little ones
And yeah, it's good fun!
They are great for digging but laoding can take a while and, as has been said, if you need to move your spoil any distance it might be betterto hire a little dumper truck too. Cause they're effing slow.
You might be better with a backhoe for a large-ish area like that. See if you can find a one-man operator, should be abotu £200 for a day and he'll do so much more in a day with a 3CX than an inexperienced driver will with a mini digger.
I've done a fair bit of work with 1.5mt excavators and once my house was finished, wished I had just bought a 2nd hand backhoe and then sold it when I was done. As long ad they're in good condition they don't depreciate much and I spent a fortune on hiring the little ones
And yeah, it's good fun!
Thanks for all the replies. The spoil will be used to creat banks so won't be going far and it will be driven by a guy who is fairly experienced with 360s. He's a bit of a bulls
tter though so I like to get an outside perspective on it all, hence the thread. I don't think there are any pipes or cable but I'll do a few test holes with a spade around the area to see if I find anything.
tter though so I like to get an outside perspective on it all, hence the thread. I don't think there are any pipes or cable but I'll do a few test holes with a spade around the area to see if I find anything. 
With a 1.5 ton digger and a good driver...
If you have a decent sized dumper, you can dig and move anything up to a good couple of hundred tons per day.
If you dont have a dumper and only have to drag it say 10-15 meters, you could dig and move 10 tons in less than an hour,so say 60-70 in an 8 hour day with a few breaks.
If youve got the space get in a 5.5 - 7 ton machine.You will shift a weeks worth in a day.
If you have a decent sized dumper, you can dig and move anything up to a good couple of hundred tons per day.
If you dont have a dumper and only have to drag it say 10-15 meters, you could dig and move 10 tons in less than an hour,so say 60-70 in an 8 hour day with a few breaks.
If youve got the space get in a 5.5 - 7 ton machine.You will shift a weeks worth in a day.
Just read the post again.If its a 20m3 pond,and your digging it out and making banks around it, You should be able to dig it, move the soil to the side,and create shelves around the edge and hand fine tune the shape with a shovel and rake ,in a day for 1 man with a 1.5 t machine.
If the land is wet,you could end up making a nice quagmire.
If its in your back garden then check the run directions of the drains.More likely to come across a soak away pipe than sewers.most services should come in from the road, there again I hit a big cable that no one knew was there, about 3 metres down on a made up site that fed a oaps home next door.E board had no record of itand no way leave on it running across the land ,so didnt have to pay for it.
might be good idea to hire a cable finder if there may be a cable down there.
If its a boggy wildlife area, watch out for newts and reptiles etc or you may end up with English nature on your back.
If the land is wet,you could end up making a nice quagmire.
If its in your back garden then check the run directions of the drains.More likely to come across a soak away pipe than sewers.most services should come in from the road, there again I hit a big cable that no one knew was there, about 3 metres down on a made up site that fed a oaps home next door.E board had no record of itand no way leave on it running across the land ,so didnt have to pay for it.
might be good idea to hire a cable finder if there may be a cable down there.
If its a boggy wildlife area, watch out for newts and reptiles etc or you may end up with English nature on your back.
Edited by andyc. on Friday 16th October 21:55
Edited by andyc. on Friday 16th October 21:58
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