Shop Build. Finally Broke Ground.

[greenbeast]

Where we live I have nice Bermuda lawn around the shop. The tracks tear it up very easily and we use small tractor to mow with or do most things around the house, shop and front pond.

If i used the skid steer everywhere we would be repairing all the grass.

With the quick attach on small 35hp Kubota I can easily swap the pallet forks.

 

[Waorani]

Another vote for dedicated forks over bolt-on. Probably easier to see what you're doing on a track loader but dedicated forks are already hard enough to see on a small tractor that I can't imagine trying to use the bolt-ons.

 

[greenbeast]

Your also always having to adjust width of the forks and it lots easier to do with my current ones than what I assume would take longer with bolt ons.

 

[BadReligion]

What are you guys using to grease all of the zerks? I'm already at 10 hours on the mini ex and there are like 10+ zerks per machine that need grease every 10 hours or so. Hand pump grease gun is not fun. Milwaukee M18 grease gun?

 

[greenbeast]

I have one of the Dewalt battery powered grease guns. Saves a bunch of time. I’m sure Milwaukee would be a good one also.

Like the mini ex, my bat wing mower has a bunch.

 

[BadReligion]

Trial by fire with the mini ex. After a few hours of messing around with grubbing, it was on to trenching. In theory its a fairly repetitive process, except when you encounter boulders bigger than your trench. The worst is when you have a giant boulder 2-3" into your 24" trench. The smart thing to do would be to grab the 12" trench bucket and make a 20" trench past the obstacle, but the stubbornness in me leads to digging a 60" wide section just to get the rock out. It's frustrating yet satisfying at the same time. Took about 8 hours to do 100' at 5' deep. The last 20' feet or so have been especially difficult. I really hope it's just an isolated boulder field. It is really impressive what the mini ex can lift. Some of those boulders must be 1000# +.

My son is 4', so as long as he is a bit below the top of the trench, I'm good.

These deer were curious as to what I was doing. Definitely suburban deer as they did not seem to mind me working at all.

Got the flue installed for the wood boiler, and just dropped the 500g thermal storage tank in place. Plumber is supposed to get the last of the hydronic system hooked up next weekend so hopefully we can get the shop heated enough to proceed with drywall mud/tape.

 

[Jdc1]

Trial by fire with the mini ex. After a few hours of messing around with grubbing, it was on to trenching. In theory its a fairly repetitive process, except when you encounter boulders bigger than your trench. The worst is when you have a giant boulder 2-3" into your 24" trench. The smart thing to do would be to grab the 12" trench bucket and make a 20" trench past the obstacle, but the stubbornness in me leads to digging a 60" wide section just to get the rock out. It's frustrating yet satisfying at the same time. Took about 8 hours to do 100' at 5' deep. The last 20' feet or so have been especially difficult. I really hope it's just an isolated boulder field. It is really impressive what the mini ex can lift. Some of those boulders must be 1000# +.

My son is 4', so as long as he is a bit below the top of the trench, I'm good.

These deer were curious as to what I was doing. Definitely suburban deer as they did not seem to mind me working at all.

Got the flue installed for the wood boiler, and just dropped the 500g thermal storage tank in place. Plumber is supposed to get the last of the hydronic system hooked up next weekend so hopefully we can get the shop heated enough to proceed with drywall mud/tape.

I feel your pain- just did about 200’ for my gas line. Only needed to be 18” deep. The first 150’ went by as planned. The last 50’ were a different story, 2 boulders and probably the foundation to the original cabin that was near where the house sits.

 

[knuckle47]

Looks like another reason we never built a house in that northern Vermont property we had…granite boulders and you need a deep well thru it

 

[BadReligion]

I feel your pain- just did about 200’ for my gas line. Only needed to be 18” deep. The first 150’ went by as planned. The last 50’ were a different story, 2 boulders and probably the foundation to the original cabin that was near where the house sits.

Find anything cool around the old cabin foundation?

 

[BadReligion]

Looks like another reason we never built a house in that northern Vermont property we had…granite boulders and you need a deep well thru it

You were one state away from "The Granite State." I'm guessing they call it that for a reason.

Luckily most of my granite is more of the DG type.

The boulder field I encountered was only 30' long. Back to semi easy digging. 150' down, 650' to go.

 

[Jdc1]

Find anything cool around the old cabin foundation?

No- we’ve looked. The existing house is 1850s, supposedly they distilled moonshine during prohibition. The still was never found and is buried somewhere on the 5 acres.

 

[BadReligion]

No- we’ve looked. The existing house is 1850s, supposedly they distilled moonshine during prohibition. The still was never found and is buried somewhere on the 5 acres.

That's neat history. I'd start looking for the old outhouse location..usually 50'+ off the rear of the foundation, using a metal probe. You poke around until you hit a soft or hollow spot in the ground, then start digging. Lots of really cool old bottles (whiskey, medicine, perfume) were thrown in the pit. If the house was used for a long time, there's probably a few pits.

If you don't already have a metal detector, that might aid in finding the still!

 

[Jdc1]

That's neat history. I'd start looking for the old outhouse location..usually 50'+ off the rear of the foundation, using a metal probe. You poke around until you hit a soft or hollow spot in the ground, then start digging. Lots of really cool old bottles (whiskey, medicine, perfume) were thrown in the pit. If the house was used for a long time, there's probably a few pits.

If you don't already have a metal detector, that might aid in finding the still!

A few years ago, a 90yo women who grew up here stopped and spoke to us about how it was, there are several out house locations along with the original cistern. The previous owners went through with a fine tooth, i’ve used the metal detector but haven’t come up with anything worthwhile.

 

[BadReligion]

Halfway there. 400' to go. Excavator now has 45 hours on it. I probably spent 10 of those grubbing, and my first 10 hours trenching were not all that efficient, but now it kind of looks like I know what I am doing. After the boulder field, I hit this monster that was the size of the mini ex. I thought about getting an impact hammer attachment, or going up the street and offering the guys running a full size excavator on a nearby job a few hundred $$ to pluck it out, but decided doing a slight "S" curve around it made the most sense. Mercifully, as soon as I passed it, the soil changed from a really hard packed material to a much softer sandy loam that was really easy to dig. It would be interesting to have a geologist on site during the trenching, but I'm guessing the end of the boulder field corresponded with some underlying geological change.

I now see why most long term equipment operators have bad knees. The constant jumping in and out of the machine, and jumping into the trench to check depth really beats you up. Some type of laser range finder attached to the bucket would be awesome.

Ironically the agency that has been the absolute most difficult to work with on access and power easements (USFS) has these markers that are perfect depth gauges. The top of the first yellow sign is exactly 60".

 

[knuckle47]

Do you really live on a street? And then, do that many people on this street have that many excavators that you could randomly hire someone to pull this boulder? Of course I’m kidding but wow….ypu have some trench going on….im truly impressed especially that you’re going on only 45 hours

 

[GeoRoss]

Halfway there. 400' to go. Excavator now has 45 hours on it. I probably spent 10 of those grubbing, and my first 10 hours trenching were not all that efficient, but now it kind of looks like I know what I am doing. After the boulder field, I hit this monster that was the size of the mini ex. I thought about getting an impact hammer attachment, or going up the street and offering the guys running a full size excavator on a nearby job a few hundred $$ to pluck it out, but decided doing a slight "S" curve around it made the most sense. Mercifully, as soon as I passed it, the soil changed from a really hard packed material to a much softer sandy loam that was really easy to dig. It would be interesting to have a geologist on site during the trenching, but I'm guessing the end of the boulder field corresponded with some underlying geological change.

I now see why most long term equipment operators have bad knees. The constant jumping in and out of the machine, and jumping into the trench to check depth really beats you up. Some type of laser range finder attached to the bucket would be awesome.

Ironically the agency that has been the absolute most difficult to work with on access and power easements (USFS) has these markers that are perfect depth gauges. The top of the first yellow sign is exactly 60".

Best guess is you are moving through the interfingering layers of a prograding (growing) alluvial fan. How far from the mountain front are you? Usually the rock size gets smaller the farther away you are. You’ve found some big boys so far.

 

[BadReligion]

Best guess is you are moving through the interfingering layers of a prograding (growing) alluvial fan. How far from the mountain front are you? Usually the rock size gets smaller the farther away you are. You’ve found some big boys so far.

3 miles from what I would consider the base. Reading the geotech report from our property, they did mention the whole area was part of an alluvial fan. We are on some type of "bench", that then slopes quickly downward to a creek at the east property line. The grading contractor mentioned that our property had much less large rock than they usually see in the area. The jobsite 1/3 mile away has pulled some pretty serious rocks out of the ground.

The surface rocks at the east end of the property line do get bigger, but we don't have to do any digging there.

 

[BadReligion]

More machine time. Had a friend help me for most the day today. Having 2 people feels 4x more productive than 1. I was in the mini ex and he was moving dirt/rocks with the skid steer. After a bit, we had a pretty good system down. Some voice activated noise cancelling headsets (like the kind you use in small planes) might be a worthwhile purchase.

I need to figure out a better fuel situation. Currently, anytime I head to the property, I fill a 5g container of diesel, but both machines were empty, and the skid steer has a 27g tank so I decided to go for an early morning drive to the gas station that is 1 mile away. Got a few funny looks at the station. Long term, some above ground 250g tanks on site would be nice, one for diesel and one for gas. Maybe a mid size tank with a transfer pump in the interim that I can load/unload in one of the trailers.

First maintenance on the mini (50hr). I was going to do it outside but it started snowing. Then I realized I could pull it in the shop. Radiant system is not hooked up yet but just being out of the elements and on flat concrete made this job easy. Drive motor oil change, drain water from water separator, and a ton of grease on the turntable. Battery grease gun is a must. FSM doesn't call for an oil change until 500 hours but I felt better doing one early.

Cut quite a bit of this bank out. Plan is to extend the rock wall another 50-60 feet. Wife wants a chunk of lawn right where the remaining rock pile is. I'm getting good at moving rocks. I need to dig a spot for the vault transformer and trench the secondary wire run to the house. We plan on a decent sized solar system (60kw) so it probably makes sense to trench the conduit/wire going out to that too.

We've had a surprisingly mild winter so far. Not great for skiing, but perfect for dirt work. Hoping it stays that way.

 

[greenbeast]

Purchased my 300 gallon diesel tank off FB marketplace. Looks like you are getting some good use with the Kubotas!

 

[knuckle47]

My Nextdoor neighbor has these same pieces of Kubota equipment. He just bought some kind of stump grinder attachment for the excavator. This thing has a 36” flywheel and carbide teeth that even in the crate….looks mighty scary. I can’t imagine it spinning