Land Clearing Job, any advice will be greatly appreciated. Anyone used a Fecon?

[ChipDoogle]

Hi there, have not been on here for awhile but have got some great advice hear in the past. I mostly do residential trimming and removals. Have cleared some back yards 1 / 2 acre or so took down the trees, grinded out stumps, brought in dirt / regraded and seeded with great results. The property I looked at yesterday is about 450' by 60 ' with some mature trees but tons of undergrowth all through out from mulberry's , all kinds of sticker bushes and other under canopy growth. Basically you can't even walk through it. It needs to all be cleared, topsoil dug out and stone brought in. It's gonna be a parking area for a car lot. Dropping all the trees is no biggie. But I got to thinking it would take forever to cut out all the small stuff to chip, handling all the stickers,and not to mention the gazillion little stumps I would have to get once it was cleared. I have seen the Fecon type units on youtube, looks pretty badass. My question is has anybody had experience with them? Can I grind all the smaller stuff up, including grinding the stumps down into the ground with a Fecon type head on a skidsteer? And hit the bigger stumps with my grinder? Does this sound like the most efficient way to do the job. Obviously I would imagine there would be a ton of chip debris after running a fecon through there, my idea was to go through and grind everything with the fecon, then come back with a non toothed bucket to scoop up and haul off all the chips / debris. Then do my digout and bring in stone to finish it off. I have to get all the grindings / debris and digout the topsoil to avoid settling. Any one with any experience with this type machine or job that could point me in the right direction to tackle this job would be great. Also does anyone know if the fecon heads can be rented that would mount onto a 100hp tracked cat skidder? I am in the central Indiana area, Im gonna try bobcat and cat in the morning to see if they can get one.

Thanks, Ryan

 

[no tree to big]

yea that is the exact thing a forestry mower is designed for you can do a pretty good job grinding everything up including the small stumps we have one at work and its pretty badass depending on the bobcat dealer normally you can rent them from there.

 

[sgreanbeans]

If you can tear up the yard, which it sounds like ur going to anyway, leave the stumps up a few feet, then instead of the Fecon, you can get a mini excavator with a thumb and pop them out, much quicker than grinding. If you have a hard time getting rid of stumps, get 40yd a dumpster, throw the stumps in there and pour garbage from your house on top. Then it goes to regular dump vs compost, much cheaper. We cut of the roots on the bigger one's so they lay in better. Sounds crazy, but I have done lots and lots of..........lot clearing. The grinder will obviously work, but when you have 8 gazzilion little stumps, it takes for ever. The mini will have nothing for the mature tree stumps, but it speeds up the little ones, grinding them all will take forever because of the number. If u can get a grapple for brush, we go thru and get all brush on the ground in bundles so the machine can come and pick them, if the brush is real nasty, we throw that in a dumpster as well, just remember to top it off with some good ol house garbage, save the mula!

 

[2treeornot2tree]

If you can tear up the yard, which it sounds like ur going to anyway, leave the stumps up a few feet, then instead of the Fecon, you can get a mini excavator with a thumb and pop them out, much quicker than grinding. If you have a hard time getting rid of stumps, get 40yd a dumpster, throw the stumps in there and pour garbage from your house on top. Then it goes to regular dump vs compost, much cheaper. We cut of the roots on the bigger one's so they lay in better. Sounds crazy, but I have done lots and lots of..........lot clearing. The grinder will obviously work, but when you have 8 gazzilion little stumps, it takes for ever. The mini will have nothing for the mature tree stumps, but it speeds up the little ones, grinding them all will take forever because of the number. If u can get a grapple for brush, we go thru and get all brush on the ground in bundles so the machine can come and pick them, if the brush is real nasty, we throw that in a dumpster as well, just remember to top it off with some good ol house garbage, save the mula!

Around here, if you put garbage on top of the tree debris, they would charge you more because they would see it when they dump it. I used the forestry mower heads for a skid steer. They work great for stuff under 4", bigger then that they suck.

 

[D&B Mack]

Not sure what you are doing with the topsoil, but if you are not using it on-site, your grindings can be mixed and loaded to off-site with topsoil.

However, I would just take a brush grapple (you are not much over half an acre, so on a tracked skid steer?) remove the undergrowth and drop your trees and pop the stumps.

 

[beastmaster]

I don't know it it matters in your situation, but grinding leaves a lot of chips that may cause problems with compaction later on. Sounds like a small cat would come in handy. You could remove topsoil and stumps in one swipe. Then put in all in an end dump, and haul it a way. Good money in land clearing jobs, but the dump fees can kill you if you don't allow for them.
I have rented self propelled brush hogs and they mow down that stuff pretty fast, but then your struck with low stumps.
A mini excavator does work slick for popping small stumps, so does several hard working guys and some maddoxes if the stumps aren't to big or to many. Iv'e pulled a lot of small stumps 2 to 4 inches with a chain and my jeep. A root ripper on the bobcat can take care of smaller stumps sometimes and clean up the top soil. Lots of places won't except soil with chips in it for the reason I first mentioned. Compaction issues

 

[capetrees]

Definately cut the trees first, leave the stumps up for easy picking later with an excavator and then Fecon or brushhog the entire lot, scraping the debris up and carting it off. The debris can be re-used in a compost pile for loam later in life.

Three different companies I'm familiar with just did this exact process in my area recently and it went really smooth.

 

[sgreanbeans]

Around here, if you put garbage on top of the tree debris, they would charge you more because they would see it when they dump it. I used the forestry mower heads for a skid steer. They work great for stuff under 4", bigger then that they suck.

Here its opposite. They charge 4 times more for the compost facility, if it has garbage in it, it goes to regular trash dump.

 

[2treeornot2tree]

The landfills around here, have a seperate place to dump woody yard waste. They then have a big tub grinder come in ever once in a while and they grind it all up into mulch. I think the dump fee is only like $15 a load for woody waste. I am lucky though. I got plenty of places to dump wood waste for free.