Winter Digging

chrisherk

hello, new to the forum, and new to excavating. im bidding a house site with about a foot of snow on it, and maybe 6" of frost. Ive seen it without the snow. the owner really wants to start digging soon . Ive never dug in the winter. How much more work is involved? i have a regular price in mind but i dont really know what to expect. I have a JD120lc excavator to do the work thanks, chris

PipeGuy

If this is the model machine you've got


6" of frost shouldn't be much of an issue provided the machine you have isn't an old raggedy pos and the footprint of the house isn't crazy big. With that size hoe an 1800 SF basement is going to produce about 50 full buckets of frost material. Snow cover might even help matters in terms of delaying the deepening of frost. How long do you think it'll take to scrape up a bucketfull of frost? 50 buckets?

Glasshousebltr

SANTA!...SANTA!...Thats what I want for christmas!......

Bob

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jmic

Chris,
What I do is make sure you cover anything that you've dug to finish grade with 6"-8" of hay fluffed up to keep the frost out, or if you have blankets better yet, but I've always had good luck with hay. Also try to keep your spoils piled up as much as you can to minimise the amount of frost you have when you're ready to backfill. I don't know why but it seems like we always get alot of new starts this time of year, we have 4 to dig in the next month. Kidding aside we get them done, you just have got to stay on top of things and keep them covered.
Joe

chrisherk

pipeguy, once i pile up the frozen topsoil ( i also have 300' driveway to cut in) its useless till spring right? I like the hay idea. doyou guys also put hay in around the inside footings after the foundation goes in? would it be wise to put it on the whole floor until the concrete goes in? pipe guy, is that your machine? how come nobody moves their stick cylinder to the upper hole, you would get more power. but i dont see anyone doing it. this board rocks! chris

jmic

Yes we keep the whole slab area covered with hay till the house is set, then remove hay, put in temp. heat for a few days then pour slab.
Joe

PipeGuy

Dig a hole in an uncritical area of the lot, bury the frozen stuff and use the good stuff.


No. I have the orange flavored excavators. From what I understand they come down the same assembly line as the JD's, get a different motor and a different paint job and wind up here in America on the same boats.

jmic

Maybe you have inside work till spring to keep you busy. If not box it out and bring in the base material and build the driveway into the property, shoot even before you put in the base material , run your conduits back for utilities then put base material in. Nice job for this time of year.
Joe

chrisherk

unfortunatly, I have no idea where the pole is being set. I have a call in to the pow. co. but it will be weeks before i see them. I have to put the driveway in now. The cement trucks need to get down there.Its all sand under the top soil. The customer hired a builder to build a log cabin which is being delivered soon. this project has to be done now, unfortunatly. Oh by the way I just bought a brand new Cat D3G dozer, that thing rocks.
chris

jmic

Chris,
Congrats. on the purchase of the new dozer, thats a great machine! Do you have lots of room going up the shoulder of the drive for conduits or will they have to be close to driveway edge? If it's close I'de sched. a power rep. out there asap, find out what they require and run the conduits, even if you're not sure exactly where the pole is going just stay 20' or so away from road, cap and mark them for later, that way once you gravel drive you're not shlepping all over it getting it all f__ked up. Keep us posted on your progress!
Joe