Removed a giant stump with a tiny cubota
Hey, guys. It's been a long time since I logged in, but I still have a Kubota U35-4 mini excavator and I still love it.
This year we decided to buy a small plot of land (0.3 acres) in the city, and I brought U35 to it to use it in the construction of a house. We are going to build the house ourselves, my wife designed and modeled it all using CAD. We plan to professionally make the foundation up to the mud rapids, and then build from there. However, due to the viral situation, it is very difficult to find any contractors. I decided to start clearing the area after we removed some 28-inch ponderosa pines, and one of the stumps turned out to be right on the site of the future house.
Can U35 remove it? They said it was impossible. It would take a week.
Challenge accepted!
Four hours later, I have a hefty hole and a stump out of it that probably weighs half of the 8,000 lb U35-4. I had to cut off the two main roots with a chainsaw after digging around them with a smaller bucket, and then I was able to rock and loosen the stump, and then roll it out. Then I pulled out two taproots.
So now I have a pretty big hole that I will need to plug and fill. I could leave this for a future foundation team, or if we end up trying to make a foundation on our own, I would need to learn how to properly compact the soil. Most likely, there will be a foundation somewhere right above this area.
If I squeezed it, how would I approach it? I can read about it, but I was thinking about loading the dump truck with the correct fill and renting a jump jack sealer, and then filling half a foot at a time, compacting it between each layer.
Alternatively, maybe I could find a hydraulic mount for Kubota? Do they even make it so small? I don't know, it might be too much work...Again, they said I wouldn't be able to pull this stump out!
