Clearing land: 23 days of clearing = only 5 days of grinding

[mowingman]

We just finished clearing about 21 acres of thick brush and trash trees. My buddy and I used a Cat excavator and a T300 Bobcat to clear and stack all this mess. Took us 23 hard days of clearing. Next, the landowner had a local recycling company come in with a horizontal, 1050 HP grinder. It took their 2 man crew just 5 days of restacking and grinding to turn everything to piles of mulch. It was really something to watch.

 

[Old Doug]

That machine would be very handy.

 

[CM1995]

What size trackloader were they using? 953 or 63?

 

[mowingman]

They had a 953 with a solid bucket and teeth. The operator could push up smaller piles I had made with the T300, into one large pile of brush. Then they moved the grinder next to the pile and the excavator, with some type of "brush bucket/thumb, sorted out the dirt and fed the trees and brush into the grinder. He also had the remote that worked the grinder functions. The 953 would keep busy pushing brush and trees into the pile by the grinder, and now and then would knock down the grindings pile to keep it out of the conveyor head. It was a very efficient 2-man operation.

 

[CM1995]

A trackloader and trackhoe with 2 good operators can be very effective combination.

 

[Dmurphy116]

We just finished clearing about 21 acres of thick brush and trash trees. My buddy and I used a Cat excavator and a T300 Bobcat to clear and stack all this mess. Took us 23 hard days of clearing. Next, the landowner had a local recycling company come in with a horizontal, 1050 HP grinder. It took their 2 man crew just 5 days of restacking and grinding to turn everything to piles of mulch. It was really something to watch.View attachment 225617 View attachment 225618 View attachment 225619

What happens to all the mulch?

 

[CM1995]

What happens to all the mulch?

Well I don't know about MM's mulch but most of it here is used for boiler fuel in the paper mills or plywood factories.

 

[mowingman]

What happens to all the mulch?

The grinding contractor hauled off all the piles to their composting facility nearby, in Ft.Worth. They make and sell bulk mulch after it has been composted.
Jeff

 

[John C.]

Lots of the grindings here, locally known as hog fuel, end up back on the ground. It has a way of solidifying mud so that trucks can run on it without sinking.

 

[mowingman]

Almost all of the grinding piles around are hauled off to use in composting. Developers do not want the organic materials left on the ground and mixed in with any of the stockpiled topsoil. Plus, there is a really good market for composted mulch, and colored, bagged wood mulch.
Jeff

 

[Dmurphy116]

Lots of the grindings here, locally known as hog fuel, end up back on the ground. It has a way of solidifying mud so that trucks can run on it without sinking.

What exactly is “hog fuel?” Is it exactly what it sounds like?

 

[John C.]

Back when sawmills made their own power from boilers that were fueled with wood waste, all the trimmings from all the different saws were routed to a Hog which just a big grinder. All the collected saw dust was directed along with the product from the Hog to a fuel house. From there a flight conveyor pulled the wood waste from under the fuel house and up to the boiler feed chutes.

Anyway, when big grinders became mobile and the brush was ground down on site, the product was still called hog fuel. There used to be a co-generation plant in Tacoma that people would truck that stuff to for burning and still making electricity. I think it has been shut down for years now.

 

[Tony Wells]

There's fair money in making and selling ground organic materials. The main customer I have keeps about 35 acres covered in various stages all the way to enhanced/amended topsoil. They sell grindings to power plants, a national supplier of bagged mulch and chips, and mulch of various types to landscape companies and any individual who wants it. They will deliver or load the back of a customer's truck or trailer. It's good ecology as well. Most of the tree service companies and landscapers pay a little to dump on that site instead of paying the landfill, and it gets ground and screened, aged to whatever the market needs, and money is made from selling it. On average it takes a little over 3 months for most material to make it through the cycle, depending on what is needed. If it's hog fuel, it might get ground the day it is brought in. Other is shifted and blended as it composts and is kept turned by windrow machines to keep the temperature under control. It's surprising how hot decaying matter can get. It can spontaneously ignite. During the winter it's sort of weird to see these large heaps of material steaming off their moisture. There have been a few times where a pile or two burns. They were paying a guy to fly a drone over the area with an IR camera on the weekends, but I'm not sure they still use him. I tried to convince them to put up a network of solar powered FLIR cameras with an alarm point that would monitor the entire place but they didn't want to invest in it at the time.

That Diamond Z is an impressive machine. Top of the heap. It's no surprise they ground all that in just a few days. A couple of good operators and you'd have to clean down the pile it makes every hour or less. That's where it's nice to have the conveyor high enough to fill a truck, assuming you have a nearby place to haul to and a pair of trucks. By the time one could get back, there would be a pile to load, whereas you just pause your feed and swap trucks.....keep on grinding. The operation I service rough screens right out of of the primary grind and leaves some as ground, and regrinds the rest. There is really no waste. It's all handled after grinding with wheeled loaders. 3 or 4 running around all the time move and mixing. Right now it seems busy, so business is good. It changes in winter, of course. Less from the landscape buyers, but more from the tree guys, especially if we get an ice storm or two. I'd say there is about a year's worth of material in various stages there. It seems to be working out.

 

[John C.]

I don't know of anyone burning brush around here anymore. The grinders started showing up in the late nineties. Diamond Z was the best. I had two customers that had multiple units all radio controlled. Those two companies morphed into something else now and I don't see those units around anymore. They were amazing to watch. It's nice to hear that some sort of use can be made of the material. The woody stuff up here takes up to two years to degrade down to something that looks a bit like top soil. You have to mix some greenery or something that rots quickly in with those grindings to get them to break down.

 

[mowingman]

Around our town, it is impossible to turn grindings into good mulch, then sell it, as the City already does this at their landfill. For probably 20 years, the City has had a recycling operation at their landfill. you do have to pay to dump chips, brush, and tree trimmings, of course. However, the city then has a contractor come in with a big Diamond Z grinder, and turn everything into small chips. The City then windrows everything, mixes in treated solid waste, and some piles get sand or topsoil. These are turned with a windrow turner, allowed to compost, and become nice mulch of various types. Yes, I have seen these piles actually catch on fire, and they are hard to put out when they get to burning.
The city then sells these various types of mulch for just a little over cost, and uses it themselves on all kinds of city projects. The low cost makes it impossible for anyone local to compete. There is a big company that grinds and makes mulch about 40 miles from here. However, they serve a different market. It only takes a few months of composting, to turn these grindings into nice mulch products.