Question for experienced Dirtmen

[637slayer]

like deas plant said whatever you decide to do when you dig the dirt its almost always best to put it where you want it the first time you handle it. if you need to dry it and have the time and space spread it out and disc it let the top dry and disc it some more.

 

[Turbo21835]

Heres something to consider. Id first try a run with your single axle. Load it up and run it to where you want to dump the material. This will give you an idea on how roads are going to hold up to truck traffic. Really your going to need a dozer or grader to keep things smooth. One thing to consider is your cycle times. If your going to be hiring tandem axle dumps to come to you site your going to want to keep cycle times low. This could be difficult depending on how deep you have to dig. Im going to guess your going to want to go as deep as you can. This means a long cycle. It will take forever to get that bucket from the bottom of the hole to dump truck.

If I was going to be paying trucks here is how I would do things. It is probably a wash in the end as you'll be paying more in fuel rather than spending the money on trucks. I would set up on the edge of your excavation area. Then I would dig the material out. This would be about 1 and a half machine widths. I would throw everything into a long pile. Almost like you were trenching. Depending on how wet things are, this will help dry your material. Its getting it up out of the water table. Its also going to dry some as you handle it. Hopefully the material comes out dry enough you can sit on top of this pile that you just made. Try to keep it a few feet higher than the dump trucks are. Now youve got one long bench to sit on and load the trucks.

Now your handling the material twice. But its probably better in the long run. The more you move the material and break it up, the more its going to dry out. This way your doing all the slow work while the trucks are not around. Sitting on this bench is going to allow you to see into the dumps as you load them. You wont be reaching as far so youll be able to throw the material in the trucks faster.