Clearing driveway and building site | Page 2 | Construction and DIY projects | Forums

Basically my thinking has been that while an experienced operator may do the work 4 times faster, that it may still be less expensive to rent and DIY.

All my quotes were lost to a bad hard drive so I need to get quotes again.

The thing is, I had 3 contractors quote me. They were all around the same. But when I had slept on it, I had different reservations about each.

Two of the 3 wanted to sell me some HDPE (plastic) culvert pipe for my land bridge at a good price. The prices were good, but what bothered me was that it was their response to me telling them that I wanted and had sourced and priced preformed concrete D shaped culvert pipes. I asked them how the HDPE compared to the preformed concrete in longevity, installation, and load bearing. Both told me the HDPE was comparable, and neither mentioned any differences in installation. WRONG.

Afterward I did more research as I had not even considered HDPE in my original research. The preformed concrete is more expensive upfront, but it is superior in every way. Furthermore, I learned that laying HDPE is complicated and very involved, and if done incorrectly will collapse because all the load bearing comes from the surrounding materials. If something went wrong and there was a collapse, those contractors would not make it right. NO THANKS.

So you can see why I am still considering DIY.

Well for the long term earthbag house, nothing will be done on that at all until I am moved onto the property and reasonably settled.

For the more immediate plan, I will be clearing somewhere between 100'x100' to 100'x200'.

I actually do not know what quality soil it has. I don't know how good the quality would be. I seem to recall something about the soil of a wooded area not being as good because the trees suck everything up. I have no idea if that has any truth to it or not.

My only plan to start with was to isolate the organic layer of soil into it's own pile.

I am wanting to have a giant moss bed rather than grass so I plan to collect as much moss from the areas to be excavated as possible to preserve it for the moss bed.

Are you suggesting that a landscaping company might want to buy my organic soil from me if it is of good quality?