When starting a construction project or clearing a raw piece of property, you consider several elements. Key among them is the local regulations on storm water distribution and collection, surface runoff, and how to handle certain waterways and plants. Once you have gotten the legalities out of your way, it is time to assess what needs to be cleared from your land to make it suitable for your project.
Rather than hire many people and spend ages clearing your land, you can get the job correctly and quickly done with the right heavy equipment. The earthmoving equipment you can hire from companies come in different rates and are primarily dependent on how long you will use the machines and whether or not you will use one of their machine operators. While most people will opt to hire inexpensive technicians, it is prudent to use the company’s technicians since this will minimize the risk of machine breakdown and its repair expenses. Moreover, an experienced technician will know what methods of preparation will work best for your landscape. The following are the techniques generally used for site preparation.
Bulldozing
If you want to prepare large tracts of land, bulldozing is the ideal choice for you since it is cheap and will take minimal time. Merely pushing the trees and bushes in your landscape out of the way using large bulldozers might however only flatten them and often leaves you with uneven ground. To this end, most sites use smaller machines like the skid-steer tractors with hydraulic shears for bulldozing. These will cut trees and bushes off the ground before hauling them off your land. This guarantees minimal damage to plants and leaves you with even ground.
Chain Saw Method
This is a substitute to bulldozing used for the removal of trees on small sites. It causes less erosion and land disruption compared to bulldozing but is expensive since it requires a larger workforce to operate the chain saws and takes time. The tree stumps on your land will be left as they are, and the bulldozers can then stomp them to the ground. With the chain saw method, you can also choose to cut some trees and leave others to provide a barrier between you and neighboring land lots.
Earth Grading
Grading gets rid of low-growing plants and rocks to make way for driveways, buildings, storm drains, and landscaping. Skid loaders and large backhoes are the choice machines used for earth grading. In the process, you can opt to collect the large rocks and use them for your landscaping while the dirt can be reused to finish the grading.
Compaction
The soil beneath a construction site’s foundation should be compacted to about 90% dry density. This decreases the settlement and permeability of the soil and consequently, the chances of the sinking of your structure’s foundation. The machines used for this include sheep foot and smooth rollers, tamping plate compactors, and crawlers.
In the past, site preparation meant burning of vegetation and the use of hand-held tools. The above methods are more eco-friendly and easier than these traditional alternatives. The technique you will use from the above is dependent on your site’s accessibility and its load-carrying capacity.
