Land Clearing

[Thronester]

Don't get lava envy!

[Chas]

Or lava regret!
[]

[Alpogi8]

[quote]Originally posted by kumarsah

Hello friends, I have previously asked questions on this topic and have received wonderful suggestions and advice. Your inputs have led me to refine my thoughts and ask one more round of questions and I thank you in advance for your response.

Background: I own 1 acre in Hawaii Paradise Park. It is currently covered in Uluhe ferns (as a ground cover, not too many trees - 10th avenue #1613- Between Paradise Park Drive and Kaloli Dr). I Don't plan to build a house on it for another 5 years (I currently live on the mainland). However, I would like to plant trees on the land - coconuts, mangoes, other fruits, native trees, etc. I would like to plant the trees now so it can mature by the time I build and move there. I also know that the ground is really hard and rocky and it requires serious breaking/ripping to do anything. Given that I have the following questions:

Should I rip the entire 1/2 acres of ground that I plan to build on and plant on now - and then, plant the trees, put ground cover or plant grass or something now to prevent things form germinating on the cleared land?
-- Are there any pros and cons of doing that?
-- Are there any better alternatives that you would suggest?

Alternatively, should I hold off on ripping the ground till I build. For now, should I Just find a way to plant the trees. Would you have any suggestions on what would be best way I could go about doing that?


Thank you.

Kumar.

Time to revisit this topic as Kumar and me has the same plans for our respective lots in HPP. So how did it go with your plan? I’m actually in HPP right now staying in my sisters house and ventured in my lot this morning and cutting out pathways in the dense overgrowth. There is a big albizia tree that needs to be taken cared of for safety reasons being near the property line and dead branch might fall on my neighbor’s electrical line. I was thinking of hiring tree specialists but after this visit there are few more trees that need to be taken out. So I’m asking your recommendations and comments. I have several Ohia trees that I want to preserve. I want to have a driveway, housepad, catchment , septic site dozed and possibly posts for the eventual gate. My sister and brother in law who are HPP residents can supervise and be the contact persons as I’m still in mainland. Right now I’m looking and interested with some local house designs but I need to take care of the trees and lot first. I need your recommendations and thanks for reading this.

[kumarsah]

Hi Alpogi8. I have not done much, as it was not easy for me to clear the ferns without some heavy duty equipment. I sprayed with some environmentally friendly weed killer (heavy dose) but it will require several more applications. I am changing my plans a little. I am just going to either scrape or rip a 100 foot driveway and an another 100X100 foot area for the house and landscape. Befoere I could do that last time, I had to head on back to the main land. I am coming back in August to do the scraping/clearing.

At this point I am debating if I should jus hire a company that does land clearing or shoud rent me a Bobcat and do it myself. I have walked the land and it is extremely flat. Mater of fact, I am going to ask our friends on this forum if they would recommend a company that is good, reasonable and reliable for land clearing/ripping/scraping work.

Thank you.

Kumarsah

[Kenney]

Alpogi8,just one cautionary comment.

If you want to save the Ohia, don’t drive over their roots or let any machinery drive over their root area. They are very tender, and don’t like getting stomped on. If you do, they will look ok for a few months, and then die on you. They’d precious, and worth the extra care.

God luck with your land clearing!

[kalakoa]

hire a company that does land clearing or shoud rent me a Bobcat

Depends what you're trying to accomplish. I've learned a couple of things:

Home Depot rents equipment to anyone with a credit card and enough truck to tow the equipment. Medium/small machines can be towed with the Depot truck; a 2-ton ("medium") excavator runs about $1K/week. No hammer, but they are really easy to deal with and the equipment is newer.

Puna Rental has some equipment but you can't rent the hammer without liability insurance (difficult to find as short-term standalone policy). Rates are higher. They deliver. Often "something happens" and they're charging you for repair/replacement, I think it's part of their business model. (The concrete guy looked at their machine and wondered aloud "where they found this antique"... but clearly the breakdowns are my fault.)

Excavator guy quoted me $150/hour + $300 delivery, and his big machine (with claw, hammer, and bucket) can do more in a day than I can do in a week with the little machine. (Not counting the cost of somewhere with a hot tub to recover from the aches and pains. The little machine is more work than it looks.)

Even where the land is pretty flat, a bit of rip-n-roll will create drainage, which can be nice to have in the driveway and around the house.

You will probably not be able to dig a hole for a septic tank with the little machine.

I think the answer is "both". Hire a big machine to rough it in, then get a little machine for a week of carving trails etc. Talk story with the machine operator, you might get some good ideas or maybe save yourself some trouble -- you never know what's under that pahoehoe.

[kumarsah]

Thank you Kalakoa for the excellent advice. Were you happy with your excevator company? would you be able to share their contact information for (or a name of good/relable excevatore company)? I would like them to come in to rip and roll for the driveway (10ftX100ft) and the pad/landscape area (100X100 feet). Thank you in advance.

Kumarsah

[aklb43]

Hello,

I am also interested in who the excavation company was, and if they were good. I was quoted $2500 to clear about half of a 7500sqft lot and put red cinder down. If anyone can recommend a good excavator company, i'd be interested.

Thanks

[PunaDave]

We've used Moore Excavation (Nick Moore) a couple of times and were quite happy with his work. He cleared an area for a house pad as well as a guest house, and we had him dig our cesspool (when those were still legal). On another occasion, he dug a trench for the sewer line and cleared an area for a jungalow. He works all over Puna.
Moore Excavation - 808.937.0717 or lava_juice@msn.com