Air Spading clay soils

[Lee Winger]

Hi I thought i'd share my recent experiences. Air Spading clays soils especially this time of year for me has always been a ball ache, I use an Air Spade 2000 with 150cfm nozzle and a 220 cfm 4 tool compressor.

 

I undertook some excavation work this week and shifting the compacted clay was next to impossible and extremely frustrating let alone highly embarrassing!

 

Anyway I thought I'd contact ADP group they sell Air Spades, and are quite possibly the countrys leading experts in Air Spade and Hydrovac excavation. They've got millions tied up in Hydrovac excavation machinery they contract themselves as well as sell and hire

 

My thoughts were clarified as soon as I mentioned clay and Air Spades, i didn't even have tell them my problem, the Air Spade doesn't work efficiently on clay soil, especially this time of year when its desiccated. The only way to tackle clay is hydrovacing, but what damage this will have on roots I don't know.

 

ADP GROUP LTD | Surveying | Vacuum Excavation | Drilling | Vector Sales - Air Spade Sales

If you look of the spec of the new bigger 3000 Air Spade you'll see exactly what I'm getting at

Edited July 5, 2013 by Lee Winger

[Andy Collins]

Good to see you posting Lee

[codlasher]

I'm not surprised the air spade doesn't work on clay at this time of year. Here it's like concrete and I'm even having difficulty doing work with my 360 unless I'm into damp clay which is about 300mm down or more.

 

I love my air spade and it is the No 1. tool in the right circumstances, just not today thank you! I use mine for tree planting bigger trees at around 6' to 8' tall as it flocculates the soil beautifully and doesn't kill the worms.

 

With past experience diggin' in clay I've found that copious amounts of water early in the day or even the day before works well in softening the ground. Costly if there's a water meter but it works. Similar to pouring water into a strainer post hold and having a cuppa whilst this soaks into the ground....

Difficult to price for that kind of waiting though!

codlasher.

[woodland]

Hi I thought i'd share my recent experiences. Air Spading clays soils especially this time of year for me has always been a ball ache, I use an Air Spade 2000 with 150cfm nozzle and a 220 cfm 4 tool compressor.

 

I undertook some excavation work this week and shifting the compacted clay was next to impossible and extremely frustrating let alone highly embarrassing!

 

Anyway I thought I'd contact ADP group they sell Air Spades, and are quite possibly the countrys leading experts in Air Spade and Hydrovac excavation. They've got millions tied up in Hydrovac excavation machinery they contract themselves as well as sell and hire

 

My thoughts were clarified as soon as I mentioned clay and Air Spades, i didn't even have tell them my problem, the Air Spade doesn't work efficiently on clay soil, especially this time of year when its desiccated. The only way to tackle clay is hydrovacing, but what damage this will have on roots I don't know.

 

ADP GROUP LTD | Surveying | Vacuum Excavation | Drilling | Vector Sales - Air Spade Sales

If you look of the spec of the new bigger 3000 Air Spade you'll see exactly what I'm getting at

Adrian and the lads from ADP certainly know their stuff but having done hydro vac excavation with them in the past its better to get them to use the water lance they use for cleaning the trucks rather than the one they use for excavation or at the very least get them to knock the power right down on the vac unit because it will mill straight through the roots if not careful. just my tupence worth

[David Humphries]

We had this copper to try & de-compact with the air spade (2000) a couple of years ago. It was part of a Transport for London project on linking pathways across open spaces.

 

Already compacted by daily footfall each and every day for decades probably.

The clay surface crust was like re-inforced concrete, and the project intended to increase the footfall by promoting local pedestrian commuting to include this pathway.

The main idea was to alleviate the compaction then create a suspended walk way over the root plate.

 

It was not going to happen with the air spade, barely made a dent in it after 40 minutes.

 

Tbh, we didn't even consider hydration, (as most of our site is sand) would of perhaps made the original idea feasible.

 

The end result (carried out by another team) was to lay a permeable backfilled Cell Web to help spread the load. Which has worked really well.

 

Will definitely take on board the hydration angle if there's ever a similar situation to deal with.

 

cheers

 

 

 

going back to the airspade comparison, if I remember correctly, one of the potential issues with the 3000 (although I haven't actually used one) is that it is double the handling weight of the 2000. That could be significant hindrance to during long excavations.

 

.

[treeseer]

X2 on premoistening, but even that only improves so much.

 

The Air Knife X-HFA mud knife kicks ash yearround.

[Craig Johnson]

The Air Knife X-HFA mud knife kicks ash yearround.

 

yep but only if you want to look like a mud monster:001_tt2:

 

3x on the pre wetting:thumbup1:

[treeseer]

yep but only if you want to look like a mud monster:001_tt2:

 

Call me the Creature from the Brown Lagoon! Snorkels with filters recommended.

 

All good with me, if the roots have room to grow.