Ahwi land clearance.

[Graham]

We're currently looking at a job which may require an Ahwi or similar. Just wondering if anyone may have experience with these.

 

Scenario; 3 acres of dense hardwood with average dbh 20cm. This was a tree nursery in a previous life so the spacing is v. close.

 

We intend to fell, sned and winch out all the firewood lengths leaving the brash and stumps.

 

The future use for this site is a cemetery so obviously stumps left underground will cause problems for the gravediggers.

 

So the question is; will an Ahwi reduce stumps below ground level or will it be better to remove the stumps and burn them?

 

PS it will probably be 3 years before the site is used after tree removal.

 

Thanks in advance.

[RichardT]

How old are the trees? The big mulchers will go down a fair way given time and diesel.

[Stephen Blair]

mulchers will go down about a foot i think, it would be a quick blitz but you will spend a lot on mulchers and there could be some comeback on roots later on, if the ground is soft then the machines will just push the stumps and roots deeper. if you could dig them out and sack them then grind them later or get them to a power station. even chip all the brash like edd did on the lakes job.

[Mr Ed]

Mulchers like the ahwi wont even go below the surface, as the push the material into the dirt rather than mulching it.

 

Easy solution is to run an excavator on site first, to prep everything into windrows, and dig out all the stumps. After the mulcher makes its first pass, rake the windrow through again, and give it a second pass with the gate down.

 

Best bet is to get an experienced excavator in for the duration of the job, as it can pick out and stack up all your timber as it goes along.

 

IF you have permission to burn, then I would not pay for a mulcher to come on site....

If you need any help, PM me.

[Andy Clark]

Mulchers like the ahwi wont even go below the surface, as the push the material into the dirt rather than mulching it.

 

Rubbish!! Mulchers such as he Ahwi, do go someway below ground level, and mix the wood mulch in with the top soil...... A decent driver will leave most sites looking like a nice freshly rotavated field.

 

The two bods i'd suggest you have a chat with are Kevin O' Rourke at Acorn tree Services, Site clearance services Birmingham West Midlands UK (he's on here as rt400, so you could drop him a pm)

 

 

or Max Barton at F.R Barton and sons

www.FRBarton.co.uk - Ahwi RT 400 Mulcher

[Mr Ed]

Rubbish!! Mulchers such as he Ahwi, do go someway below ground level, and mix the wood mulch in with the top soil...... A decent driver will leave most sites looking like a nice freshly rotavated field.

 

Thank you for rubbishing my extensive experience of mulching.

 

You can push the mulcher head on an Ahwi into the ground 12 inches, but all you succeed in doing is pushing any larger lumps further into the dirt. Anything over 4" dia will have the top planed off and then neatly covered in a few inches of mulch. Come a shower of rain, it washes the mulch off, and you can see all the pieces the machine missed.

The Ahwi type of head is particularly bad for this as its a 'paddlewheel' design. Certain other heads, like the seppi or FAE, are better at lifting the material.

 

Thats the reason for putting an excavator in on any mulching job, with a forestry rake bucket - you need to lift all the missed lumps, and windrow it for the mulcher to get it.

[Buzz]

Rubbish!! Mulchers such as he Ahwi, do go someway below ground level, and mix the wood mulch in with the top soil...... A decent driver will leave most sites looking like a nice freshly rotavated field.

 

 

 

The surface may appear as a 'rotavated field' allbeit a very woody one ! But underneath you will find large lumps.

 

For a site such as your that is going to be used as a cemetary i would say your best option is to land rake the site pulling out all the stumps and windrowing it. I would then have an excavator working permenantly with the mulcher.

Be aware multiple passess will be very expensive, if you get a mulcher to quote tell them you'll be looking at multiple passess otherwise you may have a nasty shock in terms of increased cost when you ask them to go over the site again.

 

Like Ed if you can burn i would be looking at that as a viable option.

 

What is the finished spec ? I'm imagining it's going to have to be a pretty clean site ?

 

Cost wise i'd say you'd be looking upwards of 750.00 a day + VAT for a tracked mulcher like the RT400 + transport and maybe even + diesel depending on the company.

[RichardT]

I dug up the quotes I got last yr for similar work, the other was similar:

 

"as a general rule you can mulch around 1ha per day for around £1500.00 per ha. if you want full root removal with excavator then this can come down to around 1acre per day..."

 

I watched his big Fendt with a Gutzwiller head on it, it did pull in and shred smaller stumps pretty well, hence the query about tree size. We just want pasture, so buried stumps aren't a big problem, but a graveyard is a bit different. For cost reasons I think we're reverting to dig, stack and torch....

[Buzz]

I dug up the quotes I got last yr for similar work, the other was similar:

 

"as a general rule you can mulch around 1ha per day for around £1500.00 per ha. if you want full root removal with excavator then this can come down to around 1acre per day..."

 

I watched his big Fendt with a Gutzwiller head on it, it did pull in and shred smaller stumps pretty well, hence the query about tree size. We just want pasture, so buried stumps aren't a big problem, but a graveyard is a bit different. For cost reasons I think we're reverting to dig, stack and torch....

 

That's about what i thought 1500.00 a day, that will be including transport and diesel with a minimum of one days work no doubt.

[Stephen Blair]

mulchers were starting to get used less and less with us on sites up here because the builders were fed up with 2 feet oh hag plus huge root plates gud up later on, i had to send a guy back to a job with his fendt for a monster lime butt, luckily he did it free of charge as it was local, and i had problems on another site as the builders thought it would be a good idea to fell all the trees with a d9, guess how deep thoses coppiced willows were:sneaky2: