trying to cut a road in, but.....

[roadbuilder]

Tigerhaze, your post on compaction is a much needed and indeed relevant part of the roadbuilding process. As you know my responses tend to be longwinded, the first 3 posts to Swawpy’s question originally contained the info.on compacting fills. Each time I’d finish writing and try to submit, I’d find I was kicked off line. When I’d try to reconnect, the whole reply would be gone. Each time I’d tell my wife “I hate dial-up” and she’d say, “shorten your reply to what’s important”. I’d say, “it’s all important!” This happened 2 more times per reply. Each time I’d shorten the post with the compaction topic getting shortened as the question was more on cutting with a straight blade. As time wore on, I figured that Swawpy was way past the compacting in thin lifts stage so never said more than ”compact your sidecast.”.Also I assumed that Prineville is pretty dry and a lot of their precipitation is snow, which has some compaction capabilities of its own. Swawpy, I hope my assumptions haven’t fouled your project up. If lack of info. has caused problems, I apologize. So Tigerhaze, your post reminds me some technique information could still be important to somebody, and also mention the needs of the loader crowd too. Since then my wife also told me to type in Micro-soft Word then go on-line and copy and paste. The reason for the long replies is to not leave something out which seems to happen anyway. Keeping this construction info in one post seems to me the best way to keep all the aspects together as they are necessary parts of a project and Swawpy’s question sets off the topic perfectly.

The method Tigerhaze described is the correct way to compact a fill whether you use a dozer or a loader. Loaders allow you to place the material closer to where you need it, rather than lose some all the way from the dirt or rock source. Sometimes if it is a really long way, you may prefer to load it in a truck and back it to the fill. This can save undercarriage wear if you have a truck available. Loaders are an effective way to create fill. Backblading is their hallmark of smoothing and compacting. 3- way buckets sometimes help if you need to pull-back material. Bucket teeth can allow different compaction as well. Dozers shine on the laying out (fill) end as you can control the spreading of the material more evenly. Rental of a vibratory compactor is a good idea. I tend to forget about rental equipment as I have most everything available already owned by the company I work for. Engineers with practical operating experience are great to work for!.
I usually work alone, with hourly radio or phone safety check-ins, so I try to do as much prep-work as I can with each machine to cut out a lot of moving in/out time and climbing back and forth between machines. Most of the time I’m a couple of weeks ahead of our rocking crew who have the grader and roller with them. Some of my roads won’t get rocked, so I try to make sure I get the best compacting possible with what I have on site. My equipment on site this summer usually just is my Cat 325 excavator with bucket and quick-change heeling rack/logging grapples, D-8K dozer with 14’ U-blade and stump splitter, and 3500 gallon Kenworth firetruck(during fire season), and 10600 lb. 2008 Ford F350 4x4.

I wrote a very detailed piece on how to build a fill and each step I use with compaction with the equip. I have on site. from start to finish, but it is about 3 pages long. It covers some parts already discussed because it was easier to keep on track that way.
If you guys want this much detail, I saved it in Word and could submit it anytime.

Two more aspects of road construction yet to be discussed, but part of the planning processes to be considered into the actual building steps are water issues and road drainage. Drain that swamp Tigerhaze! Ha-Ha-Ha!

[Ray III]

If you already have it all written, post it, I will like to read it.

Thanks for all the information.

[Tractor 850]

So would I.
There are probably a lot of people here who would read it whether they ever build a road or not.

[Tigerhaze]

Drain that swamp Tigerhaze! Ha-Ha-Ha!

I actually worked on it yesterday- it's not actually a swamp but I am getting drainage onto my place from the neighbor's 120 acre crop field.

[roadbuilder]

I'll send the "novel" Thursday. Got to get to work now. Interested in your project Tigerhaze, and have some questions for you.

[Tigerhaze]

I'll have to post some pics up as I go...I am making really noticeable progress now that I have finished working around all the buried utilities near the road.

Feel free to post or fire me an IM with your questions, Roadbuilder.

[roadbuilder]

A helpful hint I should have included in the first cutting post: How to tell if you’re cutting, drifting (carrying), or filling. When you have a bladefull of dirt, watch the dirt above the blade. If the pile above the blade is staying the same, you are drifting or carrying. If it is growing or climbing you are cutting. Get to know the feel of when the blade is grabbing just before the machine frame starts to dive. Anticipate this and with a light hand raise your blade a little bit . Try to imagine ½ inch to an inch and then let it back down slightly. These small motions combined with the same miniscule tilt corrections (if you have tilt), can make a big difference in the depth of gouges. Also try to keep your tracks from spinning. If the tracks are slipping you are overcutting or overloading your blade and your efficiency decreases. Try to work downhill as much as possible. Try to keep shoving in a straight ahead direction when ever you can to keep from wearing out your steering clutches and brakes. Some sticky materials may be extremly hard to keep from gouging. If the blade pile is disappearing, you are loosing it or filling. As your blade is emptying, you’ll notice that the leave berms on each side of the blade aren’t there. When you get to the fill watch the dirt between your tracks and blade as well as the top of blade dirt. Cutting looks like a packed scrape and filling or losing will look like loose material. Another thing I do when cutting or drifting a long distance is to allow a berm to form at the sides of the blade. If I have to cut down to grade, this actually becomes a trench. This allows me to carry much more dirt in each bladefull to the fill. As I near the completion of the fill, I begin to remove the edge of the trench. I plan ahead so I get rid of the berm about the same time I run out of room at the fill. If sidecast is allowed on the sidehill, this isn’t as critical

Some of you have mentioned that forward cutting and backblading are difficult to get to the finished stage. I know this is true. Different materials work up differently. Sometimes the dirt can change as you go between different layers of strata. As for forward cutting, practice and patience are the keys. Like Swawpy says,”seat-time”. Some days I have a hard time make a smooth pass right off the bat. I’m not trying to make it sound easy. Realize that I have been doing this for about 30 years. The main problem with backblading I assume you are referring to the amount of loose material you are moving is hard to control. Try this when you get close to your goal. Rolling the dirt, even with your 4x4 p/u or rubber tired tractor or backhoe, helps tighten the loose dirt so your blade won’t penetrate as deeply.. Even just track walking it in with your dozer or loader can decrease the amount of loose material you are working with. Remember Tigerhaze said to compact in lifts and the moisture content of material and it’s workability can vary. Usually fresh- cut dirt will compact better than dried out dirt. Try to at least backblade and roll it somehow before it dries out to seal it before the soaking rains come. Backblading mud can help it dry out faster but don’t get over the bank or stuck. Sometimes not even starting up those days is best and wait for conditions to improve. Occasional rocks are a pain. If you can’t hook them with a corner of the blade, and push them off the road, you may have to get off the dozer and roll them away. If there are too many, either cut deeper or fill workable material over them. Corners are tougher to build than straights in any direction. Tilt function helps with both. With my D-8, the blade is so heavy, float doesn’t have enough control. Personally I do better freehand, especially going around corners. If your trying to fill a hole or a low spot, remember you will need to pick up your blade slightly over the hole so you run out of material as you reach the end of what you want to raise. Slightly overlapping each pass can help also. This will allow you to work off a somewhat consistent surface hopefully. Overlapping even ½ a bladewidth allows you more control over what you are trying to cut or backblade. Find what works best for you and your machine. Some may do better doing the inside of a corner first then working to the outside, others may have better luck pulling material from the outside to the inside, then backblading the inside.

.

Compacting:
This is directed to those who don’t have the budget or time to have the vibratory compactors on site. Anybody feel free to jump-in with rule/reg. and safety concerns as they vary from state to state and something I say could be misinterpreted.

Track compacting:
Operating equipment parallel with an edge or shoulder is dangerous. Many operator’s manuals have warnings against this practice. When your fill starts increasing in height closer to ½ the track height, the chance of settling of the shoulder increases. Backblading when backing on the edge or near the edge can cause your outside track to dig down increasing the likelihood of shoulder sinking or a rollover. I stress that if you choose to use this “edge tracking”- method of compaction, sudden turns and the weight of the machine are working against you and getting sunk on the shoulder or rolling are indeed possibilities you must consider. Go slowly and make slight adjustments towards centerline. If the shoulder does start to fail, you may need to pull forward, turning towards center if you need to get away from the edge. This is even more of an issue for track and wheel loaders, as the bucket isn’t usually wider than the tracks/tires by much and the tracks are narrower than dozer tracks in relationship to the weight of the machine and don’t allow as much floatation as you seem to get with a dozer. While floatation doesn’t sound much like compaction, you do get some even with the groussers. Pulling forward at an angle can allow you to get closer to the edge.with a track corner.


.

Starting a fill:
As with any road construction, site prep is the first step. Different materials and conditions dictate the processes involved, so to keep it simple our hypothetical road fill is being created on a gently sloping ridgetop saddle that will support the weight of a fill, with no water issues, using compactable mineral soil that we are drifting off that steep side-hill road cut behind us.

First the engineer ribbons the right-of-way. The fallers come in and cut the timber, then I log and deck the trees out of the way so I don’t have to move them again. Then we determine where the edge of fill needs to toe and our clearing limits will be. I then remove the brush, stumps and other fiber that can rot under our fill. Buried wood fiber will eventually rot and cause fill compression cracking and future fill failure. Push wood, brush and stumps to the clearing limits or edge of r/w. You will probably get some dirt mixed in, but if you keep it fairly clean, you can burn it later. Keep all material off standing trees if possible to lessen the clean-up at the end of the project . Black topsoil is also good to remove as it can draw moisture can make a grease footing for the fill. I usually shove this outside the road prism where we will try to keep from filling on top of as we may have a future use for it.


When I start laying a fill, I decide where the toe (outside edge) of the fill needs to be, allowing for the height and width of the final grade. Also consider where the fill will need to end. The lowest point furthest from centerline is usually where you want the first material to go. This is also the point that compacting needs to begin. I drift the first bladefull towards this point slightly raising the blade as I near this point so when I reach this point I am running out of dirt (material). Since the ridge is sloping sideways, I am actually building up the outside more than the inside to levelup as I go. Sometimes the slope is steep enough I actually cut some the high side to create a slope I can work on and get compaction on and build it all back. This takes practice to get so you can get as Tiger said 6 inches of material to 1 foot. I try for 6” to a foot at the run-out point even using a D-8. If you leave a pile just backblade it. I overrun the layer slightly with my tracks and when I backup, I back on the outside edge of my forward tracks but not on the very edge. I sometimes backblade at this point. The fill height isn’t quite as much of a concern yet either. Since this is a ridgetop fill, it will have 2 sides so I try to build up both sides evenly. Remember as the height of fills increases, the top will get narrower. Since trucks will use this road we will need a final road width of 20 feet. The final fill depth will be what ever it takes to meet grade. Where I work, the State requires any fill greater than 15 feet to be engineered with a written plan, so lets just limit ours to 8 feet. As I shove each layer, I watch the edge of the blade to make sure I’m not losing much material over the side of fill. You are trying to construct a stable, gentle side-slope and loosing much material over the side can hang there steepening the slope or eventually cover the brush or topsoil which won’t support the fill. You will lose some though. We’ll deal with slope compaction later.

Continue this pattern carrying the material further adding to the depth slightly each layer. Vary where you back-up and sometimes travel ahead between the track prints you have made to compact the entire surface. The smaller the machine, the thinner the lifts. Occasionally backblading also adds to the compaction. Back-blading and tracking will give you better compaction than just drifting alone. Another thing I have done to increase compaction is to build the fill about 3 feet higher than the final grade. This is the same principle as pre-loading bridge approaches to get the settling over sooner. Cutting back down to grade leaves a very hard surface, providing you compacted it when you built it.

As to the topsoil we pushed out of the way earlier, if we can still reach it, I sometimes pull it back over the tamped side-slope so the foresters have some good soil to plant their little trees in. Anymore it’s all about sustainable forestry practices

The use of vibratory compactors is the best way to compact. One word of advise with them, is not to go too fast. Tigerhazes walk-behind roller prevents this. Downbeats of the vibrator per inch is what creates the compaction.

Side-slope compaction with an excavator:
Once the final grade is reached, I take an excavator (can use a backhoe but is not recommended for higher slopes and is time-consuming) and bucket-tamp the entire side-slope of the fill. I do this by swinging over the side of the track perpendicular to the road, (but not sitting on the very edge), and bringing the flat of the bucket bottom into the slope, at the top of slope where it meets the road surface, at the same angle as the fill slope. Pressure against the fill at 90 degrees to the slope angle but not enough to lift machine or pull it towards the edge. Tamp down the slope to the bottom, track the width of the bucket and tamp up the slope. Continue this sequence till the entire slope is compacted. Then I carefully walk the “hoe” along the edge with the bucket towards the edge. I don’t do edge-walking if I haven’t tamped the sides first! Can’t travel turn much as this leads to road shoulder cracking inside the trackpads. I won’t advise this shoulder walking practice to anyone else, instead I’ll only recommend to just tamp the shoulder with the bucket. I walk there because I know the logger’s shovels will go out there whether any compaction or tamping was done or not. If it will support me, I’ve done what I can do to protect the next guy. Also the fact that I built the edge, and that I know how to reduce the risk, to recognize what is far enough, when to stop and how to get out of a situation before its too late helps also. Experience is very important, but as my brothers martial arts instructor once told him,” Sometimes monkey fall from tree.” In more extreme situations, sometimes I travel at a slight angle to the edge allowing the more stable track corner to compact the edge, then back away. After completing the edge compaction, I walk the exc. over the entire road surface of the fill. Then I usually backblade to create a smooth surface then roll it with my firetruck. This usually creates enough compaction that when I walk the exc. (and sometimes the D-8!), that the double-bar grouzzers just leave a slightly darker imprint with out breaking the surface unless I turn more than a gradual turn when traveling.

I also don’t travel with the hand levers, keeping both hands on the joysticks in case I need to swing or put the bucket down. I actually removed the hand travel levers from my exc. after I saw a helper using them to travel up a steep side-hill when he didn’t have the boom and bucket in a safe position. This also gave the added benefit of increasing the cab room and visibility to some extent. Does take a little practice to become smooth at traveling especially when loading on a lowboy with my high-wide undercarriage. Only have 6”of track on the main deck, rest is on outrigger planks. No turning on those at 80,000lbs!

Tamping the sides of a fill also seals the dirt to keep water from seeping in or eroding the sides of the fill. The following is an example of what can happen if sidecast material isn’t compacted


Reason for compacting:
I know not all contractors compact shoulders or sidecast because we rocked a road that a competing road contractor built. The engineer had called for 100% endhaul for full bench. The contractor sidecasted and hid the fact with right-of way decks. The r/w logs were picked up and the timber cut. In the spring, our company was asked to rock the road so the logger could access the next landing. One of our Cat D250 endhaul- truck drivers had the outer half of the road fail under him The tandem-axle articulating/swiveling backend of the truck sank before he could pull ahead. He set the brake; crawled out the window as the exit steps were on the side of the truck sinking towards the edge. He and our grader operator watched the loaded backend settle far enough, until it tipped over and slide down the 75% sideslope, , until the back edge of the bed was stopped by a stump! The cab remained upright, facing uphill about 8 feet over the edge. If this had been a highway truck it might have rolled about 500 feet down this extreme slope which had already been clearcut! We pulled the truck back into the now even narrower road with a loggers shovel, which was working in the same location, and another loaded Cat truck hooked to a cable pulling up over the top of the ridge with a stump as a “guide”. The shovel operator then righted the bed and with the other truck backing up to keep tension on the front, then dragged the truck back to safety. No damage to truck or driver. That road contractor will never work for that engineer again. For reasons such as this I tamp and compact my fills and sidecast to make sure the edge doesn’t fail under the next person to go out there either on purpose or in the dark. I don’t want to build something that could fail and cause an injury or death. Also, I have been working this ground for along time and hope to keep working here. I also hunt the same ground and don’t want to go through after I retire in 20 years or so and see a huge landslide or other environmental problem that I caused.

.

Hope you guys find something in here helpful. Just remember to be careful and be aware of changing surroundings. Inspect your site before you begin work each day for changes that could put you or others at risk. Monitor it throughout the day. Have fun!

[Swawpy]

"Dr" Roadbuilder- Just wanted to thank you for such a detailed post that all of us can learn from. 30+ years of experience is very evident in your thorough explanations. As sick as it sounds your words are like poetry for guys like me and can't thank you enough. I still enjoy watching and learning from construction and logging operations just like when I was a kid...only instead of going back home and playing with tractors as a kid, I am able to really screw things up!

We laugh about it now, but there was a time when my Wife actually called and asked if she would need to "lock the hubs in" at the bottom of the hill because she knew I was gonna "fix the road" again! Good equip operators are never really understood till you try it for yourself. I AM getting a little bit better... with your help, but have never had so much fun!!

[pop pop]

i had to make a long curved driveway thru the woods on a fairly steep side,, started by hand,chopping,cutting the trees and brush until i could see my outlined path, using the trees i fell to shore up the outer side,,, i got two "ruts" established for my "ford bulldozer",,, its a 72 f-100,,, i just gave her hell up that trail a few times,had to stop and winch it back onto the path a few times, and whala,,, of course it worked out that i would have no visitors cause nobody else would risk it,,, after awhile i put rock on it, now i can get a 12 ton truck up there if needed.
so, NOW i'm in the market for a small crawler so i can get to the back 40.

[roadbuilder]

Pop pop,


Whaala! Spell- checker has a problem with that one! I’m also an advocate for whatever works, especially if you can do it with the most basic of tools and creativity. Look at what the early railroaders did. Here is a little info and history at least from my perspective in the Pacific Northwest.


Cribbing is what we call it. From your description you are using the wood to hold your material to level up your road and start to get compaction(or ruts). I use the cribbing technique with an excavator to get temporary width so I can extend my pioneer road further to uncover rock which I need be able to get a drill on top of, or at least be able to drill down holes. I use logs large enough to support me against stumps, which are still tight to the slope. I don’t sit directly on the logs because they are slick. The logs also help contain material because when I use this method usually the ground is steep enough that they don’t allow any sidecast and we have to haul it off after we drill and shoot. I’ve done this with a dozer also but I don’t want the logs to hold the dozer up, just hold the dirt so I could get past a narrow spot. Too much pressure against the middle of a log and it will break and there goes the support.


Old timers used cribbing , when they got on a narrow ridge or hit rock in the cutbank, to cut drilling costs. If they had old growth growing below the desired road grade, they would fall 3-7 foot old growth trees and hang them on the upper side of other trees and stumps. They then would fill out on these trees until they reached the grade or width they needed. The tight grained slow-rotting old growth seems to have a life of 30-60 years in fills depending on the type of material in the fill. I’ve received quite a bit of work the last 15 years or so repairing these failures. This is a much larger fill that you are making pop pop. I doubt that this will happen with your road. These are 20+ foot wide roads loosing over half their width in one water induced blowout. I’ve gotten pretty good at spotting these places before they blowout. Most of the time they develop a small crack in the roadbed first. Sometimes a slight settling of the road. This crack or settling is caused when the log rots and the ground compresses leaving a crack at the place fill meets natural ground.

Cribbing is still done today only it usually is meant to be a temporary solution to a width problem. After the road or landing use is finished, the crib is pulled apart; the fill material hauled off, and the trees (hopefully still good enough to sell) are bucked to length and trucked to the mill.
I cribbed a landing once that had two sides at a 45-degree angle to each other, with sides that were 30 feet high. We tied the bottom of the stumps to others cross the ridge with 7/8s cable, and started building up the walls using Douglas fir trees measuring 24-36 in. at the stump and 18-20in. at 72 feet, alternating butts and tops and filling in behind the wall with rocky fill dug from nearby. ½ way up we tied off the middle of some logs and the middle of the pillar stumps (actually standing trees still, as we would cut them off at the grade height when the crib was done). Tied the tops of the stumps across the ridge also. Then added a smaller crib on the tail hold side of the ridge to gain more width and also help hold the tail stumps. I had dug a trench across the ridge where the cables would cross so equipment tracks couldn’t cut or damage then during construction or logging. It looked like a fortress from the next ridge. After the loggers finished logging, I dismantled it and loaded out 8 loads of logs. A co-worker took pictures, but he works in Missouri on a pipeline project now.

Other examples of cribbing: 1 legged bridges, Ridge-bridges (bundles of cabled logs spanning deep/steep-sided saddles. Most all involve some sort of backfill or material covering to keep the logs from weather and to allow travel. Dry rot seems to be the cause for the initial cracks, although water entering the cracks causes the actual large failure. I have pulled apart fills over streams that have began to fail and dug out old growth logs that are as sound as the day they went in as long as they remained in contact with moisture.

Hope this was interesting. Hope you get your dozer. You be able to move the world then! Well at least the back 40.

[MADJACK]

Wow! great stuff, I knew that I had a lot to learn, but I'm starting to realise how much I don't know!

I understand that experience is key, but are there any manuals or study material to build a good foundation of knowledge to start with?

I have hills that I want to cut back, and flat areas that I'd like to extend out over where there is currently slope. I also have aroad that I want to shore up on one side where a creek parallels it.

I have some ideas, but as this is new to me, I'd like to know what is workable and safe, overkill is fine too

"If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing."

[roadbuilder]

There are some manuals or books available regarding road and fill construction, ditches and drainage. Some engineering texts can also provide info. You can try your county extension office to see what they might have.
Do just like you are doing and ask questions. If you still aren't sure, get a second opinion. There are sometimes several ways to achieve the same goal.
Be aware that when you move material from one place to another, you may create a different kind of situation that you may have to deal with. Especially if what you do will impact streams or water.
Pictures of the natural ground can help us see what you are trying to do, but most of the time you really need to be on site to give good information. Some issues don't show up in pictures.
If you want, I'll try to find some titles that give good details, but give me a couple of days. A friend picked one up at the logging conference and it was pretty good. I just have to find it.

Dale

[roadbuilder]

I found my manual. It's about "Managing Woodland Roads -A Field Handbook". It is put out by Oregon State University Extension Service. While it is about managing and solving problems with existing roads, there is some other info that is interesting such as rubber waterbars to help control water that that usually runs down the ruts of your gravel road. It gives good detail on how to build them. I'm going to try some as conveyor belting is easy for me to get. It has diagrams and full color pictures of topics. It has lists of foresters for the various counties and other contacts and sources such as this one which should have new construction - "Forest Road Contracting, Construction, and Maintenance for Small Forest Woodland Owners" by B. Kramer. Oregon State University. 2001

.I have books available (rules and regs) at our office but I won't go there until tomorrow. I don't like to give out bad or incomplete info so I tried to find the regs online. I never have much luck at computer searches. I couldn't find a site with the number info I was looking for. Might not be any, as such things may be site specific but I expect there are some maximums. If I'm on line very long I get kicked off,( then ticked off). I did find this site:
http://www.oregon.gov/ODF/STATE_FORESTS ... -Const.pdf
It's kind of an overview of the sidehill road topic with a few diagrams. No technique how toos though.

I think that will get you started on the handbook info. I decided to add the following as food for thought for future do it yourself projects.

Sidecast and fills are to be constructed on stable ground and there are many factors in that. Presence of ground water and slip planes are just a couple of the more critical items to watch for when planning places you want to gain flat area around your property. Waste areas are sites used to hold excess material from other locations whether near or far. They can be places where you simply add a little material to a stable road shoulder, to huge places you can haul into for years. Realize that as a contractor, I deal in moving large volumes fast and reaching the limits of stability for waste areas can happen in hours in some cases. Sometimes I forget that most homeplace projects don't deal with those type of volumes, and I appologize for sometimes sounding like an extremist.but I have also seen one backhoe bucket full of slide material piled on a 50 year old sidecast road shoulder cause a slideout that went 500' down through a clearcut pushing loose more and more material as it goes. Obviously that shoulder wasn't stable even though it had 18" stumps from regrowth in the original sidecast. However 50' away ,several truckloads had been dumped on the shoulder15 years ago and no problems. Fills are waste areas with a purpose.

I don't know how big of a fill you are planing, but keep in mind that if you pile weight on a sidehill,(shouldn't sidecast on 55% or greater sideslopes), the added weight of the material could cause the hill to slide. The state requires the company I contract for, to notify for approval of disposal sites that will contain more than 1500 cubic yards of material. Found that out when the State Forester showed up when I was putting the finishing touches on a waste area we had hauled about 8000 yards into. The eng. and I had picked a stable site and I had already done terracing and had shaped drainage for it, and was tamping the sideslope, so he okayed it but said next time he needed to okay it BEFORE we started hauling in large volumes. Don't use these figures as the rule as the eng. sends work planning and notification to the State on projects and knows what they are looking for when we pick sites. We are very proactive to environmental concerns. I do alot of post-logging cleanup and pullback to prevent slideouts.
We also cannot pile material within 100' of a fish stream unless it is used in the installation of an approved crossing. The numbers I gave for fill height and volume are ballpark figures I use to keep from getting in trouble.
If you are filling a wet draw, you would have to install drainage structures( culverts or french drains, etc.) in the bottom.In such cases, you may want to have an engineer or maybe a qualified contractor look at it and see if it could/should be done. The engineer I work for tries to keep fill height under 15 feet so he doesn't have to provide a written plan to the state when dealing with non-fish stream crossings. Fish streams require fish passage structures and seasonal restrictions. Not trying to rain on your parade, but if you aren't sure, ask... Most of the time you can get away with it on your own land, but if there was a failure,( or muddy water going into "Waters of the State" here in Oregon) someone may come to visit.

I doubt you are going to move those volumes digging out for a shop or making a larger flat spot. If you think you might, I just suggest you call a local engineering firm or reputable construction company for info on restrictions or rules for your area so you don't have problems later. You can calculate your estimated volume with 1/2(bxh)x length,(sidehill vol. = area of a rt triangle x the length), convert to yards, then add 30% for swell. For example: 10 cu yds in solid will yield approx. 13 cy loose (or in the truck).

The only permit I have ever gotten for my own place was a building permit for building my house. I live way out in the sticks. Sold 2 loads of fir for that project. State Harvest Manager showed up. I border my Dad's forest land,but since I was zoned residential at that time, I was okay. Amazing how they show up. No one has ever commented on my excavation or fills. Compaction of fill during construction and of the final surface and sideslope are critical for a stable fill.

From the picture in show and tell: You've got a good looking machine that will allow you to do all aspects of the job. Cut and slope, drift, pack, pile, load, compact, tamp, install drainage, scrape, grade, spread, lift and about anything else you can think of. I can see a future balanced -construction road from the front of your shop up the sidehill, away from the camera. You could probably gain a little extra width using the shoulder as a disposal site. Depending on the soil, you might just fill your way across the slope.

So take my info as you want,do with it likewise. If anyone benefits from it great. I hope if I state something wrong or if there is a better way to do something, that those who know will speak up. I was trained by the "there it is, go figure it out and don't kill yourself" method. Techniques I tell you about, work for me, but aren't necessarily the best or only way. I'm not too old to learn new tricks. Just longwinded.
Dale

[pop pop]

you are definately a wealth of info, i also am lucky to have a corp's of engineering handbook covering just about any earthwork.
saved it over the years cause it was such a precise info type of book,,, haa, now it has come to serve a purpose.

[Tigerhaze]

Many of the the USACE civil works design guides and publications are available online:

http://140.194.76.129/publications/

For your purposes, the "EM" (engineer manuals) are the most useful. They cover things such as slope stability, drainage, etc. However they are also very technical. The "ED" (engineer design guides) that are online do not cover civil earthwork design.

You would be amazed what governmental agencies can now see with the advent of real-time aerial and satellite photography, such as on "Google Earth". They just compare maps from previous years to see where large land disturbances or new structures are located- these disturbances are usually the size that triggers permitting. I even heard of local assessor's offices considering using them to assess property instead of traditional drive by visits.