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Why does nobody talk about doing your own dirt work instead of hiring it out
Everyone in my local builder group told me I was nuts to move 400 yards of dirt myself with a rented mini excavator instead of paying a grading crew, but the $2,800 excavator rental beat the $11k quote I got from a guy in Tulsa. Took me nine days of evenings after work and my yard looked like a bomb went off, but the pad was dead level when the foundation crew showed up. Anyone else skip the subs on the dirt phase or am I the only one out here playing in the mud?
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elizabeth4385d ago
How did you handle compaction though, just bucket tapping or did you bring in a plate compactor? Curious because that's the part that always scares me off doing it myself.
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gavin_clark5d ago
Who actually wants to rent a plate compactor for one little patio job? I did the lazy version and it held up fine. I dumped maybe two inches at a time, watered it just a hair, then beat the tar out of it with a hand tamper I already owned. Took way longer than a machine would, sure, and my shoulders hated me for a week. But three years later the pavers still sit flat, no dips, no wobble. If you're doing a whole driveway, rent the machine. For a small walkway or patio, the hand method is honestly fine.
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