I am planning construction of a 3 foot retaining wall, and I plan to
level my back yard with approximately 2000 cubic feet of dirt. The
dirt will be dumped in the street in front of my house. I recently
watched my neighbors spend three days of a similar project hauling
wheelbarrows full of dirt (less dirt than I plan to use) and it made me
seek out alternative, cheap methods of moving all the dirt in one day.
Renting a little earth mover for $400 for a day (delivery/pickup fees, diesel, rental) is too pricey in my estimation. My new idea is to instead rent a high-horsepower canister vacuum, or perhaps re-purpose my home's central vacuum unit, using 90 feet of PVC tubing as a temporary dirt conduit from the front street through to the back yard. I anticipate the supplies and rental should cost less than $200. The first and last thirty feet will be flexible tubing to allow maneuvering the vacuum discharge around to position the dirt as it's sucked through and to move with the dwindling pile of dirt in the street.
I figured that if my central vac unit is rated at around 100 cubic feet of air per minute, I could get perhaps 10% of that sucking large amounts of dirt, so 2000 cubic feet of dirt at 10 cubic feet per minute would in theory take 200 minutes. The electricity cost would be small for several hours of operation, but I'm wondering whether a rental vacuum or my home's existing unit would burn out under the strain or need numerous cool-down sessions, pushing the total time spent to many hours more than I want.
Can anyone tell me why this is a dumb idea? Do you have any better cheap dirt moving ideas? Any suggestions for other forums on which to inquire?
Thanks,
Nat Surrey, British Columbia
Renting a little earth mover for $400 for a day (delivery/pickup fees, diesel, rental) is too pricey in my estimation. My new idea is to instead rent a high-horsepower canister vacuum, or perhaps re-purpose my home's central vacuum unit, using 90 feet of PVC tubing as a temporary dirt conduit from the front street through to the back yard. I anticipate the supplies and rental should cost less than $200. The first and last thirty feet will be flexible tubing to allow maneuvering the vacuum discharge around to position the dirt as it's sucked through and to move with the dwindling pile of dirt in the street.
I figured that if my central vac unit is rated at around 100 cubic feet of air per minute, I could get perhaps 10% of that sucking large amounts of dirt, so 2000 cubic feet of dirt at 10 cubic feet per minute would in theory take 200 minutes. The electricity cost would be small for several hours of operation, but I'm wondering whether a rental vacuum or my home's existing unit would burn out under the strain or need numerous cool-down sessions, pushing the total time spent to many hours more than I want.
Can anyone tell me why this is a dumb idea? Do you have any better cheap dirt moving ideas? Any suggestions for other forums on which to inquire?
Thanks,
Nat Surrey, British Columbia