PROJECT #6 Mass Grading for residential community (site #1)

Size: 50 acres

Earth moved: 325,000 cubic yards

Contractor: So Cal Earth Movers

A new residential community up in the Sunset City hills has been under

 planning for years now and is about ready to finally break ground. Here

 surveyor's measure out make final preparations before the machinery

 begins arriving to start construction.

So Cal Earth Movers, a large earthmoving contractor out of southern

 California, was awarded the contract for this mass grading project

 with an estimated amount of 325,000 cubic yards needing to be moved

 for cut and fill as well as compaction due to is unusual location

 on a hillside. In this pic some of the first pieces

 of equipment are being delivered.

The dozers are brought in first, used here a CATERPILLAR D9R and D10T,

 to clear the hills and make roadways for the other machinery that

 will be brought in. This pic shows the CAT D10T pushing down a

large tree which is in the way of where on of the larger cuts

 needs to be made.

As the dozers work on clearing up the hillside more machinery is delivered

to prepare for the earthmoving. The main machine going to be uswed will

 be the new CAT 657G scraper, So Cal Earth Movers is one of the few mass

 grading outfits to already own this sophisticated high tech machine,

a total of 6 will be used on this particular site.

Here's a photo of a portion of the site only a week after ground breaking,

the earth is scraped up by the 657G's and moved over to where it is

needed for fill to create the disired look wanted for this community.

Picture from inside on of the cuts, in some areas the hillside is

chopped down close to 200 feet.

This is a photo of this particular days fill site, the CAT 657G's bring

the earth they've scraped up to this part of the site and unload it to

bring up the hillside, it is watered down and then compacted by a special

 CAT 825H dozer with steel pegged wheels that force the ground to compact.

Here is the site after 3 weeks of construction. If you look closly at the

hillside you can see how far down some of these cuts have been made.

In some areas the ground is so hard that actually has to be ripped first,

thtat is what is taking place in this photo, before the 657G's link up

in their push/pull pair and travel back down the slope the CAT D9R and

D10T dozers push their ripper teeth into the ground and tear it up so

the scrapers can easily scoop it up without too much hesitation

After 6 weeks of earthmoving the mass grading is complete. The hillside

has been cut and filled as well as compacted to the developers

 desired look.

Since the scrapers used on this project are already needed at another site

the company has booked, some are loaded up and hauled off starting

the very next day.

As larger machinery is taken away some of the more smaller equipment is

brought in that will be needed for the final steps of construction

that was included on the bid for this project.

Some CAT 623G elevated scrapers, a CAT 14M grader, and a few small dozers

 are used to create the actual home lots that are in a teared formation

 traveling up the graded hillside (done this way to maximize homes views)

 as well as the roadway traveling up the hill where it loops as a

 cul-de-sac at the top- as well as a 1 acre level for small park.

The scheduled timeline was 8 weeks from start to finish and So Cal Earth

Movers completed everything in just over 7 weeks. They where debating

 about weather or not to work the 6 day weeks that they where doing

but it definetly paid off on this job. Here's a picture of the last

 piece of machinery being loaded up and hauled off the completed site.

Now that all the mass grading and heavy earth moving is complete, the road

graded, and the home lots formed the other contractors start moving in

(like the pipe crew in this pic) to begin building the new homes