Fill the garden with topsoil

Hello dear home builders and garden designers.

I am currently planning to fill our garden area with topsoil.
It involves over 60 tons to be spread over more than 300 sqm at a thickness of about 20 cm.

Now I have several offers from landscape gardeners, but on average they all want a good 25-30€ per ton including leveling, which I find quite steep.
If I have the soil delivered myself from the humus plant, it costs me 17€ per ton.
The question is whether I am taking on too much as a layman, distributing that much soil with a mini excavator?? Or what is best to use?? to spread it on the property.
How much time should I plan for something like that?

Calculate how much the rent for a bulldozer costs. Then consider how long you need until it is flat and your working time.

When you are out with the rented excavator, please remember not to compact the topsoil too much. The price is within the normal range.

Hi,

Hello dear home builders and garden designers.

I am currently planning to pile up topsoil in our garden area.
It concerns over 60 tons to be spread over more than 300 sqm in about 20 cm thickness.

Now I have various offers from landscape gardeners, but they all want on average a good 25-30€ per ton including leveling, which I find quite steep.
If I have the soil delivered myself from the humus plant, it costs me 17€ per ton.
The question is whether I am taking on too much as a layperson, spreading that much soil with a mini excavator?? Or what is best to use?? to distribute it on the property.
How much time should I roughly plan for that?

Two of my neighbors did a similar project of roughly the same size on their own with such a mini excavator. More precisely, one with a mini excavator, the other with a BobCat.
Both worked, they each took about one day for an estimated 300 sqm.
But they only distributed existing material or mixed it with compost. You can get that delivered here for about 200 € per semi-truck load.
You would only save 8 euros/ton, which is about 500 euros. And you also have to subtract the rental and fuel costs for the excavator from that.

Is it still worth it?

Best regards,

Andreas

Yes, that's why the question is how much effort the distribution is. I can get the excavator for 200€ including fuel for the weekend. The working time doesn't matter to me in this case, I won't factor it in now. The only question is whether it is doable as a layperson within the 2 days.

Hello dear home builders and garden designers.

I am currently planning to raise our garden area with topsoil.
It is about over 60 tons to be spread over more than 300 sqm with a thickness of approximately 20 cm.

Now I have various offers from landscaping contractors, but on average they want a good 25-30€ per ton including leveling, which I find quite steep.
If I have the soil delivered myself from the humus plant, it costs me 17€ per ton.
The question is whether I am overdoing it as a layman to distribute that much soil with a mini excavator ?? Or what is best to use?? to spread it on the property.
How much time should I plan roughly for this?

OOPS. Was I lucky? I had a bit more soil. On about 300 sqm, I had 200 tons of fill soil (that kind of dirt costs nothing except transport) and 250 tons of topsoil filled in (had to be). The piles that were lying around here first were breathtaking. And in no time: it was all gone and level. The neighbors doubted my sanity back then. But you can quickly calculate the necessary amounts, so it fit (more precisely, 7 tons were missing, which I had delivered a few weeks ago).

Well - we had a pure stone desert underneath, the experts said it would be better to put some fill soil underneath (they were right, works great).

The price you mentioned: market standard. OK.
(Many get shocked at least per square meter, me back then too, about what it costs!!! My favorite topic again: incidental building costs.)

It was spread with an excavator (roughly), then by 4 guys with shovel and rake. They were so exhausted after (I think) 4 days...
So - I would have better things to do than do it myself.

Best regards
Thorsten