[Balding_Eagle]

I farmed until 1986 and have a lot of experience with all those kinds of things, built and used them.

For my situation, the most practical would be a small Bobcat and trencher.

Wish I could do what I did when we dug out 8 6 foot wide, 3 foot deep, 55 feet long trenches in the hog barn, hydraulic auger on a Bobact -— 4” hole, fill with feritlizer-—— and a bit a dynamite, boom, everything was loose in a second.

[blackdog]

Can’t get a bobcat in the basement. A bobcat or any skidsteer is a real tipoff to the zoning people. Nobody wants a gasoline or diesel engine running in their basement either.

[blackdog]

We used to dredge the family pond with dynamite. It sure worked well. Chunks of mud and pond muck would land on the neighbor's outbuildings a quarter mile away.

FWIW, the less you blast/fracture surrounding soils, the less likely to develop foundation cracks.

I saw a contractor do the dynamite burried in bored holes in order to make foundation digging in red shale easier. A decade later the whole development of townhomes looks like a fractured Picasso cubist puzzle. What a mess. It just takes time to arrive.