Good winch for pulling 2 ton van?

forgotmyname

Cannot see OSB working, as soon as you get that wet or a bit of mud on it then it will like a sheet of ice.  Deep mud tyres are noisy on the
road and wear out much faster than a road tyre.

It's doesn't take much to stop a 2WD vehicle on web grass never mind one on a steeper incline, when I had a 4x4 we went to the local
carboot and came home with more money than I went with and I was not selling. People were getting stuck and it wasn't that steep.
As soon as 1 wheel loses grip all the power goes to that one leaving you going nowhere.

When you see someone stuck you don't follow them through the same section because they have just made it much worse.


Buy a quad and a little trailer and leave the van on the road.

Eldi_Dos

OP.
 If you are ever going up a incline and you are unsure you will have sufficient traction, try reversing up it. If you do get bogged down it is easier to extract yourself in that position.

GervisLooper

forgotmyname said:

Cannot see OSB working, as soon as you get that wet or a bit of mud on it then it will like a sheet of ice.  Deep mud tyres are noisy on the
road and wear out much faster than a road tyre.

It's doesn't take much to stop a 2WD vehicle on web grass never mind one on a steeper incline, when I had a 4x4 we went to the local
carboot and came home with more money than I went with and I was not selling. People were getting stuck and it wasn't that steep.
As soon as 1 wheel loses grip all the power goes to that one leaving you going nowhere.

When you see someone stuck you don't follow them through the same section because they have just made it much worse.


Buy a quad and a little trailer and leave the van on the road.

Thinking to get 'er done properly now with gravel.

If I got a lorry load of aggregate would it be better to hire a contractor or can I do it myself? I just looked it up and mini diggers seem a popular hire item and it implies you only have to have read the manual to be able to operate it.

Of course the professional will do it better but with the mse hat on is it worth doing it oneself or is it a false economy due to poor skill if no experience?

The price to hire per day is £231 for the first price I found. Would hiring someone to do it be comparable?

I had thought initially I would do it myself manually in bits but looking across the field with all those bumps and humps made my eyes water. I already did 50ft though to make the parking spot and done gradually is not out of the question. Just toying with the idea of if a quick job from the pros would be worth it.

I could save about 50% on aggregate  by buying a 20t load at once. That would be far too much for me to have in one go and lying around indefinitely but perhaps if the prices to hire to lay were reasonable then I could end up about the same vs. buying the dumpy bags in bits for near 2x the price. Or hiring the digger myself depending on if people think I could operate it efficiently with no experience for this job to be done to an ok standard.

Also if there was time I could dig them drainage ditches too! However I would probably want another day or more free to do those exclusively. Might be worth for that too.

paul_c123

I don't fully understand planning permission, but I know you can buy matting which goes over grass (and I assume will still work if its a bit muddy) which is designed to both somewhat protect the grass and allow heavy vehicle movements - think, festivals where several HGVs and telehandlers etc need to get equipment on and off a site.

Obviously it will cost a lot. They can be hired (I have delivered them) and they are quite manageable singly to shift around.

paul_c123

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https://www.ground-guards.co.uk/product/litetrack-ground-protection-mats/&psig=AOvVaw33MmSqQXbqABmfYT7h8Qfb&ust=1738175327059000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBQQjRxqFwoTCKigv-qFmYsDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE

GervisLooper

paul_c123 said:

I don't fully understand planning permission, but I know you can buy matting which goes over grass (and I assume will still work if its a bit muddy) which is designed to both somewhat protect the grass and allow heavy vehicle movements - think, festivals where several HGVs and telehandlers etc need to get equipment on and off a site.

Obviously it will cost a lot. They can be hired (I have delivered them) and they are quite manageable singly to shift around.

That has been discussed already in the thread. Wildly expensive. Would come to around 4 grand compared to a less than a grand for gravel.

Regarding planning, I don't think anyone does!

paul_c123

Get some gravel then?

GervisLooper

paul_c123 said:

Get some gravel then?

Hmm I forgot that if I only account for the tyre tracks, rather than the whole surface area of the tracks it comes out considerably cheaper! Having run that calculation they are only a couple hundred quid more.

They sure would be easier to lay compared to gravel! The question is whether the efficacy would be comparable. Even at worst and they weren't they work synergistically with gravel don't they so could infill with it if there were still issues.

Also more portable should I want to move them to another site or even on the same site.

Nobbie1967

I don’t know why people are recommending gravel. It will be worse than useless for getting grip as the stones will just slide against each other and get mixed in with the mud. MOT aggregate is designed to provide a stable base as the particles bind together. Geotextile with MOT compacted on top will give a decent track at relatively low cost.

Having said that, the OP seems to just want a fallback, so a set of the terrain boards mentioned earlier that you can relay as you move the vehicle seems the most cost effective solution with a manual winch to drag the vehicle onto the boards once stuck. The key with this will be realising when the vehicle is stuck and not just keep spinning the wheels deeper into the ground making extraction more difficult. Also, when parking overnight, always park on top of the terrain boards so it doesn’t sink in overnight.

GervisLooper

Nobbie1967 said:

I don’t know why people are recommending gravel. It will be worse than useless for getting grip as the stones will just slide against each other and get mixed in with the mud. MOT aggregate is designed to provide a stable base as the particles bind together. Geotextile with MOT compacted on top will give a decent track at relatively low cost.

Gravel has been fine for the 50ft I did so far. I consider 'gravel' to be MOT type 1 which is what I have used.

Due to the boggyness of the ground though it does quite often get seepage through but I found there is a tipping point where when I gave more layers, as I had spare, then it would go solid in that patch.

I ran out of gravel - or type 1 as is the proper term - now though. I was going to buy more but I took the other route and paid almost 300 quid for the plastic grids. I am really mad I bought them now as I got them today and they are rubbish for the intended purpose. Also I now have loads of nasty plastic which will not rot away.

I guess I will find a use for them but they are so awful for driving on. Well not totally awful, I actually got myself stuck today when I tried to run off the gravel I already laid and on to the grids laid on mud. They immeditately sank like the titanic into the mud and I got stuck while still on the gravel as I forgot that by turning I would go off the tracks of gravel and into the mud median in between.

So I was stuck but those new grids got me out pretty easily and they do grip well. The big problem is, while they are supposed to interlock, they just come undone at the slightest bumpy terrain. This is no good at all as my land is bumpy all over the place. With gravel it is easy to level things off and the grip has been very decent when laid thick enough.

The grids I laid down on some wet and patchy bits of the existing gravel and they have done an admirable job there. They do sink but that also gives them solidity. I would just use gravel if I had it but since I have a load of these things now I thought I might as well try and make use of them.

I suppose I will try and find other uses for them like walkways and/or use them on rare flat bits when making the track and for a shed base when i get one.

I almost bought the whole run which would have come to a couple of grand but then I thought hang on I better test them first! While 300 quid is no trifling matter, especially as an avid MSE, much less of a sting than the former!

Having said that, the OP seems to just want a fallback, so a set of the terrain boards mentioned earlier that you can relay as you move the vehicle seems the most cost effective solution with a manual winch to drag the vehicle onto the boards once stuck. The key with this will be realising when the vehicle is stuck and not just keep spinning the wheels deeper into the ground making extraction more difficult. Also, when parking overnight, always park on top of the terrain boards so it doesn’t sink in overnight.

Not at all. The fallback was only if all else failed! I want a plan A to be able to traverse that whole field!