OT Bush hogging insurance

May want to make sure you have it or that the person you hire does. Fellow was doing the field for some friends of mine. He hit the well case, busted the pipe and sheared off the supply line. Dropped enough debris into the well to wedge the pump and broke the wire trying to pull it for repairs. Drilling a replacement well and at 500 feet they are only getting aprox <2 gallons a minute. This is a busy farm with many animals and that won"t do, they start drilling Monday on a second hole (third actually) Going to be pretty expensive, not to mention the bad will that these folks being out of water for a couple weeks has caused.

That is bad all righ. That well casing should have been marked with a stick, and a flag. I have clipped off sewer cleanouts, pulled off several heavy sewer man hole covers. My favorite is cutting water lines, twice so far this season. I hope the tractor operator has insurance. Stan

Was the old well near that new one? If so, looks hard to hit, if he was awake! I do contract cutting, man, that would be like my worst nightmare, other than a certain individual getting re-elected! I always look for things that cost big bucks, to avoid, before even pricing a job!!

I have my well surrounded by 2 layers of wood timbers. The only way a guy would hit it with a tractor or other equipment is if he was piled up drunk.

I like the way you prioritize your disasters.

I would guess the guy was either blind or didn't know what he was doing to hit that mound.

That mound is from drilling a new well. I've hit ours with the
tractor before, casing caught the front axle.

Two years ago one of my field owners asked me to do an additional part, he assured me there were no obstacles. Yeah, thats what they all say. Fortunately I was going very slowly when I started spinning because I was up against the well casing. I was able to splice the wires, but It took about five hours to repair the mower.

i dont know if there is such a thing as insurance for brush hogging, by looking at this pic this property is already in decent shape and the well should have been visible if the tractor operator was paying attention, no reason for hitting that, i have hit old pipes for a fence that had been cut off 4 inches high, why they did that i dont know and was assured there was nothing in the field too,and a old stump or 2, but never a well, i can see those, i know where those are in the custmers fields i do , now, vegitation on the fence pipe field was hood high on the old jubilee,after i did it my welding truck fixed those pipes lol , i would get one of those flags used on atv,s' and mark the new one so that dont happen again, and the tractor driver should pay at least half of the cost of this, since he was the one that ran over it

If you do that stuff long enough you WILL hit something. It's worse when you know something is there and hit it anyway.

I got distracted and touched a well casing with my mower conditioner, got stopped before it damaged the well, but bent the lean bar on the machine.

Fell in a hole that I have been dodging for over twenty years, and broke the front end out from under my Farmall C.

Have caught a couple of gate posts, trying to sneak something wide through.

The best way to avoid that kind of excitement is to find, flag, and weed whack around all expensive obstructions. Do i do that? Not always.

And yes you can get bush hogging insurance, mine is a rider on my farm policy. It really isn't that expensive if you aren't doing it full time, and only on private property. They base it on the amount of business you do, and have always taken my figures. On the other hand, I asked about mowing roadsides for the town, and the agent about had a cow. For that small contract, I would have paid a minimum charge, of about a quarter of the contract price. Then I would have needed more municipal/state work to bring the percentage down to something I could afford. Oh, and the insurance had to bought and paid for to be eligible to bid the job. Needless to say, I declined to bid.

(quoted from post at 12:54:05 05/19/12) May want to make sure you have it or that the person you hire does. Fellow was doing the field for some friends of mine. He hit the well case, busted the pipe and sheared off the supply line. Dropped enough debris into the well to wedge the pump and broke the wire trying to pull it for repairs. Drilling a replacement well and at 500 feet they are only getting aprox &lt;2 gallons a minute. This is a busy farm with many animals and that won"t do, they start drilling Monday on a second hole (third actually) Going to be pretty expensive, not to mention the bad will that these folks being out of water for a couple weeks has caused.

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That's why I charge more for the first mowing of a new field. Last year I did a field where one well was marked and the new owner said the other was about 100 yards north of there. The weeds were tall, and I kept looking as I got closer to the 100 yard area...never saw one. I called the owner and told him to come and find it for me, then I went to another part of the field. He came and walked around for a half hour before he located it....less than 8 feet from where I quit mowing, but 100 yards further east! Fortunately I used a tractor that is very well suited for mowing, an operator's platform that makes it easy to stand up while operating (for great visibility), a hand clutch that runs in oil so I can slip it all day without hurting anything and quick hydraulics to get the mower up in a hurry if I have to.

I think I have posted this before but as my kids say that won't stop me. A friend of mine is a Mowing contractor with insurance, He cliped the guywire to a 200+ foot tall radio tower. He watched it fall, slowly at first then much faster but it missed everything on the ground. That was 10 years ago only cost $30,000 to put back then!

It was visable, he must not have been paying attention. The farm owners insurance is paying for it but they will go after the contractor. The photo is of the new well, they chose a location outside the fence in part of the lawn, but will choose another spot for their next try.
Don"t know if they dowsed for this location.

Nice mowing outfit!

Having done it before doesn't always make you safe. A field that I used to hay had a rock in it just small enough to hide in the grass but big enough to do some damage. It wasn't hard to avoid though, because it was dead center between an outside fence line and the rail fence around the yard, so you would get to it on the last pass. At least it was that way for about six years until the owner moved his fence out ten feet and I didn't notice. CRASH!