A Part of the Plan: Tracked Excavator

I have a fairly well fleshed out plan and I am going to write some of my ideas for the future down on this blog so you can see where my head is at when it comes to what is ahead.  I am going to start with the excavator as it will be one of the first things we get after we sort out some land, we want a minimum of about 5 acres to accomplish everything I have envisioned.

When we get land I have budgeted to spend up to $15k buying a tracked excavator, I have seen them on TradeMe for that price between 1.25 and 2.5 ton, anywhere in that range should do what we will need it for.

I have decided to buy this because it will be the most versatile vehicle for what I want to use it for and I have experience on a tracked vehicle.
I am planning to use the Excavator for the following nefarious purposes:

• Shaping the land for the structures to sit on (House, Garage, Solar Wood Kiln, Chicken Coop, Pig Sty, Somewhere for the cow and a couple of sheep to sleep).
• Digging the septic system/composting toilet.
• Digging trenches for pipes on the water collection system and drainage from the grey water system.
• Digging any dams or swales to suit the permaculture plan that we will devise when we find some land.
• I will be milling my own lumber eventually so I will use it to move logs to the mill and pull any stumps.
• Digging a cellar on the house for storage of foods.
• Digging raised bed gardens.
• I want to make as many of my own bricks as possible beginning with the Compressed Earth Bricks I plan to make all the structures out of and then if I can make fire bricks I will need it to collect the right clay for that so I can make: rocket mass heater, forge, foundry, kiln and Oven.
• Hydraulics can be used for other purposes like powering the CEB press.

Once the main structures are made we will not be using the excavator for very much other than the logging side of things so I might be able to sell it off and buy an electric golf cart that I can charge with the solar panels.  If I made a log trailer for it I should be able to move stuff around manually using a winch as long as the logs are not too big.  I am planning to build my own chainsaw mill so I will not be able to mill huge logs anyway, viability will depend on the land we end up getting and whether it is flat or hilly.  There is an excellent video on Youtube that explains exactly what I mean.  My chainsaw is electric with the mill and having some portable solar panels in mind.

I could also just convert it to biodiesel and make my own fuel.  I have built a few engines in my youth and I don't think this will be much harder from the literature I have read.