Land Clearing in Polk County: What a Skid Steer Does

People hear "land clearing" and picture a bulldozer flattening ten acres. What I do is a lot smaller than that, and I don't get the call often. It's small-scale on purpose. A compact track loader, a grapple, a bucket, and a 16-yard dump trailer behind the truck. Here's what that setup does well, what it doesn't, and how to think about your lot.

What is a skid steer actually doing on your lot?

The machine in my photos is a Kubota compact track loader, the tracked cousin of a skid steer. Tracks spread the weight so it doesn't sink in sand or tear up ground it drives over. Two attachments do most of the work.

I also run a smaller stand-on Kubota for tight yards and gates, and for one storm job the photos show a Kubota excavator on site. Ask what fits your lot; I'd rather bring the right machine than force the wrong one.

What kinds of lots does this work for?

The rural towns south and east of Davenport are where the machine earns its keep.

• Polk City. Acreage lots, pasture edges, storm debris after every summer.
• Lake Wales and Dundee. Old grove land on the ridge being cleared for a house pad or a barn.
• Frostproof. Citrus town with rural parcels, fence lines choked with brush.
• Fort Meade. The oldest town in the county, with older homes on big lots along the Peace River side.

Typical calls: clear the palmetto and brush off a small lot before a shed goes in, pull a hundred feet of overgrown fence line, level a spot for a shed or an RV pad, clean up what a storm dropped. Sarah's Facebook recommendation covers the range better than I can.

5.0 · 119 Google reviews · Davenport & Polk County

What can't a skid steer do?

Plenty. I'd rather tell you now.

1. Big tree removal. A compact track loader moves logs. It doesn't safely fell a mature oak or a big pine. That's a tree service with a climber or a crane. I'll haul what they drop.
2. Engineered grading. A pad for a shed, a swale so water runs off the driveway, spreading fill: yes. Grading to a surveyor's plan, septic drain fields, retention ponds: no. That's a site contractor with plans and permits.
3. Wetlands. If part of your lot is wet or has wetland vegetation, it's likely protected. I don't touch it, and you shouldn't either without talking to the county.
4. Anything you'd call acreage. A residential lot of brush is a good job. A few acres, let alone twenty of timber, wants a clearing contractor with bigger equipment. I'll tell you that on the phone rather than under-deliver.
5. Stump grinding. I can pull small stumps and root balls with the bucket and haul them. Grinding a big stump in place is a different tool.

What about permits and protected trees?

Check with Polk County or your city before you clear anything bigger than yard maintenance. Some trees are protected by size or species, wetlands are protected, and some cities want a permit before you take out more than a certain number of trees. I'm not the permit office, and I won't tell you it's fine when I don't know. What I will do is look at your lot and tell you if it looks like the kind of job that usually needs a call to the county first.

Two more things before any machine rolls: Florida's Sunshine 811 marks underground utilities for free, and if there's a well, septic or irrigation on the lot, show me where.

How is land clearing priced?

Flat, quoted before I start, like everything else. Brush and fronds are light and bulky, so they're priced by trailer volume. Logs and root balls are in the number. Dirt doesn't ride in the trailer; I partner with dump trucks for that and quote it per job. Machine time on the lot is quoted with the hauling as one number. Send photos of the lot and its boundaries and tell me what's staying. You'll get a straight quote, and if the job is too big for my setup, I'll say so.

What does the day look like?

The truck brings the machine and a trailer. We walk the lot and flag what stays. The grapple works the brush into piles and loads the trailer; the bucket handles stumps, roots and any grading you asked for. Trailer fills, truck runs to the landfill, comes back, repeat. At the end you get a raked lot and a clear line where the brush used to be. For a big lot I'll tell you up front whether it's one day or two.

Storm debris on a big yard: same machine, different clock

After a named storm, the county and the cities run their own debris pickup, and on the rural roads it can take weeks to reach you. The grapple is built for exactly that pile: oak limbs across the drive, a downed pine on the fence, a yard full of fronds. I load it, haul it, and you have your driveway back the same day I'm there. Check your county's storm debris page for the public schedule first. If the pile is blocking access or you can't wait, call.

Grading: what "level a spot" means in practice

The bucket does light grading. That means knocking down high spots, filling low ones, spreading a load of fill or driveway rock, and cutting a shallow swale so water leaves the driveway instead of pooling by the garage. It does not mean grading to a plan with elevations, compacting for a foundation, or anything a permit drawing calls for. If your builder gave you a grading plan, that's a site contractor's job, and I'll tell you so on the phone. If you just want the shed pad flat and the RV spot to drain, that's mine.

What Big Rob's does here

The land clearing and skid steer page has the full scope, and lot clearing covers the house-pad version. The lots I clear most are in Polk City, Lake Wales, Dundee, Frostproof and Fort Meade.

Text photos of the lot to (863) 225-2147 and I'll tell you what the machine can do with it.