If you’re lying down in a shallow trench (say, 1’ deep) under the open sky, sure, that sounds like no problem; in the unlikely event of a collapse, the soil probably wouldn’t even cover your body, and even if it did, you could claw your way out without trouble.
Now park a van over your body, with its weight borne on the edges of the trench. A collapse is more likely, and you’re more likely to be trapped (and possibly crushed) by the van.
Is there really no pavement or firm ground anywhere nearby that will reliably bear the weight of jackstands or ramps?
IANAEOFC (I am not an engineer or fire chief), but two people who I know who are one or the other say that if the trench is over your waist, it needs to be shored. The problem isn’t in being “buried alive” … it is in having your chest caved in by the dirt. You can die, even if your shoulders are out of the hole. Apparently, every time you inhale, the dirt pushes in and you can’t exhale.
OSHA’s standards don’t factor in having the car partly fall in the trench with you. IMO they’re implicitly considering an open sky situation where the work is happening at the bottom, not overhead.
Still you’re 100% right that by the low standards of farmyard engineering a trench is probably better than hay bales.
I also recall a particularly memorable Darwin Award where a guy used a scissor jack in his garage to lift his car. He had a nice level concrete floor and everything, so this shoulda been a routine job. His only mistake was that after the jack proved too short to get enough lift he couldn’t find a good stout block to put under it.
So he substituted what he had: a car battery. Which duly burst under the load while he was under the car. Spraying his face with acid, followed by the still hot and very heavy car sitting on his torso UFN. A closed-casket funeral was much in order.
Gravity will make you its bitch any time you give it an opening.
I’ve never seen them stacked three stories high, but they were stacked two stories high in the sheds. They certainly won’t have any trouble taking the weight - they can reliably take about a ton each… Still, for some reason my parents never used to let me make tunnels in the hay shed, and they knew more about farming than I did.
If the van is a parts van, roll on it side or almost with hay bales keeping from messing the side and just stand there and do it as said up thread. Don’t need to move it. ← is my vote if anyone is keeping track.
Surely anyone who owns a back-hoe is in fairly close proximity to someone who owns a mechanic’s pit?
Admittedly I live in town, and in a 3rd world city, and I don’t know anyone who owns a back-hoe, but I can easily locate at least 3 or 4 pits within 1km of where I am now, and a similar number of establishments that have a commercial grade lift.
Living on a farm, I think, “What would I do?” in this situation.
During el Nino two years ago, it was rare that we ever had any dry ground. For around 20 months. I used lots of cribbing- Oak boards stacked, then jacks placed on top. Then more boards with jack stands (And the jack(s) still in place)
We bale hay very tightly (To the point where it is quite difficult to get your fingers under the string), and never once would I have considered using any of them to support the weight of a car, or anything, really. One string breaks…
I would slap a chain on the van, and get a buddy to pull me somewhere less muddy (I’m guessing that he is replacing the fuel pump, and the van will not run). But no, don’t use hay for crissakes.
If you HAVE to do this, I’d use the backhoe to support the weight of the van and then stack the haybales to prevent the van from falling at all if the backhoe fails. Then you have two means of failure before you die – the backhoe has to fail and then the haybales have to fail. If you lower the van onto the haybales completly, you’re only one means of failure away from dying. Or you could drop the van onto the haybales and then just barely put the backhoe in place. Something to ensure that one method is there to save your ass when the other fails.
jackstands have a stable zone of lean. As long as they don’t lean over so far that straight down goes outside the rotation point…
Also gravel is as hard as concrete in many respects. Was it in fact purpose installed macadam ? macadam is the name for man made very very hard and strong gravel… (as long as it doesn’t rain). Tarmac is macadam sealed with tar on top… so it doesn’t go pear shaped when it rains.
Your bales must be impressively heavy. Well done. Not that I’d want to be on a sledge stacking them.
Don’t know. Hay bales are very strong and if the OP used three under each end then that would an acceptable risk. Particularly if the hay is new.
I had a similar problem once and straddled the car across a concrete street gutter. The footpath was quite high above the road with a deep gutter. Awkward but it worked.
We use a 1961 MF #10. You can REALLY pack them tight with it. Each is just a shade under 100lbs. Makes for fewer trips on those 92% humidity July days in Virginia.
I would not trust my life on a bale of hay. If it were to pop, compress at the point of contact, or many other things it would be ugly.
A bale of hay can stand considerable weight. That is why it can be stacked high. But in stacking the hay the weight is distrubted evenly over the bail. Have you ever seen a stack of hay that had a bale fail in the middle or bottom?
