Working Through a Melbourne Winter: Mud, Track Mats and the Calendar
From May to September Melbourne clay is mud and lawns are soft. Which jobs still work, how to protect the site and the machine, and the two windows when everything digs easily.
Melbourne does not get Queensland's floods or Perth's summer bake. It gets five months of grey, drizzle and cold, and a ground that stays wet from the first May front to the last September one. For anyone with a machine that changes the calendar.
What winter does to the ground
Clay across the east, north and west takes on water and stays saturated. A 1.5 tonne excavator that sat happily on a lawn in April sinks to its belly plate in July. Trench walls in clay hold, but the base is a slurry and the spoil will not compact back. Sand on the bay and the Peninsula is the exception: it drains and works all year.
Jobs that still work
- Drainage. The best month to fix drainage is the month you can see the water. Swales, ag-drains and downpipe connections.
- Hard-stand work. Driveways, slabs and anything on gravel or existing paving.
- Demolition and clearing where the site is already wrecked.
- Sand blocks. Frankston to Portsea, Cranbourne, the Bellarine.
- Tree and firewood work with a grapple and splitter.
Jobs to leave until spring
Lawn and garden renovation, pool digs in clay, anything that involves tracking across finished lawn, and deep footings in the west where the rock and the water table meet.
Protecting the site
Track mats or plywood on every route across grass. Widest track setting. No turning on the spot on lawn. Park on the driveway. Keep spoil on a tarp on hard ground, because clay left on a lawn for a month kills it.
Protecting the machine
Cold, wet and mud are hard on a compact machine:
- Clean the undercarriage at the end of every day; clay packed into the track frame wears rollers and sprockets.
- Grease every pin daily; water gets into dry bushes.
- Correct winter engine oil grade and a healthy battery for cold starts.
- Store under cover with a full fuel tank to limit condensation.
The two windows
March to May and September to November are when Melbourne digs. The ground is moist but firm, the days are long enough and the mud has not arrived or has gone. If you are buying a machine for a block of work, have it delivered for one of those windows and use winter for the drainage and the planning. The Melbourne area guides cover what each district is like underfoot.