Well 3 days away from the start of my HEO construction and transportation coarse and I am stoked to say the least. I was at the school to pick up my books yesterday and was suprised as to how many books I recieved, and the content of them is very informative. {from what I can tell. caz I am no expert.lol} A few people have asked me to take some pics of the school and post my progress as I go so I will be doing so through this thread. All I have today is the pic of my books.lol Hopefully next time I can post some pics of the equipment I will be on.
Does the official MTO Handbook tell you how to drive around the truck scales on the 401? Remember backroads are your friend around Windsor and Putnam
That looks like an interesting course. If they had offered classes like that in high school I might have stuck around and graduated!
Where in Ontario is the school you are attending? Good luck!
lol, I will remember that... whats funnier is that I could throw a stone at the putnam scales from my house. I am in Ingersoll.
http://www.otds.com/courses/courses.html Thanks farmer. I love farmers{ in a manly way.lol} for they feed the world.
canada has much beeter schools then around here i went in nh it wasnt bad but its not like it helped alot but my cusin in quibec went and man he showed me pictures much better training cause its goverment fundied. but im still higher in the union then him haha
It would be to expensive for tax payers to make it a program in every public/high school system. imo I learned alot about automotive in high school, and over the years racing and repairing my cars , but have always wanted to operate only I was never in the financial position to do so:Banghead untill now. $$$$ 23 thousand for the coarse.
I am going to try the union route once done. I have contacted a rep and told him I will be fresh out of school and will need an employer to take a chance on me and teach me some stuff, he said that s exactlly what they will do is put me on the "b" list and once all the "a" list guys are working the will send "b" list guys out. They have contractors that need guys for small jobs or just basic skills alot, so they will explain to the contractor I am new and I will work for a 2 week "probation" period to see if i can do the job, if I cant they send me home. I will not have to pay union dues untill I get my first job. I do have over 6 years safe operation in a factory on a counterballance forklift so I am am not totaly green. lol
The :b: list Only 900 plus people on the A list local 12
No crap those guy's are brutal ...I remember when our man had to get the OPP involved over a trailer out there ...it boiled down to release the truck and the man or be faced with theft and kidnapping... But lets not forget the Oakville and Milton scale's ... Cobra..wish you well ..You must have been talking to Joe down there at 793 ? great guy ,he handled my apprenticeship... once you get done and apply at 793 ...pay the initiation and defense fund (you get it back tax time ) and apply for a few course's within the hall ..including what you have done already .. hey more is better when your green ..and to some extent it dosent cost much.. Keep your recipts for books,fuel,oil change's,repair bills,meals, and all to do with your schooling ....claim it on next years taxes ...you'll get a bit or most of it back . hell call EI if your on it ..they may be able to get you a travel allowance and such ..because your not ready and avaliable for work if your in school ....get it.... i got it back in the 90's .. if not call your Provincial rep in queens park ..and make 'em earn their share..last i heard you dont have to pay through the nose because you got laid off and want to better yourself.... Ask questions to the gov and get answer's and what your entitled to ... GOOD LUCK..
Going to School How long is the Course?
Off course it's more expensive for tax payers up there but look; I paid only 100$ for my H-E training in a public school, I learn 5 pieces of equipment in 4 month. Education is the key of succes they said. Frenchy:canada
will also be fresh out of traning school soon located in the Kitchener-waterloo area, no local here what is better: hamilton or Toronto local? good luck with your school man! my first day was the best day of my life!
I have had some issues with Putnam scale. A friend pulled in there about 14 ton over his limit back in 06 with a tri axle truck. I ended up headin there with the boss with our little 312 to transfer some material onto another truck. Just as we were leaving some (insert your own name here) ran out to heckle me on how I chained the excavator down and yada yada yada.
4 months.
I cant imagine there was any education involved at all for 100$ lol come on guy, you would burn through 100$ in fuel your first week. So where did they get the money to hire a teacher?
public school was the key word there...
Exactly! If I remember, my H-E training cost is 35 000$ per student. I paid only 100$ and our Education System pay the difference. Frenchy:canada
so did you start today? how was it!
I was testing at our local 3 in Rancho Murietta, & they said don't waste the 20K on school, because at the end you will not be prepared to take the journeymans skills test (must be proficcient (s/p?) on 3 peices of equipment), & they will then have you test for the apprenticeship anyway. It may be very diferent in your neck of the woods though, but it seems most I have talked to look at these training schools as the red headed step child of the heavy equipment family.
Wow what a day! I started at 8 and unfortunatly had to get out at noon because of a monsoon.lol I was operating a D5G cat today leveling and sloaping, or so I tried.lol Man you guys that do this every day have the best job in the world, and I can totaly understand why peeps dont ever want to give it up. As you can see in the pics there is no shortage of machines.... 5 dozzers, 3 small excavators, and 2 large ones, 4 backhoes, bobcats, a grader, these are only the machines at this site. There is about 6 acres for us to play in {the pit} here are some pics from today. The trainner I had was very easy going and a nice guy so that helped take the edge off right away...................... OK I supose you guys are waiting for a newbie story eh? well I have one.lol I can remember reading a few post on here about staying out of the deep stuff, ha ha. I found out the hard way at the end of the day when I had to clean out the tracks, took me half an hour.:Banghead Next time I wont try and make a space for the rain water to flow off the field.lol
Thanx for asking Oriden.... I had a great day, just wish it did not have to end so soon.
you are right ... alot of the schools out there are not reputable at all. Lucky for me the school I am in is one of the best around . This school has job fairs and employers come to the school at the end of the coarse to attract the new grads. :cool2
Its great to see your getting somewhere ..your attitude is right ...now go get it ..
bloody rain! day 2.................. no day 2 it wont stop rainning. Cant ever remember when I was so sad about missing school in the past.lol
we tucked in under a thunder storm once but that was it ...she poured so bad we thought we were gonna have to build an ark ...but keep goin ...you pay you play im not making fun ...but do your instructors realise you will be working out side ,,rain,snow ,heat and humidity ... that really sucks man .. hope it stop's raining ..
they make you stop in the rain?.. do they suply make up time? we kept going, although the excavator i was usuing was much larger (cat 320D) im in the morning though maby the afternoon guys had to call it quits. some our schools in canada are reconized by the goverment like the OTDS and TTCC they are both good schools apprently! how ever i think i like your school better for the class work i seen they have all the machines seperated into different booklets i just got one 2 inch binder, 7XX pages.
At fleming we got books coming out of our counterweights. Just the book on tractor backhoes alone was about 400 pages. As for rain, we didn't stop we kept working. Usually it was pulling out the Dynapac but we worked.
i recived the binder with 7XX pagews for backhoe and dozer along with trench safety and what not then a seprate one for grader and excavator both large as well! you back at work alex?
I'm still loungin around ontario kickin tires. I'll be back to the grind next monday.
we had some serious rain out this way, and even though we have alot of space there, when you have 20 plus machines running 14 hours a day digging up the same dirt while its rainning takes its toll on the ground. It was not an issue of any one not wanting to operate, it was a safty issue because all the machines were on the aspalt pile{ not very big... and there was 9 machines up there}. The owner wanted to us all to run.... but the instructors said we cant learn to sloap when its mud soup, you cant learn how to trench when the hole just keeps caving in and filling up with rain. Yesterday they had 2 dozers and one ex stuck. It was not me thankfully. We will get to make up the time.
maby we didnt get as much plus like i said im on from 7-1, keep up the good work and more pictures! im intrested in other schools..
here is my machine I have been on for 12 hours total, and here is a shot of my trench that I made. It is almost a mile long and took me about 6 hours. Was pretty tricky being so high up on the pile near the end.....and a little bit scary for a new guy.lol I am completly loving this experience.
very nice cobra!
oOoOOo *Claps hands excitedly* Keep with the pictures and postings of what you did everyday!! I can't wait to start mine!!
what is your pits ground conditions like with our warm sunny days here? we finnaly have a chance to blade off the mud and create ditches and trenches around the pit to controll the water flow as we currently have about 4-6 inches of mud..
funny you mentioned it. We opened 60x40x 4 feet deep around the existing pond as you can see in the video, and left a 2 meter dyke in place untill we were done excavating. The real fun part was given to the guy running the dozer when he was able to break through the dyke and drive around in the pond leveling. http://s315.photobucket.com/albums/ll477/cobracomp/?action=view¤t=machines002.flv
you give me something to drool over while waiting for this fall to get here!! Keep the updates coming!!
good stuff! why are you wating so long HEO girl?
Cuz I'm going to do a year of a college program for it instead of one of them 13 week programs that they have out there. College classes for that starts in the fall so =] that's why.
sorry you feel that way:Banghead.... but most likely you are going to go to school for 1 year to hold a grade stick, or be a flag person just like me untill you get your chance. Its been 3 weeks now and I am averaging 7 hours a day IN a machine 6 days a week and am learning a ton from the instructors....who are all owner operators. Dont kid your self about school lasting 1 year and making you anymore employable than the next guy. It all comes down to how well/quik you learn and having the right attitude about what you will actually be doing once you are done school. Alot of the class room time is to teach you what the machine does mechanically, how to maintain the equipment, hydrolics and so on. So if you dont know much about the other aspect of being an op..... spending a whole year might be good for you, but I dont need that. I will have 200 hours in just seat time once I am done my little 13 week coarse, and I will not be to proud to hold a grade stick or use a shovel untill I get my chance to show my skills.
Oh I know I probably wont be operating right outta school, I'm ok with that. I think it's a good idea to do labor on the ground so you know what it's like when and if you do get in the seat. I looked into a 13 week program don't get me wrong they teach you heaps and heaps of information in those 13 weeks haha. It was the ATS school the one in NH. But that's what scared me, I looked at their courses that you do in 13 weeks and it was like . Plus the prices . . holy crap haha. Plus I kinda want the college experience to, even though I'm in college this year 1 year isn't enough haha.
you have to be carefull about the collage route, here flemming collage has a great program, burnout attended it, i ended up on the long waiting list, ghowever the conastoga collage program i wouldnt touch with a 10 foot pole, ive learned more and have had better teaching in a quater of the time. so make sure u look artound really good!
You would be amazed at what a 1 year course can teach you. Like Oriden said I attended the longer course. Oddly enough it was about 1/3rd the price of the course you are attending. We learned a lot about equipment, got excellent training from very knowledgeable men and yes there was a pretty wild in class program. We learned a lot of maintenance, learning the various kinds of equipment, safety and mechanics/maintenance. What some of the "other" courses in ontario teach is different. When I went back in 03 I looked around at OTDS, Fifth Wheel and Fleming as well as the mining course at Cambrian. Staying in school longer can make you more employable believe it or not. I don't know what the courses in the U.S. teach you but we had a great instructor that taught us about bidding jobs, selecting the right equipment for the job and learning that the real bible is in fact the Caterpillar Performance Handbook. I haven't used my bidding skills until recently but I have found them very useful. I went into work last week with my binder from my Earthmoving Engineering course from 6 years ago. I'm not saying the shorter courses aren't as good as the longer ones. But if your just breaking into the industry take all the learning you can get. Anyone one on this forum can tell you what I am about to repeat right now.... Operating is an old mans game. Most of the time us younger characters won't get the respect until we have gone 150% of what is normally expected. A lot of the time the older operators won't like you, and they don't want to teach you anything. Around here would be different because the members of this forum are obviously into this for more than "just another job". I will be 24 this year. I have a ton of hours, lots of experience and I grew up around backhoes and excavators, but I am still the young lad on site to most of the older guys. The more you can learn and diversify yourself the better off you will be. Yeah you might be holding a grade stake working a parking lot or be a traffic control engineer. But if you have the skills to understand whats going on around you... You may end up an operator faster than you thought. And oh yeah.... college life mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. The Nursing class....mmmmmmm I'm done my novel now :bash
oh god yes they wear the uniforms down here OH BILLY!!!! and the only beniofit for a short course like mine (btw we didnt learn to read prints or grade stakes, burnout i need your guidence? as well the extras you will learn along the way) when i was at my school i got to sit and watch a CAT grease monkey rip half a dozer apart and put back, as well as a backhoe and a 320 excvator that needed work, its all of what you make of it, in saying that i did manage to pick up a job thanks to alot of paying attion and question asking (mostly to burnout! thanks bud) make sure you steal all the seat time it wont hurt only help, this is esspecialy true in loading and off loading of your machines. good luck to you.
Its been a long time .... but I did get a job 2 weeks after school. Forman/excavator operator of a 5 man construction crew. No joke! I just finished my first job Friday. Land retaining wall at a new landfill project. 160 meters long and 2.9 meters high. Blocks were 360 pounds each and I installed each block with the cat{ its small but its mine and its brand new}. I feel pretty good about this, so here are some pics. I will post the finished pics monday after I return and clean up the site. I also have a Kabota tractor with bucket/forks and small hoe on back, pretty versitile machine for not being yellow.lol