Hello All, We do a lot of work that has us sitting on black top or other hard surfaces. Our work is 90% municipal/commercial (parks, playgrounds, sewer repair, ADA improvements). I am thinking of adding a wheel excavator to the stable. Does anyone run one? What do you use it for? Right now we have a 5ton mini and a skip loader. So, this would be our first owned large excavator (we rent a 135 with road pads about 2-4 months per year.)
I worked in NYC for a few years on a new bridge and much the same as you describe we worked on paved streets almost exclusively. That said we also used it on the bridge alignment which was a stone access road. It was great for quick mobility without need for a trailer to move it around and it wouldn’t tear up the access road or the asphalt. The performance was about the same as a cat 320 so far as pick capacity just more mobile. I personally loved it for the flexibility and the operator did too because it wasn’t a bad rig to spend the day in. Obviously he preferred the 320 if he was digging on a production run of pipe and for the stability vs the tires but he did pretty good with both. Working on GA now and thus far haven’t seen too much of a need for it unless we got into digging out slabs on the interstate or something. Thanks, 631G
I'll just mention that rubber tires put all the weight on 4 corners. Even throwing out the stabilizers, you're still on 4 small points. In comparison the rubber tracked excavator will spread that load out over greater surface area. Werec you happy with the rubber tracked hoe, or was it still causing too much damage
I was happy with the rubber tracked hoe when I was running it. I feel like I could have been made to replace pavement if the street inspector wasn't kind to me (My employees weren't as gentle).