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Writer's pictureRALPH COPE
Oct 29, 20203 min read

A Guide to Earthmoving Equipment

You would be hard-pressed to find a more powerful image than moving the earth. If you Google the words “earth moving” you will find almost 1 billion results – including 30 million videos. There are few things that capture the imagination of male humans than the idea of moving large volumes of earth from one place to the next. To do this, we need equipment – and that equipment needs to be heavy, powerful, and robust. This blog is designed to give you an introductory guide into what machines we use to move the earth!


Excavator


The king of earthmovers is undoubtedly the excavator. It is a crucial element to every construction and industrial site. It stands out from the crowd with Usually found on huge construction or industrial sites, excavators are a crucial piece of heavy equipment. Its most prominent feature is its long, crooked arm protruding from the cab, which has a bucket on the end. Crawler excavators are also referred to as compact excavators. They deliver plenty of power and are perfect for heavy-duty tasks. The excavator is a perffect fit for demolition projects, mining, driving piles, drilling shafts for rock blasting, and overall large-scale industrial projects.


Backhoe (also known as TLB – Tractor Loader Backhoe)




TLBs are slightly smaller than excavators. They are distinctive in that they look like a tractor with a loader (like a massive dustpan) on the front and a backhoe (an arm with a claw-like bucket on the end). The seat swivels 360 degrees to allow the operator to face whichever side is being used at the time. The TLB, as the smaller and more adaptable of the two, and therefore is better for farming, loading jobs, and medium-scale construction and excavation projects. Though both machines offer a number of attachment options, the TLB has a much greater selection and is therefore capable of a wider variety of tasks. TLBs can also be driven on roads, which makes them a better choice for projects that are spread over more than one site. JCB pioneered the TLBs and it is for this reason they are often called JCBs.


Bulldozer


A bulldozer is not at all versatile but at the same time is very good at what it does. It is a large and heavy tractor equipped with a substantial metal plate at the front used to push large quantities of soil, sand, snow, rubble, or similar material during construction or conversion work. It also has a claw-like device fitted to the back to loosen densely compacted materials. When not pushing, dozers can also use their strength to pull items like trailers, tools, or large and heavy pieces of equipment.

Wheel Tractor-Scrapers


A wheel tractor-scraper (also known as a belly scraper) is a form of heavy equipment used for earthmoving. Its rear bed has a vertically moveable hopper (a giant bowl) with a sharp horizontal front edge that cuts into the soil like a carpenter's plane and fills the hopper. When full the hopper is raised, closed, and the scraper transports its load to the fill area for dumping.

Trencher


A trencher is a piece of construction equipment used to dig trenches, especially for laying pipes or electrical cables, for installing drainage. Trenchers may range in size from walk-behind models to attachments for a skid loader or tractor, to very heavy tracked heavy equipment.


Skid-Steer Loader



They are powerful and compact machines that are principally designed to dig, but they have lift arms that can be used to move different kinds of loads. Bobcat invented the first skid-steer and comes with numerous attachments like bale forks, dozer blades, tillers, and utility forks, to name just a few. The default attachment is a bucket. Because the wheels are fixed, you cannot steer by angling the wheels in a different direction. Instead, you steer by speeding up either the left or right side of the vehicle, causing the wheels to drag — or skid — across the ground as the skid steer turns.


Dump Truck

Dump trucks are heavy machinery used to transport large volumes of loose materials such as dirt, sand, ores, gravel, and demolition waste across mining, civil or major construction sites.


Motor Grader

Motor graders have a long blade in between the cab and front tires used to smooth out surfaces. Graders are utilized for the creation and maintenance of roads, but can also be used to help establish a foundation for buildings and other structures. Prior to paving a lot or a road, they help level out the ground.

Wheel Loader

A wheel loader is a heavy equipment machine used in construction to move or load materials such as soil, rock, sand, demolition debris, etc. into or onto another type of machinery (such as a dump truck, conveyor belt, feed-hopper, or railroad car).


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