5 Main Types of Earthmoving Equipment and When To Use Them

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Types of earth moving equipment

Earth moving machines

Looking to carry out some earthmoving work but not sure which type of equipment suits? We list five key types and what you can use them for

So you have a specific job you need to do on your property or work site but you are not sure which kind of machinery will suit the task best. Well, good news is, most earthmoving equipment is designed to be versatile and can be used to execute a wide range of jobs.

Whether it be digging a pool, loading a truck, digging a trench, surfacing or levelling land, there’d be one or more machines that will tick the box.

Examples of earth moving equipment

Excavator

An excavator is a self-propelled vehicle with either tracks or wheels with an upper body that can slew 360 degrees. The body of the vehicle consist of a cab, boom, stick, hydraulic arms and a bucket or attachment.

The chassis or undercarriage of the machine do not move, except forward and reverse where required.

The excavator is indisputably the most essential machine to have on any construction site due to its versatility. With a plethora of brands and sizes on the market, there is one to suit just about any application.

While it is used mostly to excavate (hence its name), it can be used for plenty of other construction tasks, thanks to its compatibility with a wide range of attachments. This includes:

• Loading
• Lifting materials (with a sling)
• Backfilling
• Hole drilling (with an auger attachment)
• Digging a trench
• Stockpiling
• Rock breaking (with a hydraulic hammer or rock breaker attachment)
• Cutting and boxing (boxing is the technique of removing materials below a level and creating a ‘box’ shape to a desired level)
• Demolition (with a pulveriser or shearing attachment)
• Pipe laying
• Landscaping (ripping and removal of trees with a ripper attachment)
• Compacting materials (with a compaction wheel attachment)
• Battering and benching (batters are slopes adjacent to constructed works, while benches are steps that are dug into the materials to allow safe working on slopes)
• Mixing material
• Site clean up

Wheel loader

A wheeled loader is a self-propelled machine with a front-mounted bucket connected to the end of two booms or arms. The bucket usually has a large capacity and may be removable.

The anatomy of a wheel loader consists of a cab where the operator sits and drives the machine, engine bay where engine is placed, booms, bucket, hydraulic ram and four wheels.

As its name suggests, the loader is used mainly for loading material on to other vehicles or for moving material from point A to B.

Other applications include:

• Mixing materials
• Stripping or spreading topsoil
• Drilling holes (with an auger attachment)
• Lifting material (with a pallet fork attachment or sling)
• Cutting and boxing
• Backfilling
• Stockpiling
• Site clean-up

While the loader is most commonly used with a 4-in-1 bucket, it can also be used with a number of other attachments including an auger for drilling and rippers or scarifiers for ripping the ground surface or loosening material.

Backhoe loader

A backhoe loader is a wheeled, self-propelled machine with a front-mounted bucket and a rear-mounted loader and bucket. It consists of an operator’s cab; a loader bucket at the front; a boom, stick and excavator bucket at the back; wheels and two stabiliser legs or outriggers at the rear of the machine.

It is essentially a loader and an excavator in one machine, where the front of the machine is used to load and push material, while the back is used to dig into the ground for excavation.

As a result, its applications cover both the excavator’s and loader’s. It can also be fitted with a variety of attachments.

The backhoe’s applications include:

• Backfilling
• Trenching
• Rock breaking
• Lifting
• Landscaping
• Battering and benching
• Cutting and boxing
• Mixing materials
• Loading

Dozer

A dozer is a self-propelled machine with wheels or tracks and a large blade at the front for pushing dirt, and it usually comes with a ripper attachment at the rear for breaking up hard material.

The dozer is perhaps more specialised in its applications than the other earthmoving equipment, as its blade allows it to push massive mounds of dirt for levelling, drain cutting, and battering purposes.

The blade of a dozer can be lifted up and down as well as tilted at angles. It is imperative that the blade is controlled at the correct height, depth, level and angle, especially during a levelling job, as one wrong move might send the blade digging deeper into the ground instead of pushing dirt into the required spots.

Operating a dozer correctly and accurately certainly requires a lot of practice and a sharp set of eyes. However, advanced technology nowadays such as Komatsu’s intelligent machine control on its smart dozers takes a lot of the hard work out of dozing. All the operator needs to do is determine the grade that needs to be achieved, feed that info to the system, and move the machine backwards and forwards as required. The machine will automatically control blade elevation and tilt according to target design data.

Some of the dozer’s applications include:

• Levelling
• Battering and benching
• Cut and fill
• Bulk excavation
• Stripping and spreading top soil
• Ripping
• Land clearing
• Towing (it has a hitch at the rear that connects with the ripper attachment)

Skid-steer loader

The skid-steer loader is arguably the most versatile of all the earthmoving equipment, due to its ability to be used with an incredibly wide range of attachments.

Compared to its other earthmoving brothers and sisters, the skid-steer is much smaller in size and much nimbler in its movements, and is therefore a great tool to have for landscaping purposes on private properties, or just general earthmoving tasks on tight urban sites.

It consists of a cabin which the operator sits in to drive the machine, hydraulic arms which connect with the attachment, buckets or other attachments at the front, and features either tracks or wheels.

The machine turns by skidding or dragging its wheels on the ground, hence the name. A different variation of the skid-steer is called a compact-tracked loader, which instead of wheels, features tracks for better stability on muddy and soft grounds.

Some attachments that can be used with a skid-steer include buckets, pallet forks, dozer blade, pavement milling devices, hammer, auger, power broom, chain digger, rotary hoe and many more.

A skid-steer loader’s application includes:

• Loading
• Excavating
• Compacting
• Battering and benching
• Lifting materials
• Site clean up
• Stripping and spreading topsoil
• Mixing materials
• Rock breaking