If you were to place a bulldozer and road grader side-by-side you would have to admit they were completely different machines. About the only similarity between the two is they both have blades. The bulldozer’s blade is front and center whilst the road grader’s blade is somewhat smaller in height, often wider, and slung under the machine. Looking at them, you would imagine they would do completely different types of work.

That was true several years ago. The bulldozer was the ‘bull’ of a construction site. Its job was to virtually tear everything up and leave the area relatively flat. The grader’s job was then to come in and do all the fine work to exact measurements.

As Bob Dylan once sang, ‘times they are a changing’. With the inception of modern technology such as GPS and laser leveling, bulldozers can now do many of the tasks often left to the road graders. Modern technology can now do wonders – in this case, taking a big powerful brute of a machine and turning it into a gentle machine that do a lot of the fine tuning once the domain of a road grader.

This doesn’t mean that road graders are now defunct. One of the reasons that laser leveling was introduced was to ease the load on road graders. They can now be left to perform the final finishing touches to a new road – the real ‘grading’ needed before the hard surface is laid.

What does this mean when it comes to employment opportunities and training? First, it reinforces the need to undertake training that includes experience on a variety of equipment. Secondly, it lifts the skill levels of operators. Bulldozer operators need to learn to use laser leveling and the art of grading using a dozer blade, whilst road grader operators need to hone their skills in the area of fine or finishing grading. It all comes back to training. Your heavy equipment training should include experience on both bulldozers and road graders – that will set you up to perform either role with ease.

That is the call I am seeing these days – not experienced bulldozer operators – no, they are asking for reliable bulldozer operators. One of the problems many construction crews are now finding is a general approach of apathy when it come to travel. With a lot of highway construction being undertaken now, there are times when operators need to travel 40-50 minutes to get to the construction site.

Because of this apathy to travel, employers are looking for operators that are reliable. If the job is forty miles down the highway and work starts at 6am, you’re there, on time, every day that you’re required. Are you reliable or do you fit into the ‘apathy’ class? If you’re reliable, there is work available and it’s increasing by the day.

Some argue that the cost of gas is making this sort of work uneconomical. However, smart crews are car pooling to share expenses. There are employers around that provide transport to and from these sites, it’s just a matter of being at the construction yard on time to take advantage of that transport.

If you fit into the reliable class but don’t have any bulldozer operator training, that’s easily fixed. Heavy equipment training programs can have you in the workplace operating a bulldozer within a month of starting the training program. Read that carefully, within a month of starting, not within a month of completing.

The opportunities are there. If you’re reliable, keen to learn and willing to undertake a few weeks of intense training, both in a classroom and behind the wheel, then you can take advantage of these opportunities. The work is there – will you be?

Do you use bulldozers or a range of other heavy equipment in a specialized environment that requires specialized skills? If so, then engaging a professional training organization to deliver customized training can cut your long term costs to a fraction of what you are currently paying.

Whilst the cost of training may seem to tell a different story, having operators that are trained to do their work quickly and efficiently without any accidents can be make the difference. The cost of having one or more units out of action can be high, particularly if you need to hire replacement units to keep the processes moving. Customized training has been shown to reduce down time quite significantly.

There are other hidden costs associated with a lack of training. Operators can become frustrated if the task is complex and they have not had adequate training. These results in those operators moving on to more satisfying employment leaving the employer to go through the expensive task of hiring a replacement. Conversely, employees that are offered customized training feel that their employers value them highly. Being able to perform tasks with their new skills add to their job satisfaction.

The end result is a team of highly skilled bulldozer operators that enjoy their job and can complete tasks without incident, day after day. A second benefit to employers is that productivity increases when are operators are trained to use their equipment effectively.

Customized training for bulldozer operators is available through ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools. They can provide customized training on a range of heavy equipment along with cranes and trucks. Consult one of their experts to see if they can design a customized training program that can benefit your organization.

What do dump trucks, bulldozers and beaches have to do with each other? Every year our coastline is ravaged by storms. Some areas are hit harder than others resulting in tons of beach sand being washed out to sea. Our beaches are popular recreation areas and with no sand, these beaches looks fairly uninviting to say the least. Add to this the fact that many communities rely on the summer beach trade for their survival, you will understand why we do everything possible to prevent these occurrences, and when they do happen, we get in and fix them.

How do we fix them? There is only one way. Fleets of dump trucks ferry in tons of sand and the bulldozers get to work spreading that sand over the area that has been stripped. It can be an incredible site. One day there is wonderful playground – the sand, the sun and the surf. Along comes a storm and all you are left with is a barren strip of coastline that is rocky and totally unusable. Bring in the dump trucks and bulldozers, and before the weekend arrives, the beach is back to its glorious self.

There is a lot of job satisfaction in not only seeing the beach restored, but being able to once again use it. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen that frequently to the one beach. However, every year there is a beach somewhere that needs some form of restoration.

This is just one example of the type of work that dump trucks and bulldozers undertake. There is no special dump truck driver training required – it fits within the scope of normal everyday work. The same is true of the bulldozer operators – they don’t require any special bulldozer operator training – it fits within the normal duties of a bulldozer operator.

You may not need specialist training, but when it comes to a tired old empty beach that has been stripped of her glory, dump trucks and bulldozers certainly know how to give her a fresh new face! You can guarantee there are thousands of families that are glad she is wearing a new face.

One of the most popular heavy equipment occupations is that of a bulldozer operator. In fact, it is one of the most widely used machines with uses ranging from farming and the farm gate to final factory processing. Along the way bulldozers are used to help construct roads and highways, clear land for factories and homes and in the demolition (or destruction) of old buildings and roads.

To be a successful bulldozer operator starts with an accredited training program that covers all the important areas of bulldozer operations. This includes safety, walk around maintenance inspections and, of course, hands on practical training in real world environments.

In the past, bulldozer training involved standing behind an operator for an hour or so then jumping in the hot seat and using the equipment with the trainer standing behind you. Once he considered you knew enough to do the current job, he left you to it. Safety training was nonexistent.

Bulldozer operators are expected to look after their equipment. This does not just mean careful use of the machine. Being constantly aware of how well your machine is performing is an important part of equipment maintenance with minor issues caught before they become major issues.

Road construction relies on bulldozers being able to quickly and efficiently clear an area ready for the road crews to start ‘building’ the road. This can often involve tearing up old sections of road so that a new base can be laid.

In effect, as a bulldozer operator, your job will start with the destruction of one road in order to construct a new one.

Bulldozers have their origins in agriculture and they are moving back into this industry big time these days. The bulldozer’s origin was that of a humble farm tractor that had a blade attached to the front. We have come a long way since those early days with machinery that ranges in size from as small as a tractor to huge machines that could almost move mountains.

Whilst construction is their main territory now, bulldozers are quietly working away on many farms, often helping to regenerate areas. Bulldozers have many advantages over tractors. They are able to drag tree roots, shift large boulders and carve out uneven ground. Where they are particularly useful is in the creation of dams. A bulldozer can turn an empty plot of land into a dam in no time. If you consider that most dams involve two components, the hole in the ground and the earth embankment surrounding the dam. With the aid of a bulldozer the creation of one, the hole in the ground, helps create the second, the earth embankment.

Whether your helping to build a road, clearing a construction site or helping to build a dam, the skills and the bulldozer training required is identical. What is important is ensuring your training is delivered by an accredited heavy equipment training organization that delivers training to national standards. This will mean your skills are transferable across state boundaries.

There are many bulldozer operators now living in rural communities who work across a wide range of projects. They may be working as a part of a road crew this week whilst next week working on a neighbor’s farm. Next month they may be on a construction site clearing the way for a new building. One thing is for sure, their working lives are never boring.

There is one skill that bulldozer operators need to acquire fairly quickly and that is the ability to read the earth. How hard is it; what sort of material is made up from; how long will it take to do the job; how much can I move at any one time? These questions may sound easy, but that is only the tip of the iceberg.

Everything that any heavy equipment has to move or dig into can be categorized. This categorization is done according type, eg, sand, gravel, clay, rock or loam to name a few. It can also be categorized by size. For example, sand can be screened through a series of mesh screens, each one getting progressively finer. The sand is referred to by mesh size, for example, a 4 mesh or 8 mesh.

Why is this important? When using a bulldozer, or any other type of heavy equipment for that matter, you need to know your material sizes. If the job calls for a particular grade of gravel, you need to be able to recognize that grade and complete the job. There will be times when you need to apply successive layers of material, each at different grades.

A bulldozer training program can teach you the fundamentals of reading the earth and reading the different grades of material used in construction. However, you will only develop the refined skills required to work effectively by working with the material – on the job.

It doesn’t take long. You already know the difference between sand and rock or gravel and clay. It is really just getting used to how your bulldozer actually reacts as you start to cut into each of those surfaces, or how each material reacts when you start spreading it over a given area. Get the fundamentals right during your initial training and you will be on the right track from day one.

If you have read any of our previous posts you will know that a bulldozer is a piece of heavy equipment that is designed to use muscle to scrape the surface and push dirt around. You could say they were the bully boys of a construction site. Nothing gets in their way, and I mean nothing.

However, that strength can also be used for other things. Some bulldozers can have their blade removed and a large scoop attached. To load dirt onto a truck, these bulldozers need hydraulic arms that can lift the scoop high enough to empty the contents into the truck.

Standard bulldozers have arms with limited movement. They can be moved within a narrow height band – some as high as the drivers cab, tilt the blade and angle the blade to the left or right. Raising the arms above their head is a different story – at least, for most bulldozers.

Having a scoop attached can certainly add to the versatility of a bulldozer. They can clear the area ready for construction, then, with a change from blade to scoop, load the pile of debris onto a truck. Of course, the operator would need heavy equipment training that covers both a bulldozer and a front end loader. That would combine the skills of both machines into the one job.

That’s all fine. But what would you call a bulldozer that can have a scoop attached? As you can see from the picture, they do exist and, taking the name bulldozer and front end loader into account, they are simply called dozer-loaders. There is another piece of trivia brought to you courtesy of ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools.

Bulldozers come in all shapes and sizes but one thing almost always stays the same – the tracks that keep them on the go. Because of their size, weight and the jobs they have to do, bulldozers use tracks similar to those found on military tanks rather than wheels. Have you ever wondered why they need tracks and not wheels?

I say most bulldozers because there are one or two models that have wheels instead of tracks. Tracks have several distinct advantages over wheels. If you think about the type of work and the kinds of environments that bulldozers operate in you may have a better understanding.

Wheels come with one major problem – they tend to get stuck whenever the surface is a little soft. This could be mud, sand or just soft ground. A bulldozer’s claim to fame is its strength and a lot of that strength comes from its actual weight. Bulldozers are built close to the ground and convert the power of their engine into strength, which then allows it to use its own weight to push (or pull) heavy objects or gouge out the ground.

Tracks are a major component in this power conversion. These tracks distribute the weight of the bulldozer, particularly around the engine itself. With wheeled vehicles, the weight is distributed at the four corners and in the very center – of course, there is no wheel in the very center of the vehicle so that power conversion is lost.

So to answer the original question – bulldozers have tracks that help them stay above the ground rather than sinking into it and these track help the bulldozer convert engine power into pushing and pulling power. Without tracks a bulldozer would not be as effective in the work it performs.

If you undertake bulldozer training you will get a better understanding of tracks and their importance. You will also be trained in how to perform basic inspection and maintenance task on these tracks – after all, without those tracks, you don’t have a bulldozer.

When people think of heavy equipment, their initial reaction is to think of bulldozers, graders, excavators, and perhaps backhoes. There is actually a much wider range of machinery that is used in construction or mining that is classified as heavy equipment – you may often see it in use without having a name to put to it.

Skid steer loaders, or skid loaders as they are often called, are one example. Although small and lightweight in comparison to their much larger relatives, the skid steer is nonetheless important on a job site. The skid steer gets its name from the way it operates.

This little machine is run in four wheel drive with the left and right wheels driven independently. That means the left can be moving forward whilst the right hand side is stopped, effectively turning the machine on the spot. Because the right hand side is stopped, it will ‘skid’ through the turn.

A skid steer loader is often used in tight situations where larger equipment has no access. Although its normal configuration is with a loader attachment, there are many other attachments that can be used. These include backhoe, hydraulic breaker, pallet forks, angle broom, sweeper, auger, mower, snow blower, stump grinder, tree spade, trencher, dumping hopper, ripper, tillers, grapple, tilt, roller, snow blade, wheel saw, cement mixer, and wood chipper machine.

Another piece of heavy equipment that you may see in use is referred to simply as a scraper – since that is what it does. This is a strange looking piece of equipment – they often remind me of a strange looking insect. The machine is comprised of a scraper blade, a little like a cheese knife, a hopper, and an articulated drive cab. The machine is used to scrap layers of the surface depositing the scraped material into the hopper. Like a cheese knife, they are good at slicing even layers from the surface leaving a fairly smooth surface.

There are many other different types of heavy equipment, each requiring certain skills to operate them effectively. These skills need to be developed using the equipment on a suitable surface, or in work-like situations. Before selecting a heavy equipment training provider, check whether or not they provide training on the type of equipment you want to operate, and whether or not they provide real life training – ATS Heavy Equipment Operators Schools do.