Backhoes were once the machinery of choice when it came to ‘light’ excavations. These are jobs like shallow trenches, foundations for houses and landscape gardening. Backhoes were smaller, lighter and more flexible than other heavy equipment – they could go in, get the job done and be out again in next to no time. This preference is now being challenged by excavators – albeit mini-excavators.

Where a mini-excavator does lose popularity is in the area of flexibility and the fact that mini-excavators still rely on tracks rather than wheels. However, some mini-excavators are smaller than the smallest backhoes so flexibility doesn’t enter the equation – that just leaves those tracks.

Backhoes have a real advantage having wheels rather than tracks – they can drive quite quickly on public roads. Excavators, with their tracks, are still slow in comparison. However, despite some of these negatives, mini-excavators are gaining in popularity and it is at the expense of backhoes.

With this trend, what should you specialize in, backhoes or excavators? I’ll let you in on a little secret – you can do both. Backhoes, excavators and loaders all complement each other when it comes to skills. Yes, each piece of equipment is operated differently. However, sometimes those differences are not that great. With a backhoe, you have the combined skills of an excavator and a loader.

To gain these skills you need to complete a heavy equipment training program such as that offered by ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools. Our training program will provide you with experience on a range of heavy equipment including backhoes, excavators and loaders. Our training programs are nationally recognized, which means your skills upon graduation will be recognized nationally. Excavators may be trying to take over from backhoes but they will never do it – if they do, you will have all the skills necessary to operate either one – and a loader as well.

If there is one piece of heavy equipment that revels in the wintry conditions, it has to be the skid steer loader. Being light weight (yet still considered heavy equipment), they can scoot around on top of the ice and snow with little difficulty. Every home needs one at this time of year since they make such light work of clearing driveways of ice and snow.

It’s not just the ice and snow where they come in handy. Clearing up debris on building sites, working with landscapers to turn empty spaces into wonderful gardens and doing general duties in and around construction yards is all in a day’s work for these little beasts. It’s amusing to see a skid steer loader carrying a large wheel to a dozer when they need replacing.

Working a skid steer loader is a lot of fun. If you don’t mind being seen operating one of these little muscle machines (and you shouldn’t), then they can be the perfect job for those that have a bright sense of humor. The work is never boring, the action can be fast although safety is still a primary issue, and the variety of work on offer never ending. You just never know what sort of task you are going to be asked to do next.

What sort of training do you need to operate a skid steer loader? Any heavy equipment training program that offers a variety of equipment to train on is a good start. Training on a normal loader certainly helps. ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools can provide that variety in your training including hands on experience in equipment like loaders and excavators. If you like the idea of zipping around on a skid steer loader – contact us now to find out when our next heavy equipment training program commences.

If you’re a little tired of your current career (and many people change careers three or four times during their life) then a career as a backhoe operator may be the perfect choice. Backhoes offer a diverse range of tasks, sometime using the hoe and at other times using the loader. That is the one appeal to many people, the backhoe is more than one piece of equipment.

Add a couple of dozen different attachments and the backhoe becomes a jack (and master) of many tasks. Backhoes don’t just dig trenches, they are capable of much more, including drilling, jack hammering and loading or unloading trucks. They have become a common piece of equipment on construction sites and are becoming popular tools when it comes to landscaping.

The real beauty in selecting a career as a backhoe operator is that the training is fairly straight forward. Take three weeks out of your life and you will be trained and ready to start work. You will have a wealth of new knowledge and the skills required to operate a loader, excavator and, of course, a backhoe since that combines the skills of the previous two.

ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools have been training people to operate heavy equipment for over 25 years. They have the experience to know what employers are looking for when seeking to employ new backhoe operators. Because of the experience, employers rate ATS highly when it comes to the quality of the training and the quality of the students that graduate from each training program. If you are tired of your current career and considering a change – consider a change to a career as a backhoe operator.

GPS skills are becoming an important asset for grader and excavator operators as new equipment comes onto the market fitted with these devices as standard. More importantly, contractors are starting to realize the real benefits behind these devices. In an environment that is so competitive, being able to reduce costs and submit lower price tenders for projects is becoming essential to survive.

Using new technology like GPS to its fullest means contractors can cut days, if not weeks, off some projects and with it tens of thousands of dollars. How does GPS help these operators? Whilst it may sound complicated, the process is fairly straightforward.

In the past, a grader operator would be asked to grade a section of ground to a set of parameters that included blade angle, slope and depth etc. After a number of passes, the operator would wait while a surveyor checked the levels and determined the next set of settings. The introduction of GPS, particularly with laser technology, has produced a big change to how the operator works.

At the start of a process, the desired results are entered into a computer-like interface. The computer then determines blade angle, slope and depth and automatically sets them. The grader operator then proceeds to work the area with the computer constantly making fine adjustments – all guided with the aid of GPS and lasers.

With this technology, there is no stoppage time while the operator waits for the surveyor. The surveyor comes back at the end of the process and checks to ensure it means the plans. If it does, the next stage begins. Similar procedures occur in excavators where a depth and angle are preset. The GPS unit then helps to set the bucket angle and depths of the dig.

These devices save a lot of down time (non-operating time) which means a job can be completed far quicker than in the past. These tasks can also be completed with far greater accuracy than in the past. If you are a grader or excavator operator and you want to take on the challenge of working with GPS, consider undertaking a GPS training program. The skills won’t harm your career – they may well enhance it.

Heavy equipment operator training has many different formats with some training bodies specializing in one piece of equipment, like a bulldozer or excavator. A thorough heavy equipment program should expose the students to a variety of machinery for both practical experience and for familiarization. A student may decide to specialize in bulldozers, however, knowing how a grader works and its limitations, for example, can help the bulldozer operator when working around a grader.

Having exposure to a variety of equipment is important. It is also important to have some hands on experience in the popular machinery in use today. This includes bulldozers, excavators, graders, loaders and backhoes. When it comes to employment, these are the areas of greatest demand and the areas where most students will find employment.

Large reputable training organizations that have been around for many years have one very important attribute over many of the newer training organizations springing up and that is experience. Not so much the experience with training itself, although that is important. Their experience is in knowing what employers are looking for when looking to hire new operators – an attribute that many new training organizations haven’t as yet developed.

ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools have been around for over 25 years. During that time they have developed a reputation for providing industry with quality operators who have been trained ready for work – in other words, they have the skills that employers are looking for. The heavy equipment training program offered by ATS includes excavators, graders, backhoes and, of course, the bulldozer. No training is complete without experience operating any of these machines.

I keep an eye on the heavy equipment employment market watching for trends or indications of what sort of direction demand is going to take. Despite it being winter, a quick search of job vacancies for grader operators listed over 150 current vacancies. This is actually up by about 30 vacancies compared to a month ago. There is one trend that I think is worth noting if you are looking for a career as a grader operator.

The current trend is an increase in the number of vacancies listed that ask for grader operators that are multi-skilled. The predominant requirement is for grader operators with experience operating excavators and bulldozers and to a lessor extent, angledozers. I should point out that I was searching for grader operators and motor grader operators only. A look at other jobs within the heavy equipment field returned the following statistics:

heavy equipment operators – 200
construction equipment operators – 190
bulldozer operator – 61
excavator operator – 54
backhoe operator – 81
loader operator – 200
skid steer loader operator – 46
frontend loader operator- 63

In some cases job vacancies appear in more than one search result because of the way the vacancy notice was written. It is also interesting to note that loader and grader operators are the two most in demand at present. I use several different data sources to investigate job vacancies with these results only coming from the one site, Careers.org. If you search around you will find there are many more vacancies advertised online. What is interesting is that many employers prefer word-of-mouth, local newspapers and local employment specialists to help them find new workers rather than using an online source.

Extrapolate these figures and you may find as many as 300-400 vacancies for grader operators currently available. Employers have always had a liking for heavy equipment operators that are multi-skilled. Before starting any heavy equipment training program, make sure they provide training on a range of equipment. As you can see, you will be far more employable.

When most people talk about heavy equipment careers the mind conjures up images of a bulldozer, grader or perhaps an excavator. They are no doubt the big three when it comes to heavy equipment, but there is a range of other equipment that also provides for interesting and well paid careers. This equipment includes:

• backhoes,
• wheel loaders,
• scrapers,
• rock trucks,
• Skid Steers, and
• All-Terrain Forklifts.

And that is just a short list. We talk a lot about backhoes and occasionally about wheel loaders but Skid Steers, All-Terrain Forklifts, scrapers and rock trucks rarely get a mention. These machines provide valuable service in their niche and without them, we would have to resort to using hand tools of some description. Take the all-terrain forklift. This vehicle is similar to a standard forklift but it can safely transport loads over different terrains. Without it, we would be forced to break loads down to much smaller sizes to move them over the rough terrain.

Scrapers of course do just that. They scrape the surface in preparation for other equipment. Rock trucks help to remove large rocks from construction sites whilst the little skid steer is able to get into tight areas to work where no other vehicle can fit. This machines all offer interesting careers. The skid steer maybe a small machine in comparison to a bulldozer, but it is still a valuable part of the heavy machinery family.

One of the benefits of training through ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Schools is that students are introduced to a range of machinery. This provides each student with a broad set of skills and a better insight into how each piece of equipment fits into a construction team. Heavy equipment careers don’t sit solely with the big three – there are many other options available for you to look at.

Heavy equipment technology is a little like new car technology. It doesn’t matter what they do under the hood or inside the cab, operating the equipment (or car) is still the same. Many of the changes we see now relate to computerized components, the use of lasers and GPS, or the addition of new tools.

The introduction of laser or GPS technology often requires a little training to operate effectively, however, the equipment still operates in the same fashion. Like a car, if you add a GPS device, you will need to learn how to operate the device. The car will still be driven using the existing skills.

The addition of tools is a different matter. Here you may need to learn a few new operator skills. Using the car analogy again, it would be similar to adding a boat or trailer – the basic operations remain the same, you just need to learn to drive with the load. With heavy equipment, the levers and pedals still do the same job, you just need to learn that new job.

Cranes are a good example of the introduction of new technology. You can add a lot of devices such as cameras and in-cab video screens, but the basic principles of lifting a load remain the same and the initial training you receive is still relevant.

When it comes to training for a career in heavy technology, it is not always possible to include every new device that has come onto the market. Backhoes and excavators have attachments that number into the hundreds. If you were to learn each and every one of them, it would probably take a year of training. Getting the basics right is the first step to a long career as a heavy equipment operator. As heavy equipment technology arrives, you undertake training only if it is appropriate. The bottom line – there is no change to your normal operating practices.

Backhoes and excavators have very similar actions when it comes to digging out trenches. In fact, a backhoe is really an excavator that has been cut down in size and had a scoop added to the front. There are other design differences, of course, but the action of each is very similar. If that is the case, why would you choose a backhoe over an excavator, or vice-versa?

I said there were differences, and there are. Size is one difference that can be an important consideration. Backhoes are generally articulated through the middle which means they can be maneuvered in places that an excavator can’t get into.

There are other important differences. One of these is the fact that backhoes are multi-purpose built. The scoop or shovel at the front gives the backhoe the added bonus of being used as a front-end loader. If you need a trench dug and the material that has been taken out of the trench removed altogether, the backhoe is the best machine for the job. It can dig the trench then use the scoop to lift the piles of dirt/rock into a truck.

Excavators can do the same task using their digging bucket, however, this means the truck must spend the day alongside the excavator. These days, no-one can afford to have equipment just sitting around – that truck could be off doing other work. Bring in the backhoe, it can dig the trench then come back later and remove the waste in one work session.

Backhoes are one of the more interesting machines in the heavy equipment lineup. Requiring skills in excavation and loading, training across a broad cross-section of equipment is necessary. When seeking a heavy equipment training program, make sure it offers training on a variety of machines.

When it comes to heavy equipment and the construction industry, sometimes size is a problem, not a benefit – that’s where backhoes step up and complete the job. Backhoes can perform the same duties as most excavators. Of course, being somewhat smaller, they do take a little longer to complete a task, but when space is limited at least they can complete the task.

Backhoes and excavators are similar machinery when it comes to the tasks they can perform. Many of the attachments are similar as well. Although they can perform the same duties, these machines look nothing like each other.

Excavators generally run on tracks whilst backhoes run on wheels. Excavators have a large cab and engine room where backhoes are more like a tractor when it comes to the cab and engine room. Excavators and backhoes both use booms and buckets, the big difference being the size of bucket. Backhoes differ from excavators in that they also have a front-end loader style scoop at the front of the machine.

With those differences noted, the final straw is in their look and maneuverability. Backhoes tend to be long and narrow. Excavators tend to be in the short and squat category. It is the squat issue that makes their life harder when working in tight spaces. Backhoes can drive into smaller areas and still operate effectively.

Backhoes can be fun to operate. They are certainly one of the easier machines to learn to operate. Backhoe training as part of a general heavy equipment training program is the norm these days since it provides new operators with a wide variety of skills. If you think backhoes are toys when it comes to heavy equipment, think again. They are an essential part of any construction team.