|
|
Diggers and dumpers.
All sites need a digger.
Generally, a dumper is only useful if you are storing soil you dug out in a heap or spreading it around your land.
The proper name for a digger is an Excavator. 360° or 180°.
A 180° machine is typically like a wheeled farm tractor with a big bucket on the front and back hoe on the back.
It's big benefit is it can drive itself on the road. But it cannot load lorries, usually, and it gets stuck in deep mud.
|
|
|
A 360° is usually on tracks and it could spin round and round.
This makes it much better at digging in front of itself and depositing the soil arisings behind itself, where they don't fall in.
Quite often, a 13 tonne 360° excavator is the best size to dig a basement excavation, load lorries and not be too big on site.
I would recommend you hire instead of buy, and if you hire that you hire an excavator operator as well.
-
If you hire, you can change it for a smaller or larger machine as your need changes and you don't have it in the way when you don't need it. For instance digging the excavation and digging for drainage a few months later.
-
You can hire with an experienced operator who ought to be many times faster than you. Hiring a machine with an operator should be VAT zero rated if you are building a new dwelling.
Page in VAT manual.
Your local, experienced operator might come with experience of your local soils and any problems you could expect, and how to overcome them.
Dumpers.
Dangerous things.
I was on 3 large sites where people had life-changing injuries while on dumpers, not that I was close to or saw any of them happen.
I worked for a firm 25 years ago and someone lost their fingers.
Apparently he wouldn't get off the dumper every time it was loaded. Perhaps he wouldn't wear the seat belt either.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
He sat on the dumper while it was being loaded and steadied himself with his hand on the back of the bucket that tips.
The digger bucket came down on his hand as it turned to drop in the load of soil.
A dumper crashed and the driver was unconscious. it turned out that he had had a heart attack. But he had decided to do one more load before lunch and no one knew for 40 minutes. He might have had a better outcome if the ambulance was called sooner.
Building a new prison in Kent 30 odd years ago - before dumpers had rollover cages fitted, a driver who was always driving a bit quick reversed and his back wheel just went over the excavation edge. The dumper rolled into the excavation and landed upside down with him under it.
Had the dumper been empty he would have been cut in two. It was full of soil, which supported the dumper partially off the ground, but it still crushed his hip area.
Rollover cages can be folded own. Seat belts might not be worn. Both would be dangerous choices.
Back to the Basement Building Questions Answered menu.
|
Forward to the Basement Building Construction Manual menu.
|
For a fixed fee of £199 I will answer all your questions by email. More details here.
|
|
|
|
