Excavator or Small BH?

[Oregon Rob]

Back some years ago, you saw lots and lots of rubber tired hoes, now it's a lot of small excavator and not so many hoes. I know the excavators are easy to get around it, but I would have thought the loader side would be really needed.
Tell me what you have and why.

Thanks,

Rob

[digger242j]

What I own are both rubber tired backhoes--a 580 and a 680. When my Dad and I went into business that was a good compromise, because you got both the hoe and the loader in one machine.

If I were going to make the same sort of investment today, (and one of these days I'm no longer going to be able to avoid it), I'd seriously consider a mini and a skid loader. There's just so much you can do with an excavator that's so much easier than doing it with a backhoe. And if you have a skidder to use then you don't really need the loader end of the rubber tired hoe.

The primary places you're likely to find yourself at a disadvantage are in situations like needing to get ten or fifteen feet deep with the hoe, or loading a lot of dirt into bigger trucks, like tandems. To be practical about it, you can't do that with small machines, but even in those situations, the rubber tired backhoe is not the best choice.

Any decision you make is likely to be a compromise of some sort, and as I said, the good ol backhoe was once the best available compromise, but these days the evolution of the machinery has made better compromises available.

[cat320]

I think that a mini and a skid steer is going to be the way to go in the future do to the population growth and the space that is not there to be running bigger machines in yards .Well at least around near me i see it being easier than using the TLB but there is still a use for them .The smaller equipment can be towed with smaller trucks.

[Oregon Rob]

That all makes good sense.

[countrylad]

Agreed. Sorry for this useless post but I'm a new member and can't create a thread until I have done a few posts...!

[countrylad]

Useless post #2. At least if I keep to the same ancient and dead thread hopefully nobody will get upset...

[countrylad]

Thanks for your patience...all done.

[simondvlpmnts]

To compare info about backhoes and excavators I would recommend checking out the excavator listings (http://equipment.forconstructionpros.com/list/Earthmoving_Equipment-Mid-and_Full-Sized/Excavators/sortby.recent) and backhoes listings (http://equipment.forconstructionpros.com/list/Earthmoving_Equipment-Mid-and_Full-Sized/Backhoe-Loader/sortby.recent) of this website. They have a large number of product listings and should give you an idea of what each unit could accomplish for you.

[sasquatchman]

I bought a New Holland EC25 a year ago. It's proven to be very handy and I have been renting it out and doing custom work just by word of mouth. It gets into a lot of tight places that a bigger hoe cannot and can be towed on a relatively small trailer with my pickup.

I installed a hydraulic thumb on it last fall. What a huge labor saver that has turned out to be. I cut a lot of firewood and now I am able to haul and handle fairly large trees. Pretty good for a machine that only has 27 hp.

[Popandme]

Yep, here's another useless post from a new guy- this is the last one, thanks