What difference does it make?

I just read a magazine article about how far TLBs have come in the seventy years since they were first marketed. I'd have said nearer 50 years. The guy writing the article probably needed a proofreader to point out that just because it's painted yellow, doesn't make it a bulldozer. I think he's a writer, not an operator. He goes on about 22.5' digging depth. Has anyone ever dug 22.5' deep with a backhoe? I've got to think you'd end up with the tractor in the hole if you tried.

The deepest I've ever had occasion to dig is 7'. Even then, angle of repose had me sweating. I dug my cellar hole with a backhoe in the dead of winter. The frozen ground three feet deep that winter gave much needed stability to the loose rock soil. In a backhoe I care about cycle times, extended reach, smoothness, and breakout force. Loader capacity is important, and transmission system are critical. Breakout force is important on natural gravel banks. I like to dig 15 ' of ditch without moving the tractor, place sand, and backfill a length of conduit. Reach matters, digging depth does not.

Just my opinion.

Willie

I had a Case 320, considered the first. First produced in 1957 with a 4 cyl gas engine.

Joe H

deep

one of the deeper ones , although i have been deeper , front bucket to lift the front to get a bit more reach

I have dug 20' deep with a 416C. But I had to dig 8 to 10 feet out as wide as the machine , move the spoils and go again. Not extenda hoe. Maybe that's cheating. Were backhoes made in the 40s? I know they were in the 50s. I can't recall the name of the attachment company , its was like drott but Oliver used them maybe owned it.

China isn't actually down there.
I'm no longer clear. I believed that Case, and JCB were at the same time either in 1959 or 1960. In the fifties my father's friend had a 360 degree swing Bantam excavator mounted on a military surplus 6x6. Truth is it lacked the maneuverability of a backhoe. The lawns that many years ago tended to be nearer level. They didn't build VT houses on the face of cliffs in those days. He did septic systems, I'm not aware he dug any cellar holes. He later mounted it on a Ford COE truck. It has been parked 35 years, but his son still has it.

Willie

Massey Ferguson had the first integrated backhoe loader in the UK before JCB.

JCB claims they came out with the first backhoe loader in 1952.

I dig 10'+ with a backhoe often. Just last week I punched a few profile holes for a soil engineer that were ~13'.

I stand corrected. In the soil I see, a 20 foot deep hole would tumble in. A hole 20 feet deep would be 40 feet in diameter. A backhoe able to dig such a hole will be able to reach 30 feet from the swing pivot. In my mind there is no instance you'd need to dig 20 feet deep. 25 feet of reach, well..... that's another matter.

Willie

The issue of depth is likely one of the reasons that the TLB has been replaced in parts of the excavation business by tracked hoes. A track hoe of the right size can out dig any TLB on a construction site. The biggest advantage of a TLB is the mobility. If you have a tracked hoe, you need a low bed to move it anywhere. A TLB can just drive to the next job. Both have their place but a track hoe has replaced a TLB in many excavation projects.

In my area and many other places in Atlantic Canada many homes have dug wells as opposed to drilled wells to supply water to the homes that are not located in a city. The average dug well dept is 12 to 18 ft deep. I know of some that are 25 to 30 ft. and some of these were dug in 60s and 70s with TLBs. Our soil is typical rocky with hard clay once past the top soil. You can dig forever in a round hole without caving in. When digging to any dept past about 12 ft. the TLB had to be lowered by digging down to lower the machine, sometimes several time if the well was really deep. You can imagine how long some of these jobs were. Even more amazing is the fact that there are wells near my home that are 30 ft deep and were dug 150 years ago by hand. Believe it or not, one such well is across the street from the house I grew up in.

You can do magic with an extendahoe if you do it right.The hoe when extended is only meant for cleaning up your trench/hole and not for digging,a much appreciated convenience to this operator so you can excavate without pulling yourself in the hole and it helps when stockpiling your spoils to some extent.Bless the people who thought of it.Ron G

I've dug hard, rocky clay down into a 12' well.
I work slow and gentle, so far no problems.

My dad bought a 510B new in 84 with extendahoe that would dig 21 feet on leval ground and about 23 standing on the cutting edge and outriggers barely touching and we put in many septics that deep with it before replacing it with a excavator. Around here it is common for septic trenches to be 15'+ deep. It might have been slow digging compared to my 315 but it got the job done for years and though that extendahoe was wore slam out at 7500 hrs it dug a lot with it half out or more and never broke the stick in our hard clay.