If you're working in the field, on a construction site, or breaking new ground on a project, chances are you're in the market for some heavy equipment. Heavy construction equipment is an umbrella term that covers over 300 different types of machinery, vehicles, and accessories specially designed to make construction easier. They usually involve earthwork operations or other large construction tasks and comprise of five equipment systems: implementation, traction, structure, power train, control and information. While horses were initially used in the 19th century to draw heavy machines, these days, thanks to technology, we've got a much larger, more efficient arsenal of tools to help us get the job done quicker.
According to Wikipedia, heavy equipment functions through the mechanical advantage of a simple machine, the ratio between input force applied and force exerted is multiplied, making tasks which could take hundreds of people and weeks of labor without heavy equipment far less intensive in nature. Some equipment uses hydraulic drives as a primary source of motion, while other use diesel or other sources of energy.
Other common types of modern heavy equipment include agricultural tractors, bulldozer, snowcats, track skidders, track-type tractors, tractors, military engineering vehicles, graders, SkidSteers, skid steer loaders, excavators, amphibious excavators, compact excavators, dragline excavators, bucket-wheel excavators, diggers, front shovels, long reach excavators, power shovels, reclaimers, steam shovels, suction excavators, walking excavators, trenchers, yarders, backhoes, backhoe loaders, backhoe
timbers, feller bunchers, harvesters, skidders, track harvesters, wheel forwarders, wheel skidders, pipelayers, scrapers, fresno scrapers, wheel tractor-scrapers, construction & mining tractors, construction & mining trucks, articulated haulers, articulated trucks, compactors, wheel dozers, soil compactors, soil stabilizers, loaders, skippy loaders, wheel loaders (front loaders, integrated tool carriers), track loaders, material handlers, serial work platforms, lift tables, cherry pickers, cranes, forklifts, knuckleboom loader (trailer mounts), straddle carriers, reach stackers, telescopic handlers, asphalt pavers, asphalt plants, cold planers, cure rigs, pavement millers, pneumatic tire compactors, road rollers, roller compactors, slipform pavers, vibratory compactors, compactors, roadheaders, tunnel boring machines, underground mining equipment, hydromatic tools, ballast tampers, drilling machines, pile drivers, rotary tiller, rotovators, dump trucks, lowboy trailers, telehandlers, tower cranes, pile boring machines, pile driving machines, cold planers, motor graders, and street sweepers.
While buying might seem like the de facto option when it comes to heavy equipment, renting might actually be a better fit for your project's needs, especially if the job duration is short, it's a one-time need and budget is tight. Renting saves money, caters to short-term equipment needs, provides specialty performance, satisfies temporary production increases, fills in when regular machines need maintenance or fail, helps meet deadline crunches, expands machine inventory, increases overall capability when and where needed, eliminates responsibility of testing, maintenance, service, makes the project schedule easier to manage with on-demand resources, and allows you to preview equipment prior to making an investment.
Interested in learning more about your heavy equipment hiring options? Give one of our preferred experts a call today!