Functions of a Center Pivot Backhoe Loader

Excavating

• Backhoes are used for various excavation activities, from road building to digouts -- the removal or digging out of dirt for residential and commercial foundations. Backhoes are capable of far more than just digging holes, however. Backhoes can stabilize themselves with outriggers in uneven construction sites, then -- at the hands of a skilled operator -- excavate with high precision in preparation for the forms in which concrete foundations are poured.

Trenching

• Trenching is often required when constructing buildings, roads and bridges. The pivoting hoe arm portion of the backhoe is a scaled-down version of a track hoe and is capable of the same kind of work -- digging continuous trenches such as culverts. While a backhoe doesn't have the large capacity of a full-size track hoe, it has advantages such as the ability to drive at slow speeds up and down roads without causing damage to the asphalt.

Loading

• The hoe arm is only half of the backhoe's work capability. The loader is the other half. The loading bucket generally isn't used for dirt removal. Typically, dirt removal is done with the hoe arm's bucket, where the tines break the soil loose and the bucket pulls it from the ground, pivots to either side then heaps it in a pile adjacent to the hole. Loaders -- the larger front buckets -- are often used to scoop up the piles and put them in dump trucks for transport, or to backfill, for example, after a foundation is poured.

Rock Removal

• Digging isn't always as simple as scooping large shovelfuls of soil from the earth; sometimes you hit rock. When you do, a backhoe can pull it out. You can use the bucket to dig around the rock. If the rock isn't too big, the arm can reach over the rock, scoop under it and claw it out of the hole. If the rock is too large, the loader may be able to pull it out with a chain. Backhoes have other accessory tools, such as a rock hammer, which you can use to break a large rock into more-manageable pieces.