Monthly Archives: September 2016

Buying a backhoe loader

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Out of the many expenses that a construction company has to bear buying of heavy equipment is one such expense for which they have to plan it months in advance. They have to allocate funds for this purpose some even set up a fund for the same reason and invest some amount of money on each and every month and once they see that they need to buy the equipment, they utilize the saved amount and for the surplus they approach a lender for loan. The lender keeps the machine as mortgage and lends the money to the borrower.

In this entire transaction, the borrower is benefitted by just one factor. He ends up paying less interest to the lender. Just because was able to save over the months he did not have to borrow the entire chunk. Almost every kind of heavy equipment is more or less expensive in nature and one has to shell out good deal of money to buy a machine. However, if they are given the option to buy a machine that can serve their dual purpose they might definitely want to go for it. This is when a backhoe loader comes into picture for companies that deal with digging works.

The normal range of a backhoe loader varies from $10,000 to $25,000 depending upon the features and the brand of the product. As a matter of fact, different models of backhoe loaders manufactured by the same brand can have widely different price tag attached to it. So the price of the machine also primarily depends upon the quality of its intrinsic parts. So you have a loader whose engine is exceptional and can work for long hours will naturally be expensive than the other models of the same company which are perhaps not so long lasting.

In order to buy a backhoe loader, you can largely depend on the company and in case you live in a city or town where the company does not ship the item, you can check online if there is any seller who can get the item shipped at your place. It seems that shipping the item at times has come up as a major problem for those who stay outside the city limits to where it can be delivered. For people like them, it is prudent to make the purchases from internet. They can register online and buy the loader from there. However, prior to buying the item, it is imperative that you check with the seller if they can ship the item to your place and who will pay for the shipping.

Also, you need to check the condition of the machine just in case you are dealing with a used one. Second hand machines must always be inspected first before they are bought or else you might later feel cheated but you will not be able to do much about it. You also got to be patient while buying heavy equipment. You can’t afford to make a purchase in hurry or there are chances that you might end up with a rotten one.

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Use Water Trucks to control Dust on the jobsite

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The sight of a construction site is not restricted to just heavy equipment or workers working on the site but you can get to see something more, something that is dangerous in nature and it is huge proportion of dust flying on site. It is pretty natural for a construction site to b dusty but that is also taking its toll on the workers. They are getting vulnerable to various kinds of respiratory ailments which is making them weak from inside. This is a very serious issue and not much is being done to restrict this menace.

Researchers working with human health benefits organizations and other environmental friendly techniques suggest that the growing problem of dust in a construction site can be contained by spraying water which has the potential to settle the dust for some time and the workers can continue with their businesses. Since this idea has been implemented in various construction sites, there has also been a debate on the effectiveness of this method. Many feel that this is only leading to the waste of the most useful natural resource and water is not able to contain the dust for a long time. The moment water is evaporated from the soil; it gets dusty again which means that it is time to sprinkle water again on the ground. This in turn results to wastage of gallons of water just to contain the dust. Moreover, the mechanism used by construction companies to sprinkle water is also questioned.

Most of the companies sprinkle water using large pipes. That only covers a portion of the construction site but not the complete area. It makes no sense to pour water to contain dust only in one particular portion of the site. What is indeed needed is a mechanism that moves all over the site and sprinkles water everywhere so that the land is wet and dust is off the site for few hours. This gives need to the use of water trucks that can go all around the site and do its work. Construction companies are now changing their methods of dust control from using pipes to carrying water in trucks and spraying them all over the site.

These water trucks are specifically designed to carry water and can move on the site. Though they are used precisely for carrying water but can also be used to transport debris from one place to another. They are made to move real slowly so that they do not become the reason of accumulating dust and spraying it all over. They also make use of pipes to spray water but the outlet of the pipe is made in such a way that the water gets sprinkled on the ground thus restricting wastage of water.

Almost all heavy equipment producing companies manufactures water trucks. You can check the website of any such company that is into manufacturing heavy equipment and you will get to see the different models of water trucks produced by them.

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Importance of mechanics on CAT excavators

Heavy equipment are bound to breakdown given the fact that they are compelled to work beyond their limits. This at many times take a huge toll on the heavy equipment and it suffer major breakdown which is rectified only with the intervention of a mechanic or an expert who know how to fix earth moving machines. This gives rise to the importance of a genre of men without whom the industry will have a hard time moving ahead. We require mechanics for all sorts of gadgets. Right from the Television fitted in our drawing room to the air-condition/heater in our bedroom, all has the tendency to breakdown at some point of time and to fix that we need a mechanic. Similarly, the construction industry depends heavily on the mechanics who charge a good sum of money for their services. But not all mechanics are paid handsomely. It is only those who have the required level of experience and the knowledge to resolve issues are sitting at the top and rightfully minting money.

Excavator is kind of a blue eyed candy when it comes to heavy equipment for construction houses. The reason is it is meant to do all kinds of work barring few. One only needs to change it attachments and get the desired things done from this machine. Therefore an excavator becomes prone to often breakdowns. Irrespective of the company that produces excavators, during the passage of time you will find it giving up slowly and steadily and this is where you see the need of a mechanic the most. The moment it starts giving issues, you got to call the mechanic to fix it. Knowing the importance of the excavator in your business, you just can’t afford to neglect the issue or else it will crop up to something magnanimous and will then become a pain for you.

Cat excavators though are renowned all over the world for its efficiency, caliber, high performance and reliability it may still fail to work if proper care is not taken from the beginning. Simultaneously, any part of the CAT excavator can catch up with a problem at any juncture. It might give you some signals with the snarling sound. The operator has to understand it then and there or else the problem may aggravate and may result in replacing the part completely.

Alternatively, every part of the machine comes with an expiry date which may or may not be printed on the part. Being a CAT excavator, it may be possible that a particular part of the machine loses it vitality few months after its expiration date but it will expire some day or the other. Post which you need to get in touch with a mechanic to get the stuff replaced. You doing it on your own can lead to more complications and is also certainly not advisable. CAT company also has mechanics of their own who services the machine but construction companies has their own preference when it comes to mechanics and therefore it is important that one must be sure that they are dealing with an experienced one who knows his work well.

Making of a construction company

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It may sound hard to begin a business when you do not have much experience on how to run it. It will in fact be quite difficult for you to sustain the initial few years and this is to be considered the most crucial period of any business setup. It is during this time that you experience too much of turbulence in your business and many people are compelled to shut their shops. But the one who are able to make it through these rough times are the one who are set to make history. The beginning of a construction business is no different and one has to go through the hardships which a person from some other industry goes through. However, what one needs to understand is till how long they have to experience the turbulence before finding the shore.  For this one needs to ensure that he has the right frame of mind and a sound financial backup that will help through his journey of setting up a mighty construction company.

Know how the industry functions:-

In order to run your business successfully, it is quite imperative to understand how the overall industry functions at ground level. Without knowing much about the industry, it will be futile to go any further with your business. It may lead to severe complications that may catch unaware. Things like how you can take a project, what prerequisites are required, the kind of expectation that one can set upon you and what you can do to fulfill those expectations are crucial. Running a construction business is not a easy one and involves lot of technicalities that the one who runs it should understand and also apply it well.

A bit of experience is always helpful:-

A person who knows how to deal with challenges and overcome them is the one who will find his place in the construction domain. Having little experience on how to run the business is crucial. It actually teaches you to deal with different types of situations in an effective manner without ruining your daily affairs. It also helps to learn to maintain good relation with your clients even when you have surrounded with different forms of challenges some thrown by the clients themselves. It is never easy to keep your clients satisfied as they always expect more from you. But to know the way to keep them content is an art that one can learn only through experience.

Have sound financial backing:-

This is perhaps one of the most important criteria one must consider. Every affair of your business in co-related to finance. You get projects keeping into deliberation the strong financial backing you have to complete the project on time. Your clients gives you work after they are satisfied that you have the resource to pay salary to your employees. You have to buy heavy equipments and that costs you a bomb. Therefore having a strong financial backup or some sort of reserve is imperative when you are about to begin a construction company.

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Mistakes a construction company should avoid doing

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Humans are bound to do mistakes in their lives and so do they also learn from it. Mistakes can happen in any industry and in any profession but there are some mistakes that can be avoided and one will never want them to happen. Mistakes are certainly not pardonable in professions where you just can’t afford to make mistakes. Doctors for that matter are bound to make no mistakes. Similarly, we expect the same from a pilot. But there are others industries where a mistake made, may not be life threatening but can definitely lead to severe loses and one can only try to avoid them. Construction industry is one such industry where you commit a major error and you got to be ready to pay a big price for it. There are few grave mistakes that one should avoid making especially when he is part of the construction segment.

Safety of employees should never be compromised:-

You can’t take human lives for granted come what may. People who are working for you are your men and it becomes your moral responsibility to safeguard their interests and their lives. Therefore, you should provide them with all the equipment and trainings that will keep them safe and sound. By no means should the safety of the employees be compromised. This can pose a big threat to the future prospects of the company and if reported to the concerned authority, you may even have to pay the price by leaving the project or by paying a hefty penalty. Also when you know that a job needs the attention of expert workers, you should know deploy men who are not trained for that job. They may end up injuring themselves.

Title should be clean:-

When you take a new project, you should ensure that the title on the property is clean and it does not have any disputes. These things should be done before you take up the work. In case you are a contractor then knowing about the title will help you to determine where you are heading. You should always keep your hands off from any disputed projects as that will lead you to complications. Check with the title company if there is any dispute on the property and if the title owners are the ones you have been informed holds the property. Projects are held up for years due to non-clearance of title and have become a matter of huge concern.

Never miss out on your finances­:-

The financial part of the company plays an important role in determining where the company is heading. Construction companies are known for not able to keep a tab on their finances. Money is needed to buy raw materials, heavy equipment, paying salaries to employees and taking care of other operating expenses but it all should be recorded or else you will not have any clue where your money went and what you can do to prevent unwanted expenses. Keeping a log of all your transactions is the need of the hour for every construction company and it may turn out to be a big mistake if not managed at the right time.

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Take sound decisions if you are new to the construction industry

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When you are inexperienced you may not get it right the first time. You be into any profession, you need some amount of advice and guidance in order to learn things in a better way. Simultaneously, you are also unable to take the right decision when you do not know the difference between what is going to be beneficial for you and what will turn out to be a drastic debacle. It is quite important to first understand the subject properly before you get into it in order to take the right decisions in life. Your decisions will be quite circumstantial in nature. It will vary on the basis of the circumstance that you are in. One such industry is the construction industry where people find themselves in a tight spot over taking the right decision. The circumstance may be such that they will find it difficult to analyze which way to go.

Taking up of new projects is one such example where people do not know if they should be accepting the new project or wait for the existing ones to get over and then jump on to it. Ideally, when a construction business owner is given a new business, the giver expects him to get going with the work but the irony of the construction company is that he has to first wind up the existing work he has got in his hand and then only can deploy his resources for the next assignment. The other option is he can get more resources for the new project and start with the work but then once the work is completed in the next 2 years, he will have to do away with all his resources provided he has managed to get more work. But a construction company can’t perform on assumptions of events that may happen after a couple of years.

In this case, the company is in a dilemma if it should take it or leave it. Leaving the project will also have repercussion that the company has to face. It may be out of work for few months after the completion of the existing one and that is definitely not a good sign for any business. So situations like these can leave any construction company owner under stress and when it comes to a new company, one can only imagine how difficult it will be for him to take the right call.

Now when it comes to taking right decision, you need help from others and that others have to be an expert in the same domain. A new guy in the construction industry may have a mentor who is a guiding force for him. He should reach out to him for advices. He may get something phenomenal from his mentor which will help him to take control of the situation and eventually take the right decision for the company. The difference between making money and losing everything is nothing but taking sound and unsound decisions.

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