Tag Archives: heavy equipment

Avoid making poor investments that can cost you your company

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Taking right decision and making good investments are both quite crucial for the success of any business and when it is about construction, you got to be sharper with your thinking skills. Any poor decision can cost your business a lot and simultaneously any bad investment can have a drastic impact on your business. When you are dealing with investments in the construction sector, you are ideally dealing with lot of money and you got to be doubly sure that the plan will not backfire before you go ahead with the decision of making some big investments. For instance, you plan to hire some men for a new project that you foresee to bag. You are somehow confident of the fact that you will be able to get the project and have therefore allocated capital to pay salary for the additional workforce. In this scenario, you are heavily investing on human resources. So as long as you are not completely sure about the project, you should hold up your plan to hire any further resource.

People have lost millions in their business after having made the mistake of making poor investments. They were not aware that situation will take a downturn and they will have a hard time to come up with it and will lose a major chunk of their business capital. Even the most powerful in the construction sector have to face the music at times and they learn their lessons the hard way. There have been cases where the head of the departments had to resign for taking callous investment decisions that has cost the company a bomb. Mighty construction companies at still able to take the blow of bad investments but it is irreparable loss to small construction houses and contractors who vie for every small project.

Buying heavy equipment has been one of the most common poor investments by big as well as small construction companies. For some reason they could not figure out the kind of heavy equipment they need and they end up buying machines that were not required in the first place. They realize it later that the machine they have bought was capable of doing multiple tasks and they need not buy more machines. Since they have already invested in heavy equipment, they are left with not many options. They either sell it off at a lesser price or let it out to others.

In case, they have taken loans to buy heavy equipment, things become all the more difficult. They have to pay the bank the entire amount along with the interest or else it might have an impact on their credit rating which is in no ways good for the business. You get investments from private investors who are not necessarily banks and they invest in you by knowing that you have a good credit rating. So any poor investment decision should not be the reason for your credit rating to take a dip. This is perhaps the last thing you would want to happen.

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Running a storm clean-up project using heavy equipment

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Heavy equipment is one of those inventions that have made life way easier. The different types of heavy equipment that are available in the market can take care of any kind of heavy duty work. It can construct, destruct and remove anything from anywhere, without much of a trouble.

Though storms like hurricanes, tornadoes and cyclones and even the snow storms are some of the natural forces that cannot be prevented, the damage that is caused by these can well be repaired and managed with the help of the heavy equipment.

Managing the damages:

Storms are sometimes extremely disastrous, resulting in so much of damage and financial losses that it becomes absolutely difficult to overcome the losses. What is an added trouble is that storms simply disconnect the world and this brings the livelihood to a standstill. Even after the storm has stopped, people fail to get back to the normal life to cope. This is because, the roads, the houses and everything else is affected by the storms. In such a case, heavy equipment comes in as a help to remove the debris and to construct the damaged.

  • Managing the railroad damages:

 

Railroads are one of the most important aspects of communication that is often damaged by the storms. There are some areas of the railroads, where it is absolutely difficult for the rail equipment to go in, in order to remove the debris. The nearby forest and woods often get torn apart and block the railroads. In such cases, the mulcher excavators help in removing the debris. These mulchers can mulch down the logs, stems and the huge amount of forest debris within a very short span of time.

  • Repairing roads:

 

Often roads are damaged severely after a storm. The bitumen and asphalt come out of the roads, making it absolutely impossible to drive on and also dangerous. The bulldozers, excavators and motor graders, crawlers as well as chip spreaders can manage the task within a day or two.

What needs to be mentioned here is that reaching the remote areas is a difficult task for many vehicles because of the waterlogging. However, the heavy equipment that is specially designed to manage storm damages, are capable of going through water.

  • Dumping the debris:

 

Along with removing the debris, it is also very important that you take the debris to the dumping grounds. The loaders help in this task. The loaders come in various sizes and they can carry huge amount of loads from one place to the other. You can also hire the dumping trucks for this task of carrying the debris.

Depending on the damages and the type of help that you need, you can choose the heavy equipment. The heavy equipment for storm clean-up can either be hired or purchased. You can decide whether you want to own the equipment or hire it when you need it. There are many suppliers, who offer both brand new and used heavy equipment for various purposes. Choose a good and reputed supplier.

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Heavy equipment safety meeting topics

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Safety of human resources as well as the assets of the company should be given due importance in every industry. This is perhaps one such thing that can’t be ever taken for granted because if you do so then it will always hit you back and it will hit you hard. This is the reason why many companies across several industries spend good amount of money on safety trainings and explaining its employees the importance of following those safety measures.

Industries that are considered to be risky on part of the employees should take special care towards the implementation of the safety trainings and the outcome of those trainings. Construction sector is one such business where employees are prone to accidents if they do not follow what they have been trained on the jobsite. It has been observed that the number of accidents have fallen considerably after people started taking things seriously. You have to make few things mandatory. Not everybody will like when you compel them to follow a certain routine but if it is for their good then you got to do it.

Another important part that we usually take for granted is the safety of heavy equipment. These machines are an integral part of the construction industry and their role in this sector can’t be seen to be minuscule. Therefore it is equally important for the business owner to ensure that the machines are safe both in terms of maintenance and also not falling in the hand of thieves.

It is crucial that the top notch of the companies sit for a while in a month and check the current status of heavy equipment. Are they in good order, what measures have been taken to ensure that the machines do not break down in middle of an important project and if it does is there an alternative available? These topics should be discussed in a meeting and the team present in the meeting should also come up with some form of a solution to an existing problem.

Machines are really old:-

When heavy equipment become very old they tend to have a lot of technical and maintenance issues. In a heavy equipment safety meeting, this topic should be raised. If you have heavy equipment that is being used for the last many years and if you see getting converted into a liability rather than an asset due to increase in maintenance, it should be highlighted because old machines with technical problems are in many ways not safe to use. They may stop following the instructions given by the operator and the chances of an accident thereby increase manifolds.

How frequently heavy equipment are serviced:-

This is another important topic that should be a part of the meeting. Pull the record of the last time when all the heavy equipment were serviced. Check the gaps from that date till today and raise a question if you find the gaps to be more than it should be. A clear instruction should be given to the hierarchy that heavy equipment by all means should follow regular maintenance and any deviation will be strictly dealt with.

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Active marketing on social media websites

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Cut throat competition has led to invention of new and innovative marketing techniques. In order to stay in the market they all follow the various marketing channels to reach out to a large number of people. You may have a good reputation and have been running the business for a long time but it does not take a while for people to forget you if you fail to keep knocking the minds of people. People forgetting your presence can happen due to many reasons. However, the most primary one is there are multiple companies available in the market that produces the same quality stuff.
So if you miss to stay in the minds of people, there will be someone else who will take your place and soon you will be out of the league. This is quite a dangerous thing to happen and no tenured company will ever want this to happen. The same rule is applicable in the construction industry as well. In order to get new projects or work, you need to be known to others and it is possible only when you stay active on social media websites and speak in volume about your work.
Lay out a strategy in the first place:-
It is crucial that you first lay out a concrete strategy to put up the name of your construction company on social media sites. For this, you need to first have a website that talks about you and your company. The vision of your company should be clear in the website. Once you have your website in place, you need to locate the social media site that is most famous amongst masses. Now there are few websites that are known for casual purpose and some are for business purpose. You should be more active on the business one. However, that does not rule out your chance to post your work on other social media websites. What is important for you is to get known by as many people as it is possible. The more people know you and your work the more are your chances to get businesses from clients. Remember, every prospective client of yours also have an account for posting casual stuffs. They get to see your company on both types of social media sites and therefore they know about you sooner as compared to your competitors.
Be more active on professional social media website:-
You should be active on social media websites to gain attention of people but you should be more active on social media sites that are meant for professional purposes. There you will come across people who belong to your profession and the chance of getting work from them is more. Simultaneously, you will also bump across people who are skilled workmen and you may require their services for the completion of a project. There are websites that are exclusively used by Human Resources team of different companies to hire new talents. They go through the work experience of the job aspirants and if it matches their requirement they are informed about the date of interview. You can also hire skilled labor force from such websites.

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Types of heavy equipment that you need to clean storm damage

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Storms can attack suddenly and at any point of time in the year. It can be caused by the pressure changes as well as due to natural climate and season changes. Whatever the cause behind the storm may be, some of these storms are extremely dangerous and they have a disastrous impact on the area that it attacks on.

You will see there are different kinds of storms. If you are from a colder region, you will get snow storms. If you live in the coastal areas, you will find the cyclones and hurricanes and tornadoes there. Whatever the type of the storm may be, you will need to make sure that you can cope with its impacts.

The difficulties that you have to face:

Usually, the storms are followed by heavy downpour and this continues for a number of days. There is waterlogging in some areas and some of the areas are flooded. Trees fall down and they often block the roads. The huts lose their roofs and wooden huts are completely smashed and broken. All these result in a huge amount of solid debris that needs to be removed from the ground.

For that there is a strong need of some of the heavy construction equipment that can perform heavy duty works without any trouble. Removing the concrete debris, woods and tree logs etc. is not an easy job. Doing these manually would take a lot of time. It will only hinder the chance of getting back to normal life within a short period of time.

Choosing the right heavy equipment:

Hence, it is a must that you choose the right heavy equipment for storm clean-up. Here is a list of all the machines, tools and heavy equipment that you would require to get rid of the solid debris caused by a storm.

  • Loaders and dump trucks:

 

These are very useful in removing any sort of solid debris like concrete, wood and rubbish, including dust and dirt that might be deposited in any region as a consequence of storm.

  • Snowplough:

 

This is the heavy equipment that is used specifically for the purpose of removing snow. Regardless of how thick or high the snow might have deposited, the snow plough can easily remove that from the roads as well as the sidewalks.

  • Loaders with grapples:

 

These are very useful for removing huge and long logs. These loaders come with grapples that help in lifting long and heavy elements. Tree logs can be easily removed with the help of these.

  • Excavator mulchers:

 

One of the most interesting and useful heavy equipment is the excavator mulcher. It comes with unique machine or tool that has very sharp blades and can be used for removing the fallen trees.

These are just some of the most important heavy construction equipment that you need to have after a storm. The best part of the heavy equipment is that you can hire them or own them. The storm cleaning service companies have these machines and tools. Hence, it becomes quite easy to clean the debris after a storm.

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Buying heavy equipment directly from the company or from the dealer

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When you think of buying heavy equipment you need to know which equipment will meet your business needs. Not all heavy equipment is competent to do all kind of construction work and therefore you require the one that is indeed going to be helpful to take care of your business needs. Now once you know what kind of equipment you require, the next important thing for you to know is which model you should be going for and from where you can get the best deal. Every new model has some additional feature and it becomes imperative for you to understand which model to go for. Buying the latest model will be helpful but also be ready to pay the price for it which will undoubtedly be very high. It is also not necessary for you to go for the latest model as you can get your work completed by buying an older version which will be comparatively less expensive.

Once you know which model you should be going for, the next crucial analysis will be to determine if you should be buying it directly from a company or get it from a dealer. Each one of them has their own advantages and limitations. So you got to be wise enough to understand the pros and cons and then take the call to buy the machine from either of them.

Not sure which model to buy:-

Suppose you fall in the category of buyers who is not sure which model he should be going for. Then you can take the help of the company by letting them know a bit about your project and your requirements. On the basis of your needs, they will suggest the model for you. Alternatively, you also need to disclose your budget to them. The amount you can spend to buy the machine plays a big role in the selection of the model. Just in case, you are falling short of finance, they can also arrange loan on the equipment. So make sure you have a good credit report before you apply for loan as you will not want it to get rejected.

Dealer can offer you good discounts:-

If you plan to buy heavy equipment from a dealer you can check if they can offer you with some discounts or are they running any offers that can eventually reduce the loan amount. Dealers take the call on offering discounts on the number of orders he has received from you. This means if you place a big order, there are higher chances that you will end up with good discounts on your purchases. At times, they offer you more discounts than what the company can give. It is primarily done to encourage people to buy equipment from dealers as companies can’t reach small towns.

Place an order online:-

If you are sure about the equipment you want to buy, you can then place your order online on the company’s website. You won’t be asked to pay online and can pay them after meeting them in person and personally checking the equipment.

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Related articles across the web

Rain and Construction Jobsites don’t mix

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It becomes very difficult to work on a hot summer or on a chilled winter in a construction jobsite but it is nearly impossible to work during the monsoon. When it rains heavily the entire jobsite is full of dirt and water that workers find it extremely hard to work. Operators are also unable to operate their heavy equipment in the muddy water. Moreover there is always a risk posed to the heavy equipment if you force your way inside the marshy land. It is definitely not the right thing to do if you are concerned about your machines.

If you are laying the foundation for a high rise building, you have to dig deep inside the ground. Now if it rains, it will cover the entire place with water. The solution to this will be to remove the water completely through some water suction equipment and then finish the job. Now the problem is once you begin to remove water from the ditch and if it rains again, it will once again fill the place with water. So you may have to wait and see that it does not rain for a week’s time so that you can continue with the same process and then complete the work. In this entire process, you have lost a lot of your time and money just to remove water from the ditch. You may also have to depend a lot on the metropolitan department for their predictions. However, it is just mere predictions and can be wrong as well.

Moving our focus to heavy equipment and how rains can be a game spoiler when it comes to your expensive construction machines. If your heavy equipment is not well maintained and not painted, there are high chances that it may begin rusting. The skin of the machine will come off from its layer and it will look shabbier than before. You have to spend some money on painting it in order to give it a new look. Other than that, there is always a chance of dirt making its way inside the machine and getting settled in there. Also many people are of the opinion that it is a big waste of money to clean or service heavy equipment as it will become dirty the moment you start using it in the rain.

It will also affect your business big time. A lot of your work will remain pending because of rains and if it is incessant then it makes matter worse for you. You may work on strict timelines but incessant rains can force you to alter your plans and change the deadlines. It is never easy to change deadlines and if you do so you, it comes with a lot of ramifications. It also has the potential to tarnish your goodwill. Many construction companies have found that rain and construction jobsites just do not mix well with each other and it is therefore for the best interest of the industry and also of their individual companies that they try to keep all unimportant tasks during the monsoons.

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Heavy Equipment Guy

Being customer centric will help you grow in the construction business

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Customers are considered as king of the market. The makers of products produce goods on the basis of the wants and demands in the market and the wants and demands are of the customers. This means that they have to produce items that are in trend and are liked by people at that time. Though trend keeps on changing so once the trend changes the makers also have to switch to the next trend that making buzz in the market. They always have to be on their toes to meet the needs and demands of the customers. While they are meeting the needs of the customers they also need to pay good deal of attention to the fact that they provide them with exceptional quality or else customers always have a choice and they can move on to the next provider. You will only end up in losing business simply because you did not give much importance to the quality of the product.

In the construction domain, the voice of the customer plays a very crucial role in the growth of a company. They may have the best heavy equipment and may use top notch materials to build the buildings but at the end of the day they also need to check that whatever they are constructing, is it as per the wants of the customer and does it goes with the trend of the time.

Knowing the pulse of the customer is important:-

For the survival and steady growth of the construction company, it is very important that they first try to read the pulse of the customer. Check what they can do to make things better for them and accordingly build something that should not be less than exceptional. Customers should feel that they have got the worth of their money and you in turn build reputation from your good work. Getting new businesses in this domain becomes difficult when you do not have goodwill backing your company. If you are into building apartments for people to live, your reputation will speak about you and therefore people will book the apartments right from the period the building is getting constructed. You can achieve this reputation only if you can read the pulse of the customer properly.

Provide them with state of the art amenities:-

When you sell apartments that have state of the art amenities, it sells faster. You can market the apartments on the basis of the amenities that you will offer to the general public. Knowing on what you will offer, people will be interested to book their apartments in your building. This also acts as a brilliant marketing strategy that will drive many to go for apartments constructed by you. You can also charge them for the luxury but that should not be exponential. You should not be money oriented but should be more customer centric. You should quote the amount that gives you your profit. If you try to become greedy and quote higher amount, people will look for someone else.

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My Grease fitting will not take grease on my heavy equipment. What should I do?

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Grease fitting is attached to the top of the grease gun and it delivers grease from grease gun under high pressure to inside of the sealed joints of heavy equipments. For the efficient functioning grease fittings should be free of dirt and not contain hardened grease. However, grease fittings get clogged and become ineffective in delivery of grease (malfunction).The following are some of the solutions to overcome this problem:

  1. Spraying petroleum based spray onto a grease fitting and cleaning it with a cloth will clean the grease fitting.
  2. Heat the clogged fittings with a propane torch or heat gun on a low flame. Following which the grease gun should be attached and flow of new grease will push soften old grease out and will clear the fitting.
  3. To attach commercial grease fitting cleaners such Zecker Zap, IPA, Powerfist and Performance tools to the clogged fitting. They are attached to one end of the grease fitting, injected with light viscosity oil and then stroked with a hammer. This will force the oil into fitting and will clear it of the hardened grease. Thus, these tools help to clear fitting without removing, replacing, digging or scraping. Applying this option has advantages that one does not have to pay for labour charges, reduces maintenance costs and downtime.
  4. When the above solutions do not work, then the grease fittings have to be taken apart to clean off the grease.
  5. After unscrewing the fitting, its passage is cleaned with a wire and filled with motor oil. The fitting is replaced and oil is pumped up, which will soften the grease and get it out.
  6. Sometimes there is a hydraulic lock at the zerk and which seals it. One has to loosen this component so that grease flows in.
  7. Sometimes the little ball in the tip of zerk gets friction stiffness or dirt gets collected over it and just needs to be loosened. A small sharp object can be used to dislodge the tip.
  8. Most the grease hardens on the zerk fitting. After taking the grease fitting taken apart, the zerk fitting is removed. A very small flat head screwdriver is used to remove all the grease out of the opening. The remaining can be cleaned using oil. A new zerk fitting is used and new grease is pumped till it comes out of the seals.
  9. If the above methods are not effective, then the fittings can be replaced with new ones as they are inexpensive.

Additional few things although minor, need to considered when grease does not flow into grease fittings. Sometimes there is lack of contact of the tip of the grease gun and zerk of fitting. There is also a possibility that the grease gun nozzle is worn out and leads to collection of grease around the zerk. Hence, replacing it with a new nozzle works for a long time. Also, one used use superior quality of grease. Finally, a daily scheduled servicing of the grease fitting is necessary for proper maintenance of the equipment.

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Kind of heavy equipment to build a housing lot

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Building houses has always been a thriving business and construction companies have made enough wealth being in this business for years. Even the newcomers are getting enough work and thereby not have to go through a lot of hardships. All that they need is some good heavy equipment and a bunch of able and competent workers who knows to build houses. When you are building a housing lot you need to deploy different types of heavy equipment for digging foundation, for breaking existing structures and to clear land. You can’t make use of 1 heavy equipment for all kinds of work and at the same time you need more machines if the construction area is huge. To build houses in massive lot, you need earth moving heavy machineries like excavators, loaders, bulldozers, backhoe crawler loader, trenchers etc. The utility of these machines is basically to move huge pile of soil that has been dug and load it in a truck. The truck will then ferry the soil in a dump yard.

The utility of an excavator is immensely felt in constructing a housing lot. It is multi-purpose heavy equipment which can be used for array of construction activities such as digging trenches and holes for laying foundation, demolition of existing structure, forestry work, general landscaping etc. It is one of the most common types of heavy equipment that you will find in a jobsite. This is followed by a loader which is primarily used to load materials like construction debris, asphalt, raw materials, logs, dirt etc.

Then we move to the construction vehicles which involve Dumpers, Tankers, Trailers, etc. These heavy equipment are used for various types of work. Right from ferrying the soil from the jobsite to the dump yard to spraying water on the jobsite using a truck, these heavy equipment are used for many such purposes. They have not have a direct relation in house building but still plays an active role. Without these heavy equipment it will be really difficult for the construction laborers to perform their duties. When we are talking about a huge housing plot, one can just imagine the amount of dirt that gets accumulated on the jobsite and to get that cleared off you need the help of a dumper, or a truck.

Then comes the material handling equipment which mostly consists machines like Cranes, Conveyors, and Forklifts. The cranes are used to move heavy slabs and place it on the top. Cranes are required when you are constructing high end towers. They are also used to lift heavy machines which get s stuck for some reason. It is therefore basically used to lift and ferry a heavy item which can’t move on its own from place to another. Conveyors are used to move heavy and bulky materials from one place to another. It is quite common is many construction sites as they all involve moving of heavy material items from one place to another.

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