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Common Types of Excavators

Nov. 9 2021 Buying Guide By Bobcat of Pittsburgh/Erie/Indiana County

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Different categories of excavators are able to meet different needs. It's important to get the right excavator type for your given budget, business, work sites, and projects in order to maximize productivity and safety.

Here at Bobcat of Pittsburgh/Erie/Indiana County, we strive to make your life easier. We gathered up the most common excavator types below. For more information or to shop excavators for sale, visit one of our dealerships. We are located throughout Pennsylvania.

Crawler Excavators (Also Called Compact Excavators)

The Design:

  • Moves around using two endless tracks.
  • Lifts using hydraulic power mechanisms.

Common Uses:

  • Mining.
  • Trench digging.
  • Landscape grading.
  • Heavy-duty construction tasks.

Benefits: 

  • Can navigate slopes with less of a safety risk.
  • Offers better stability and flexibility than other types of excavator
  • Can handle heavy debris.

Skid Steer Excavators

The Design

  • Moves using wheels.
  • Lifts using booms and buckets that are positioned away from the operator. The bucket reaches over the operator cab, rather than around it.

Common Uses:

  • Residential projects.
  • Removing debris that's spread out or piled up.
  • Digging pools.

Benefits:

  • Smaller size and tight turning radius results in impressive agility, especially at cramped work sites.

Dragline Excavators

The Design:

  • Larger in size than many other excavators.
  • Lifts using a hoist rope system. The bucket is attached by a hoist coupler and is affixed to a dragline that goes from the bucket to the cab. The bucket is raised and lowered using the hoist rope and moved towards the operator using the dragline.

Common Uses:

  • Road excavations.
  • Pile driving.
  • Canal dreading.

Benefits: 

  • Able to handle underwater tasks and large civil engineering projects that other excavator types cannot.

Long Reach Excavators

The Design:

  • Lifts with an extendable arm that can range from 40 to 100 feet long.

Common Uses:

  • Structural crumpling.
  • Breaking down walls.
  • Heavy-duty digging.

Benefits: 

  • Great for accessing hard-to-reach areas, such as reach over a body of water.
  • Can utilize attachments to tackle even more tasks. such as cutting and crushing.

Suction Excavators (Also Called Vacuum Excavators)

The Design:

  • Moves using wheels
  • Built with high-pressure vacuum and water jets.
  • Works by releasing a water jet to loosen the ground, then uses a suction pipe to let air up (which can deliver up to 400 horsepower). The vacuum created by the pipe can move debris up to 200 miles per hour.

Common Uses:

  • Underground projects.
  • Delicate digging projects.
  • Cleaning up debris.

Benefits:

  • Reduces the chance of damage over 50%, making it ideal for more delicate projects.

Need help choosing a type of excavator? The experts at Bobcat of Pittsburgh/Erie/Indiana County are here to help. We offer a range of excavators for sale and can help you pick the best match for your needs. Reach out or stop by one of our Pennsylvania dealerships. We also proudly serve those in Ohio and Indiana.