Tight site efficiency for Tedwards Earthmoving

Owner, Tom Edwards said there is high demand for excavation in tight difficult areas and is an expanding market which was identified as the pathway for growth of the business.

“For several years I've been following the development of tiltrotators and taking careful note of which type of businesses and operators were benefiting from this highly productive technology.

“I spent considerable time looking at machines that contractors were using and what they were able to achieve. With the knowledge gained from my investigation of the technology, I was able to invest with confidence in acquiring an engcon tiltrotator.

“My research has paid off and moving forward, has proved to be the best decision.

“The tiltrotator has completely lived up to its expectations. The tools l use with the EC204 tiltrotator are a grading bucket (mud bucket), 450 mm digging bucket, ripper, tarmac cutter, sift bucket and a 300 mm cable bucket for digging around services.

“The engcon tiltrotator EC204 System is fitted to a 3.5 tonne Komatsu PC35MR excavator. The EC204 has integrated pincers welded to the tiltrotator. The pincers are used for picking up rubbish, pipes, attachments and other items. With this setup I have two hitches, a top hitch and a bottom hitch on the tiltrotator. The top hitch enables you to quickly pick up the tiltrotator or remove it when you need full lifting capacity, bulking out, using certain attachments and for optimum breakout force.

“There was an immediate improvement in profitability compared with not using the engcon system. Clients at first didn’t understand how it worked or couldn’t see why it would be more efficient to a standard excavator, it didn't take them long to see the benefits. There is less labour on the site, the job gets done faster, more precise work and there’s minimal disruption to site surfaces.

“The longer I use the tiltrotator, the more I realise how amazing is this tool. The ease of tackling any job is phenomenal and track wear is down between 30 to 40 percent compared with not using the EC204.

“The learning curve was reasonably short, as the basic manoeuvres can be achieved in a week. However I found that around 100 hours of using it were needed to accomplish smooth operation. Even after using the tiltrotator for 250 hours I’m still trying to fine tune the controls to achieve the full benefit.

“The tiltrotator has made a huge difference in the number of times you have to move the machine, this saves a lot of time and wear as you can sit in the one spot and dig a trench sideways if needed.

“Having the tiltrotator has definitely enabled me to take on a wider variety of work. In particular you can use a larger machine on a relatively tight access site because it doesn’t need to be moved to perform most of the work. Being able to get a larger machine onto a tight site is a huge benefit, where prior to using the engcon system, this would not be practicable,” Tom concluded.