Excavators overview: We walk you through the
purchase process to help you get the Excavator you need.

You can choose to speak with one of our Purchasing Advisors who can walk you through the process and handle any issues or questions that arise. Our Advisors provide these services and more:

• Verify your information and give an overview of the purchasing process
• Provide purchasing tips and send buyer's guides
• Provide supplier profiles and ratings
• Mediate issues with suppliers

Full sized excavators have been a mainstay of construction projects for years. The sheer power they can bring to bear for digging trenches, foundations, and other types of excavation is essential to getting a job done quickly and effectively.

Due to their enormous weight, the need for a rock-solid digging platform, and the treacherous ground conditions they often encounter, the vast majority of excavators use steel tracks for mobility. Wheeled excavators are available, but much less common. Steel tracks give excavators outstanding traction for working on slopes, mud, loose dirt, and other potentially hazardous surfaces.

As with the other machines we've talked about, excavators can also be fitted with multiple attachments, but there are fewer reasons to do so since it's such a specialized machine. One popular use, though, is demolition: an excavator fitted with a crusher or hydraulic thumb can tear through reinforced concrete and other support structures.

You may want to choose different types of buckets to dig with, depending on the application. For all-purpose use, general buckets offer the best combination of light weight and high capacity. Heavy-duty buckets feature stronger sidewalls and teeth, and rock-ripping buckets can tear through the hardest surfaces.

Whatever type of bucket you use, it will wear over time, especially the teeth that do much of the hard penetrating and scraping work, the tips. Be sure to compare the tip systems of different buckets: replacing the tips is an inexpensive way to prolong the life of your bucket. Tips even come in varieties suited to different working conditions, so talk to your dealer about what's right for you.

For high-precision digging, especially on slopes or irregular terrain, modern excavators can be equipped with extremely accurate computerized bucket control systems. These systems use sensors mounted in the arm and bucket or external to the machine to track precisely where the digging action is taking place. By setting the desired dig depth, direction, and slope, the operator can dig exactly the trench that's needed with feedback from the computer. This systems vary tremendously in sophistication and cost – some merely help you stay at a consistent depth; others actually take over some of the digging and provide audible and tactile feedback as the operator nears the desired results.

Most of the time, if you're buying a full-size excavator, size isn't that big a concern: you won't be squeezing it into small spaces. One feature to consider, though, is zero tail swing or reduced tail swing. Zero tail swing excavators never exceed the width of their tracks as the cab rotates, making it impossible to hit external obstacles with the cab. Reduced tail swing excavators may have some overhang during rotation, but it's considerably less than typical configurations.

Another very useful feature is offset booms. Offset booms, also known as swing booms or articulated booms, can be moved off-center. By sliding the boom to the side of the machine, the arm can dig parallel to the tracks of the excavator. This makes it possible to dig very close to a foundation or other obstacle without constantly changing your angle of attack, and allows for much faster excavation of long trenches.

Transporting full-size excavators does present another set of challenges: due to their size, excavators require a heavy-duty truck and trailer, which means a driver with a CDL. For medium- to large construction firms, this isn't much of a drawback, but for smaller firms used to using pickups and other non-CDL transportation, it can be a problem.