# Excavator on pavement



## Kent Whitten (Mar 24, 2006)

I'm just curious about protocol, for a lack of a better term. We had a guy bring his lowboy today and it's made me wonder if this is an acceptable practice or not. Here in Maine, all of the excavator operators drive the excavator on the pavement to load up or unload. I'm talking up to 100' or so.

When I lived in WA state, this was a major, major no no. 

It's weird that occasionally driving down the road, you think something is wrong with your car because you are hitting the damage(?) from the tracks on the road.

I'm not leaning one way or another, just curious if this is "normal".


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

Our smaller machines, we always load off the side of the trailer. Our larger ones, if we have to go on the pavement, we lay down some rubber conveyor belts to run on. Driving a machine on pavement with no protection is unprofessional and shows how lazy someone is if you ask me


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## RMDW (Nov 27, 2011)

If we unloaded on the street and drove 100' here I would be the proud owner of 100' feet of asphalt... We always throw tires or belting or dump fine grade on the road if its some where that it has to be turned right away then we sweep it up with the bobcat...


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## dayexco (Mar 4, 2006)

rino1494 said:


> Our smaller machines, we always load off the side of the trailer. Our larger ones, if we have to go on the pavement, we lay down some rubber conveyor belts to run on. Driving a machine on pavement with no protection is unprofessional and shows how lazy someone is if you ask me


boy, i must be lazy. i've found at least with our asphalt mix designs...unless it's extremely warm out, that you don't notice a thing other than where you turn, and if you do this carefully, you can hardly tell you were there. on hot days, i'll nose the lowboy into the property, unload/load from there.


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## RMDW (Nov 27, 2011)

I wouldnt do it eaither but the city would have a baby or two if we didnt do that the asphalt penatly is like 50 cents per sq foot and then we would have to pay to have it chip sealed if we cant do that then we saw it out and its 10 bucks a foot and we pay to pave it and chip seal it


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## Upchuck (Apr 7, 2009)

If I can't unload on property I bring some old plywood & crawl the machine across that.


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## Ayerzee (Jan 4, 2009)

My tracks are rubber :stuart:


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## JDavis21835 (Feb 27, 2009)

Unless it is brand new pavement, or hot out, anything goes. Any minor damage from walking a 30 ton and under excavator around on asphalt usually gets scrubbed away by the snowplows. The only place where special consideration is taken is when we have to cross curbs. 

A lot of our work is off of pavement in industrial and petroleum related businesses. I Spent the last month stockpiling, loading off of, scraping down that road, stockpiling fill material, and reloading that material off of an asphalt road. In all reality, it comes down to the clients expectations. Most cities do not take an issue with it here, unless as already stated, it is a new road.


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## Morning Wood (Jan 12, 2008)

I rarely see guys put down anything around here. I would just use scrap plywood if I had a machine


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## EmmCeeDee (May 23, 2010)

Where we work the roads have been torn up and patched and driven over by machinery so often you never see pavement protection. Now, if the street has recently been resurfaced, I would definitely put something down. That's when you just know someone will notice.


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## Kgmz (Feb 9, 2007)

You also have to remember that most excavator tracks are a triple grouser low profile, and not like a dozers tall single grouser tracks. So they do no where near the damage a dozers track will do.


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## peteo (Jan 8, 2011)

As long as the temp isn't above 75-80 and the wearing course isnt fresh we run all kinds of stuff on the road around here. If we have to cross the side walk or curbing then we will lay down wood or belts or whatever is necessary. We have even run dozers down the street for a block or two. Its not the most comfortable ride but you do what you have to. The trick here is knowing what to look for in the road itself will tell you what you can get away with.

Rino, you guys unload off the side of the lowboy? That is a huge no no where I'm at. We have seen other companies do it but I have always been to worried about bending the goose neck on the trailer. I drove one in Florida that was like that. Of course it didnt help that the guy who sold it to the company I worked for never bothered to mention that he did stuff like that and my boss never tried it out before he bought it. Long story short we ended up with a real pretty lowboy that was a pain in the ass to hook up because the goose neck was bent and wouldnt lock into the trailer properly. I was just wondering if you have had any issues like that with yours?


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## jmacd (Jul 14, 2009)

Low boy loading is done of the side here, always lower the trailer first so it is sitting on the road. This helps in not twisting anything and make the deck as low as possible. 

I have about a half dozen sheets of plywood that we store on a pallet. This pallet of plywood goes on the trailer with the machine every time we load it. 

When the plywood gets worn out we buy new and use the old around the shop. I have found many times that plywood was needed on the job for all kinds of stuff besides road protection. Window protection when doing demo, forms for curbs, sidewalks, and most important is covering the road or driveway. 

I have used plywood on driveways also just to protect it from skid steer tires. When done just pick it up. Can't even tell the machine drove on it. You know some people seal the driveway every year and they appreciate it. 

Like Rino said this demonstrates that you are concerned about others property to the customer, General Contractor, Town, and anyone that drives by the site. The effort to do this is minimal especially when I have laborers to do it.


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## jkfox624 (Jun 20, 2009)

The one municipality cleans ditches with a cat 317b. Always found it funny to have the machine parked on the opposite side of the road to clean ditches. All our roads are so beat to hell from hard winters you cant tell the difference.


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

We drop the trailer down so it is laying on the ground with either plywood or planks under it and we have big oak blocks we place where the tracks go to help ease it on or off the trailer. 

We only do this on our older lowboy trailer, never on our newer 3-axle trailer.


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## dsmith10 (Dec 1, 2011)

If we are unloading onto the pavement we always lay down rubber belts. However I have seen people not laying anything down but have caused no damage...I think it’s just polite and a safe guard just encase.


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## Sar-Con (Jun 23, 2010)

Lots of good replies here. Experience will tell you when you need some protection and when you can get away with none.

We're going a a little demo job right now and we've placed some gravel and steel plate down to protect the asphalt where the equipment is sitting.

The site we just came from we had that same piece run back and forth over some asphalt and no problems.


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