Like most cities and counties in the state of Florida, keeping storm water drainage mechanisms clear and functioning is a top priority for Casselberry, Florida. From catch basins to culverts and retention ponds, water management is a critical job for this city – a residential community on the outskirts of Orlando.
GRADALL VERSATILITY ADVANTAGES
Not long after the city of Casselberry took delivery of its XL 3100 IV Gradall excavator, it was put to work clearing soil and vegetation from critical drainage culverts along Rt. 436. “The material that has collected in front of the drains is anywhere from one to four feet deep, collecting over several years,” said Rod Wongus, crew supervisor for the storm water division of the city’s Public Works Department. “
With the Gradall, we can clear away the entrance to about four catch basins a day, and then clean out the inside of the pipe with a hydro excavator. Without the power and boom movements of the Gradall, we’d have to do it by hand – a much slower and, obviously, labor intensive process.” With a short rear tail swing, the XL 3100 IV can be positioned and maneuvered along the edge of the six-lane highway, only blocking one lane. Operator Scott Mandigo said that not only is it easier to reposition the carrier from the upper cab, the machine is quieter, more powerful and more sensitive to movements of the joystick controls. “I really love this machine,” he said. “It’s also very good in swales.” That’s another storm water management task for the machine, according to Wongus. During the dry season – before the spring rains – the Gradall will be used to dredge about 23 miles of ditches and low-lying swale tracts to make sure water runoff can be handled efficiently. “When that is done, we’ve got plenty more for it to work on, like sidewalk replacement and general repairs,” he said.
Posted with permission from The Gradall Company, www.gradall.com.
Brevard County, Florida, is one of the largest counties in the state – known mostly as home of the John F. Kennedy Space Center on the east coast and serious about maintaining its infrastructure with high-value equipment. On a jobsite at Merritt Island in the county, the Public Works Department relied on just one piece of equipment to unearth and repair a water line beneath a street and then replace an outdated catch basin cover followed by loading dirt.
The next day, Aquino used the XL 4100 IV to remove the steel covers, refill the hole with limerock and then spread more fine aggregate material, creating a smooth grade with the delicate Gradall bucket movements. After compaction, a crew topped off the hole with asphalt. But that wasn’t the end of the workday for the Gradall. From the upperstructure cab, Aquino drove the machine several hundred yards down the street onto a grassy park area, around a guardrail and fence and into position to repair a catch basin cover. Never once leaving the operator cab, Aquino removed an old concrete cover over a c
atch basin and replaced it with a new one, precisely positioning the huge concrete slab with the XL 4100 IV precise boom movements. “This machine is used for all kinds of jobs, like pulling out old sidewalk, removing trees, highway repairs and ditch cleaning,” said Aquino. “And lots of times, at the end of the day, we use it to load trucks with fill dirt to be used at different locations the next day.” Aquino, who has been operating Gradalls for about 10 years, said he is very pleased with the Series IV model. “With the automatic transmission, it’s much easier to get down the road from the equipment yard to wherever we need to work,” he said. “It’s also a lot more comfortable and easier to work with because it has more power.” Changing the mobility controls from the carrier cab to the upperstructure cab is also much easier than with earlier models, he said. “I like this one a lot, and I can get a lot more done with it on an average day,” he added.
High efficiency work practices are critical for American Engineering Development Corp. of Hialeah Gardens, Florida – a major site development resource for general contractors and developers in South Florida. With over 400 employees and state-of-the-art equipment, American Engineering strives to complete large and complex jobs in the most efficient way possible.
Robert Roscoe, who has operated Gradall excavators for about 10 years, was at the joystick controls of the XL 3300 III as he moved large pieces of material and carefully tilted the telescoping boom and 60-inch bucket to carve out the retention pond. Although the XL 3300 III was equipped with outriggers, Roscoe said he never uses them. “I don’t have to,” he said. In fact, wheeled Gradall excavators have front axle oscillation locks and a strong, low-profile boom and chassis that creates excellent weight distribution and allows the machine to move and place heavy loads at the front, rear or either side of the machine – all without the need for optional outriggers or to lower an optional grading blade. “Outriggers would slow me down,” said Roscoe. “If a machine requires me to use outriggers, I would have to stop, lower them to work, then raise them to move the carrier to dump in a truck and then repeat the process. That takes a lot of time.”
Maintaining infrastructure is an ongoing challenge for most municipalities and counties throughout the U.S. At Port St. Lucie, Florida, near the state’s east coast, the drainage division of the city’s public works department has an ongoing program to replace culverts in residential neighborhoods. Functional culverts are important for collecting and channeling storm water, but they can become ineffective if the pipes deteriorate or they become overgrown with vegetation.
“The process starts with cutting concrete on the driveways,” said Bob Colson, crew leader for the drainage division. The XL 4100 IV removes the pavement and then carefully excavates dirt from around the culvert pipe before actually removing the pipe. “If the pipe is in good condition, we set it aside and re-install it later,” said Colson. “But a lot of them have rusted away and have to be replaced with aluminum.” The XL 4100 IV is used to clear out dirt to restore the proper grade before re-installng pipe and then spreading dirt and aggregate in preparation for a new concrete driveway section. “With the Gradall, we can replace three driveway culverts in a day, and also lay new lines between the culvert pipes under the driveways,” said Colson. “Without the Gradall, we’d have to do it by hand and we couldn’t manage anything near that level of productivity in a day.” Arthur Agnew, who said he’s been operating Gradall excavators for nine or 10 years, said he really appreciates the automatic transmissions that are standard on Series IV models with highway speed undercarriages. He drives the XL 4100 IV from the equipment yard to work sites every day. “The new Series IV excavator is also a lot more powerful than the Series III models,” said Agnew, adding that he also appreciates how fast he can transfer mobility functions from the carrier cab to the upperstructure cab. Although there’s an in-cab switch to change the joystick configuration from Gradall to Deere or SAE, Agnew said he prefers the original manufacturer’s pattern. “That’s what I’ve always used, but I can see where it would come in handy with a new operator,” he said.
Interstate highway projects can be among the most multifaceted construction projects. Some aspects of the work are highly visible. But other project elements are less dramatic and less often seen, including cutting drainage ditches alongside new pavement. And yet, proper drainage swale excavation and construction can be of key importance to the overall success of the project.
Outfitted with a 60-inch ditching bucket and its standard telescoping, tilting boom, the Model XL 4200 was used to efficiently cut contoured swale slopes, excavating to create flat channel bottoms and then create sloped sides to meet the plan specifications. The ditches run for about three-quarters of a mile along the entrance and exit ramps on both sides of a new Alico Rd. interchange. Ditches must have a 5-foot-wide flat bottom and sloped sides with a depth of one foot to one-and-a-half feet, depending on location. “We tried cutting the ditches with a trackhoe with a bar welded across the bucket teeth,” said Jonathan Farrar, Kiewit Southern’s grading superintendent. “You can do it that way, but the Gradall was able to do it a lot faster.” 
“It’s doing a good job,” added operator Don Blakley. Production ran several hundred yards per day, excavating material with the Model XL 4200 and then loading it into trucks where it was stockpiled for future use. After shaping the ditches, the Gradall excavator’s tilting boom was used to efficiently line the ditch with a 6-inch lift of topsoil, after which it was seeded and mulched.
Vulcan Materials Corp. operates a demanding aggregate mine in Brooksville, Fla., that requires constant spillage cleanup to keep the operation working efficiently. Once aggregate is mined, it must be moved and processed before it can be sold as finished rock and sand, mostly used in the manufacture of high quality cement and asphalt. 
Transporting the mined material, including highly pourous limestone, in trucks and on conveyors creates a great deal of spillage that must be removed from under and around conveyors, crushers, scrubbers and hoppers. All are locations that are difficult for most machines to access and not practical to clean up by hand.
beneath the conveyors and other equipment. Often working in locations with little or no overhead working space, the task could not possibly be handled by a conventional knuckle boom. Front-end loaders and other smaller machines do not have the capacity or durability to handle the demanding aggregate cleanup. For even greater reach capability,Vulcan has a standard boom extension for extra horizontal reach under conveyors, plus the company has a live boom attachment that is able to reach over obstacles and into holes. This is also helpful when the Model XL 4200 II is used to clean limestone residue out of truck beds. “The power of this machine is very good,” said Terry Lee,Vulcan’s maintenance supervisor. “It fits everywhere, and it has excellent boom-end strength.”
Efforts by Carolina Consulting Group to widen a two-mile stretch of State Route 29 in Imokallee, Fla., involved a variety of tasks, which typically would have required a collection of many different machines, not to mention extra operators, extra trailers and fuel. At the same time, the company needed to work quickly, and avoid obstructing traffic on the busy four-lane highway. The versatile Gradall® Model XL 4300 II excavator responded to both of those needs.
perator of the Model XL 4300 II excavator, who has some 25 years experience running various types of equipment. Using a pavement removal bucket and the precise positioning capability of the tilting boom, he can break up and remove large slabs of existing concrete sidewalk on both sides of various parts of the two-mile 
widening project. The same attachment is used to pull the old curbing sections. Excavating and grading buckets are put to work installing drainage on each side of the highway and then preparing the excavated site to lay the new sections of asphalt. The rubber tire undercarriage can move quickly over the length of the job without damaging paved surfaces that are not scheduled for demolition. “Before I used this machine, I had a lot of experience with the XL 3300,” said Bates. “This machine is faster and more powerful, but the XL 3300 still had the boom strength to pull 16-inch slabs of concrete.”
Contractors and municipalities benefit from the advantages of having a single machine that can handle the entire process of removing and replacing damaged sections of pavement. In many cases, while any number of machines might be able to remove damaged patches of asphalt, either hand labor or another machine might be required to restore the appropriate grade and prepare it for asphalt.An additional piece of equipment might be called in to spread asphalt in narrow areas not accessible to a paver. That adds up to a lot of expense in equipment usage, fuel and manpower—something that can be reduced thanks to Gradall® versatility.
Paving equipped its Model XL 3300 with ditching, grading and pavement removal buckets. One machine was used to remove curbing, prepare the finished grade and then spread asphalt. At Lauderdale Lakes,APAC Southeast Inc. used a single 60-inch ditching bucket for the entire job.Typically, workers would spray the bucket with diesel fuel to resist adhesion by the asphalt. Next, the operator would dip it into asphalt in the bed of a truck and then carefully spread it into the exact needed location using the Gradall boom’s unique tilting action. In all cases, the Model XL 
3300 excavator provides exceptional strength, precise movement and a compact footprint with a short rear swing that can work within one lane of traffic on busy Florida highways. The designed-in stability of the Model XL 3300 allows it to handle demanding work off the front, back or either side of the undercarriage. Gradall, the brand that introduced true rubber tire wheeled mobility to the industry, continues to excel with models that move quickly from one job to the next without creating conventional crawler track damage to permanent pavement.
Removal and replacement of existing median strips is a job that many municipalities face.The need frequently arises because roads must be widened to handle increased traffic flow at intersections. In other cases, median strips with curbs are removed to accommodate handicapped pedestrians. Other municipalities remove median strips with grass and other vegetation, replacing them with strips that are narrower and complete concrete to avoid the need for maintenance. In any case, removal needs to be done quickly and efficiently and with only minimal interruption of the normal traffic flow.
During a six-week period in the late summer of 2004, four hurricanes ravaged much of Florida, including multiple passes through Osceola County in the Orlando area. Each of the hurricanes resulted in mounds of debris from buildings as well as fallen trees and vegetation that clogged important drainage canals. Crews from the Osceola County Road and Bridge Department as well as private contractors, including Wright’s Excavating in the St. Cloud-Kissimmee area, used Gradall® excavators to handle a full range of jobs quickly and efficiently. New Model XL 4100-II excavators, as well as their predecessors, Model XL 4100 machines, are driven at highway speeds to multiple sites. Meanwhile, Model XL 4300-II and Model XL 3300 excavators are called upon for numerous rough terrain jobs, maneuvering easily both on and off paved surfaces.
ground, creating smaller pieces that will fit into trucks. Load-sensing high pressure hydraulics automatically adjust to handle leavier loads or more demanding ditching and material removal without the need for operator mode selection. In inhabited residential, commercial and industrial areas, cleanup contractors work quickly to load and haul away vegetation as well as roofing and other parts of buildings and water-damaged contents. The fast load cycle times plus the tilting Gradall booms’ ability to maneuver big loads into trucks is critical to keep the process moving. “The Gradall can load a truck in about 8 minutes,” said one contractor. “That’s fast. In fact, our trucks can’t hardly keep up.”