Tracked excavators are machines of marvel. You can do almost anything with these machines. From construction to demolition these machines are hard to match. These machines are found in construction, mining, forestry, exploration, civil work and the list goes on.

Tracked excavators come in a huge varity of sizes from as small as 1 ton in weight to machines that are into the hundreds of tons. There is a also a huge varity of manufactures of excavators. Nearly every equipment manufacturer from around the world now builds some sort of excavator whether it be a mini, midi or large excavator.

Almost all excavators come equipt with tracks although you can get models that are on a rolling drive gear of wheels. A lot of town and local government servces use these types of machines as they can be driven about the streets like a truck and when they are need to dig or excavate, you can just lower the stabilzers and get to work. If the excavator was on tracks you would have to truck the machine to the area of work and then there is also the issue of the metal tracks breaking the pavement or concrete apart. As these machines evolved over time many most builders have now what is called or referred to as "mini" excavators. These small excavators come with rubber tracks allowing them to be used by small constuction firms in landscaping, utility work, renovation work etc. Having rubber tracks allows them to move about streets and sidewalks and even across lawns with out leaving a foot print. The prices of these small machines are in the same price range as a new pick up truck so this allows many people to think about getting into the excavation business. You can get these machines with steel tracks, rubber tracks and steel tracks that will accomodate rubber pads. These are called street pads as they can be unbolted if you are going to be using the machine some place where rubber is not the best.

Because almost all excavators come on tracks that are hydraulic driven, the machines are extremely stable allowing a worker to work side hills and steep terrain. Turning radius is very tight and the machine can almost turn within it's own tracks. The digging boom can be used as a brake for decending down steep grades and also can be used as a claw for climbing steep grades. Having this feature allows excavators to be used in rugged montainous areas. Also because you can get various attachments to replace the bucket the excavator can transform itself into a log loader in a few short minutes. Many companies have also start to use excavators as a way to drill and blast through rock by adding attachments to the excavator itself.

A lot of the mini and midi excavators, those who weight runs from about 2 tons up to about 12 tons, will have blades equipt on them. These are a nice feature for leveling of your work from digging and they do a great job of finishing. You can also get blades that angle as an option and these blades will allow you to angle plow your work area. This is a nice feature when you have a large trenched area and you are backfilling with the blade. It allows you to rn along side of your piled material and sort of windrow the material back into the trench.