Crawler excavator

A crawler excavator is the core earthmoving machine: trenching, foundations, road works and demolition. Tracks give excellent traction and spread ground pressure over a large area, so the machine works confidently on mud, slopes and unprepared terrain.

Interchangeable attachments (buckets, hydraulic hammers, shears) let one machine cover many jobs. When buying, look first at the undercarriage — tracks, rollers and sprockets — and at the hour meter: those set the cost of any rebuild. Caterpillar, Komatsu and Hitachi units out of Japan usually come with documented service; newer SANY and XCMG run cheaper out of China.