Agile compact excavators pack power
Utility contractor sold on Bobcat excavators for projects big and small
Ronald Dowda spends as many as eight hours a day in his comfortable Bobcat 435 compact excavator.
Small enough to haul — big enough to get the job done. That’s how Ronald Dowda, owner of Red Tech Inc. Covington, La., describes his two Bobcat® 435 compact excavators.
For years Ronald Dowda worked as a manager for various utility contractors in the Southeast. Today, he’s operating his own company and doing quite well with Bobcat machines and attachments that give him a competitive edge.
Dowda had previously been responsible for purchasing Bobcat compact equipment for the utility contractors he represented, so it wasn’t a surprise that when he started his own company, he chose Bobcat machines from Duhon Machinery.
“Bobcat equipment has been so convenient — if you have an application, they have a machine for it,” he says. For example, “The zero house feature on my two excavators has saved us when we’re zigzagging through trees. We can come through a subdivision and install the conduit while leaving a very small footprint. The developers appreciate that we’re not destroying trees with the machines.”
A majority of Dowda’s projects are on residential jobsites where he relies on Bobcat excavators and attachments to install all of the primary underground utilities, as well as the secondary service work.
“I need machines that can meet my production rates, and I want a tight machine that will do a monster job,” he says. “On a busy day, I’ll spend as many as eight hours in the air-conditioned excavator cab, digging up to 1,000 feet.”
As in much of the United States, developers in Louisiana build homes close together to maximize the number of homes in a subdivision.
“We’re in a lot of tight spaces; we could hold hands and touch house to house,” he explains. “You need a machine that can get between these homes without worrying about swinging the tail end around and hitting the house. My Bobcat 435s give me 360-degree rotation to dig 10-foot holes — there’s no substitute for me.”
Occasionally a special project comes along. This was the case when the Archdiocese of New Orleans hired Dowda to help with construction of a temporary building at the St. Mary’s Academy in New Orleans. Dowda took his Bobcat compact excavator to the site, where approximately 2,000 feet of digging was waiting for him in some tight quarters.
My Bobcat 435s give me 360-degree rotation to dig 10-foot holes — there’s no substitute for me.
“We dug in 30 different locations with sometimes as little as a 10-foot path between buildings to dig and place dirt,” he says. “I got to the jobsite, I saw a lot of big backhoe loaders. I took my Bobcat excavator and dug past all of them; I started behind them and finished before them. Every afternoon it would rain. I’d turn on the wipers and lights to show them I was still out there. They would run for cover when it rained, but I kept digging.”
Versatile Bobcat excavators enable Dowda to serve both spectrums of the utility industry. “I can maneuver lightly and complete a residential service that already has grass on the yard, or I can get out there with the big boys and do some digging,” Dowda says.
Continue reading about the benefits of using Bobcat compact excavators and attachments instead of larger machines at www.bobcat.com/ZHS.