Class A and heavy equipment work

I'm not sure about Southern California but most contractors need somebody that can run equipment and move equipment also and run the dump trucks.

 

I have never been certified anything in heavy equipment. Here in Arkansas or elsewhere, if you knew how to work em safely (Front End Loading and a spot of crane actually. Small crane with two spotters mind you... and a spot of front blade tracked) your employer has work for you.

The class A comes in very handy when around heavy equiptment, at some point you need a lowboy or removable goose neck big enough to cart the big stuff from job to job. That's where your class A comes in.

I save the parting shot for TBH Concrete in Westminster Maryland. Sitting there in their boardroom office in back of the building downtown interviewing and then being told that I'm over qualified due to a class A is BS. (Deafness was the actual problem, never mind I delivered 18 wheeler bulk cement to them for a couple of seasons winter in particularly)

And here is my favorite. The boss man uttering the words disqualifies lives a lie. Why? Outside of his rain streaked window that day sat about 15 low boys with mack tractors hooked up to them all 18 wheelers class A for hauling heavy equiptment because they are a construction company as well. All of them with the oval grey TBH company logo on the doors.

Overqualified, HA. That's one reason I found good heavy equiptment work here in the South. They don't pay no attention to such yankee snobbery. (Sorry, I had to take a cheap shot.)

 

You don’t really need a certification here. You just learn to run them. If you can drive a truck a loader will be a cake walk.

 

It is not difficult to learn a loader.

However, when you put it up against a rockpile resting on your rear bumper while tidying up the rockpile you need to be very careful to take into account gravity against the frame and articulation under your cab. It has to be straight and stable when positioned to sit on the rear bumper just so as you float the bucket over the top of the rockpile you are making neat for tomorrow's work.

I don't know how else to explain it. There is also in the ready mix plant a 7 foot ramp which is pretty steep over about a 10 foot upgrade where you put the front axle and pull up to the top to raise your 7 yard bucket high enough to pour the rock and sand into the chute bin so that it feeds a conveyor belt into the really tall silo like bins that combine, weigh, mix the materials and pour into concrete mixer trucks.

The one job I did not enjoy with the front end loader is taking a dab of rock in one corner of the scoop bucket and then trying to load that little bit into a nicer pickup without punching out the back window glass, messing the paint up or doing god knows what other damage.

 

@vic0102 , I tried that idea earlier this summer. The story at that company was that everyone had to start as a laborer, even with a CDL, to become an operator. I don't think construction companies are any smarter than trucking companies.

 

You really need to be proficient when working with heavy equipment. They don't want you digging too deep and running into soil compaction problems. You can't just fill in the hole and try again, it creates alot of extra work if you go too deep. They want people with experience... Which I think is the biggest hurdle.

Experience is hardest to get. You might find easy Dozer experience at a gravel pit of Landfill, but they really don't do alot of grade work. Landfill does somewhat, but it isn't that important, you just need to cover something up with a consistent layer. Cutting is a different animal.

You might need to spend some time working heavy equipment exclusively for a while before you can do both hauling and operating. Stay away from loader jobs, not what you need. They bounce all over and kill your kidneys/guts (man killers).

Call and call around, maybe someone is willing to train you on grade work from the sart. Good luck.

 

Our big pit here has a landscape yard for pickups and such, the recently got a baby mini loader, but before that they had a newer 950 with a bucket that raised up and dumped to the side. I was chatting with the guy who was contracted to run the landscape yard for them, he said that bucket was about $50k.