Compact Equipment Provides the Key to Efficiency for a Builder of Big Walls
Scott Rozier (left) and Wade Schmidt build retaining walls using a variety of Bobcat products.
The biggest challenge for Scott Rozier and Wade Schmidt, partners in Rosch Company, “is keeping our equipment and our employees working productively while keeping our prices competitive. We’re constantly looking for ways to increase our efficiency.”
That’s one reason why the O’Fallon, Mo., company, which builds large segmental retaining walls and mechanically-stabilized earth walls, owns a fleet of 20 Bobcat® machines. They include S250 skid-steer loaders, T250 compact track loaders, 331 excavators and a V518 VersaHandler® telescopic tool carrier—all purchased from Bobcat of St. Louis.
Some of the projects range in size from more than 100,000 sq. ft. and tiered wall heights of up to 60 ft. or more. The speed, agility and ease of operation of the Bobcat equipment is vital to completing these jobs on time and within budget.
The company has added a number of the machines over the past few years. “We’re using multiple pieces of Bobcat equipment on a project and getting more work done with smaller crews,” Schmidt says. “On many of our projects, access is tough and the space for maneuvering is limited.”
Consider the Bobcat 331 excavators, for example. They’re the ideal size for the company’s wall construction projects which often require digging footings and doing mass excavations where working space is restricted. “The 331 is the size we need,” he says. “Bigger machines would reduce our efficiency.”
The rubber tracks of the 331 excavators and the T250 loaders also increase efficiency. “Retaining walls are always built at the bottom of a hill where wet, soft ground is often an issue,” Rozier says. “Our Bobcat track equipment allows us to proceed with construction unless it’s actually raining.”
The loaders are used with various Bobcat attachments: utility buckets for hauling granular materials; hydraulic breakers for breaking rocks; pallet forks for transporting blocks and other supplies; trenchers for installing silt fence and drain tile; and sweepers for cleaning up around the jobsite.
The VersaHandler 518’s 5,000-lb. maximum load capacity and variable lift height, as high as 18 ft., pays off by saving time and labor when building larger walls. The machine is used to lift and place concrete blocks, backfill materials and tools.
The V518 eliminates the need to build haul roads from each end of a large wall and up behind the wall for transporting dirt and blocks with a loader and bucket. “It was very timeconsuming and very inefficient,” Rozier says. “The V518 has increased our efficiency on walls like that by more than 20 percent.”
That’s just the kind of efficiency Rosch Company needs to maintain a sharp, competitive edge.
The Easy Way to Tackle Tough Jobs
Like the other two larger Bobcat telescopic tool carriers (V723 and V723 FL), the V518 combines the speed, agility and strength of a skid-steer loader with the extended reach of a telescopic boom.
All Bobcat telescopics offer three steering modes: all-wheel steer for turning tightly; front-wheel steer for road travel (18 mph top travel speed); and crab-steer for positioning loads from side-to-side.
Operation is simple with such features as a single loader-style hydraulic joystick for controlling the boom and bucket functions, a variable-control thumbwheel on the joystick for extending and retracting the boom, heavy-duty hydrostatic drive for shifting on-the-fly between high and low drive speeds, and dynamic braking for inching up or down slopes.