Keeping Those Loaders Loading

To see how things are going, it’s best to speak directly with those onsite. Here are some voices from the trenches (or, rather from the concrete slabs or piles) who are doing the work and maintaining to get the most use out of equipment, and from the dealers who are watching closely to evaluate the needs of the operators.

In a Dry, Dusty Climate
The Basin Disposal Inc. (BDI) Transfer Station, near Pasco, WA, uses a 621 Case front-end loader (from the late 1990s) and a 624 John Deere front-end loader (2005) at their facility. These vehicles have articulated steering, enabling them to pivot in the middle. “This equipment is working out real well for us,” says Chuck Anderson, transfer station manager.

This site serves much of the Tri-Cities area of southeastern Washington. They’ve found that running on a solid rubber tire works best for the conditions in their area. “The solid rubber tires that we use, manufactured by Setco Tires of Oklahoma, seem to take the abuse we give them pretty well,” says Anderson. “We don’t make any special allowance with shock absorbers to make the ride smoother; but we do have a suspension seat inside to help with the ride, as the solid rubber tires don’t ride real smoothly.” BDI’s vehicles are running inside on a concrete floor, which tends to extend the life of the tires, according to Anderson.

“We used to pack the material into the trailers with backhoes, but the abuse from that work was destroying them. Instead we went to using the wheel loaders in tandem with a stationary Grizzly knuckleboom to pack our trailers with; that’s worked out really well for us. I think for the future we will stick with what we have,” says Anderson.

This area of Washington only gets about 7 inches of moisture per year in the low desert environment, with an average elevation of 700 feet, so there’s not much moisture on the ground, according to Anderson. “For our cooling systems we use what is basically on the market for breathability. We have an automatic two-directional fan that switches on and blows out the radiator in the opposite direction on our equipment to keep the dust removed from it.

“We also must keep an extra sharp eye on our filtering systems. Our John Deere equipment came equipped with what is called a ‘refuge package.’ This machinery has proved over the years that the equipment will easily pay for itself.”

In Enclosed Spaces
One of the transfer stations near Honolulu, HI, uses Caterpillar 966 F and G Loaders. The county of Honolulu buys those vehicles, based on their cost effectiveness, for use at the Kapaa Transfer Station on the windward side of Oahu.

Because of the wet weather and the ease of operation, the facility is an indoor one. To vent the diesel fuel exhaust, one side of the building has a wall on the windward side that is made up almost completely of louvers. The rest of the building, approximately one half acre in size, has excellent ventilation. The indoor center has a large pit capable of holding approximately 1,000 tons of trash, where refuse trucks enter and dispose of the trash.

The tires—ones that are equipped with the vehicles directly from Caterpillar—are foam-filled for use inside this refuse transfer station on a slab concrete floor. (The tire foam-filling aspect of the operation is handled by a private contractor, not the transfer station itself.) The loaders, currently on their second tires, have been running for approximately the last 16 years. Before the end of this year, officials expect a third set of Caterpillar loaders to be coming in for use at the transfer station.

In And Around Compost
Marion County, OR, has two transfer stations and a construction and demolition landfill where they have a compost facility. They use a John Deere 544E wheel loader, approximately six years old, and a Cat D7 dozer.

The compost facility is open six days a week and one transfer station is open seven days a week. Royce Young, site supervisor, oversees daily operations. “Our wheel loader carries a three-yard bucket which is a bit larger than the spec; we operate a compost facility where we take in from the local municipalities and governmental agencies in our area, including debris from the parks,” says Young. The facility screens this material before placing it into windrows to let it mature. The temperature of the material is monitored and the moisture level is kept high in order to speed the composting process. The wheel loader is used to rotate the windrows, moving the material from the bottom to the top of the pile. The compost is sold back to governmental agencies for use in parks and along roadways.

Though it’s usually run on asphalt, the John Deere equipment also deals with mud from the compost. That loader is a four-speed automatic vehicle with forward and reverse.

“We have half fenders on our vehicles, so the windows are always dirty,” says Young. “Tires are treated with a calcium compound that is a ‘stop-leak’ type material so if there is a puncture it self-seals. Our tires still have some give to them, unlike solid rubber tires. The option of having all-wheel drive on our equipment was an option Marion County chose not to take, but it does save on tire wear in the long run. Tires are not scuffed in the corners because all-wheel drive is able to change the direction of rotation. That use is driven largely by the type of application, but I’m hoping in the future we will go with all-wheel drive loaders. Currently we get about 10 years of use out of our loaders and three years out of our tires.

“The loader has ride control on it, so bumps are absorbed as the driver is traveling. This is a great help to the operator, cushioning the cab of the wheel loader.

“At one point we had a reversible fan from the VP-series, manufactured by Cleanfix Reversible Fans, on one of our loaner loaders. That was an excellent piece of equipment; it helped to keep the radiator fins clean. The loaner was a John Deere 544J with only five hours of use on it—it was wonderful.”

Marion County has a good maintenance program, according to Young. It has professional mechanics servicing their equipment. “We do things ‘by the book’ and avoid the rut of trying to save money by cutting corners as other places do,” says Young. “Regular oil and oil filter changes are really the least expensive way to insure long life in your equipment.”

While Covering A Lot Of Ground
Tim Fox, Director of the Tri-County Solid Waste Authority in Johnston, Edgefield County, SC, uses a Cat 938G Waste Handler in its transfer station for handling the 40,000 tons of waste material per year. That includes municipal solid waste, both household and commercial, and a great deal from the area’s extensive poultry production as well as textile waste.

The backup machine is a Cat 928G. “Both machines are working well for us,” says Fox. “The 938G is especially suited for this environment; it has electric belly pans, hard grease lines and it is over built—actually designed for transfer stations.”

The tires on their vehicles are solid rubber, operating on a concrete slab surface. Fox usually gets two years out of a set of his solid tires. Their loaders are replaced ever four years, generally keeping the ones they’ve been using and selling the older ones.

“We always have a backup vehicle in case we have equipment problems or something,” says Fox. “This operation is also integrated with our recycling program. We have a considerable amount of scrap metal and white goods we also handle with these machines.”

Because of the dusty textile waste the center handles, the radiators on the loaders are monitored and blown out daily. An industrial air compressor does the work of blowing out waste material. Routine factory-specified maintenance gets performed daily along with an occasional washing.

“We have excellent service from these machines,” says Fox. “Spinning clearly shortens the lifespan of the solid tires on our equipment; we minimize wheel spins at all costs. The rubber depth is carefully monitored on our tires to check for wear, and they are also rotated as needed to get the full life out of them.”

Operator comfort is increased by both an air-suspension seat and air-ride tires made by Air Ride Solid tires by Setco. These tires actually have interior holes to absorb some of the shock of using solid tires. “Drivers do not get going fast enough to do much shaking,” says Fox.

A State-Of-The-Art Facility
The Tomoka Landfill, near Daytona Beach, Florida, a 3,400-acre site, is an integrated solid waste management facility whose landfill operation staff uses Cat 826 Compactors (the G and G2 models) in addition to a Cat 966 Wheel Loader, on a daily basis. They also have four Cat D6R bulldozers, a Cat tracked excavator and a 980G Cat Wheel Loader.

The landfill operations have used some of their equipment to assist in fire-fighting services, according to Frank Lovell, materials coordinator for the Volusia County Solid Waste Division. In the spring of 2006, when flare-ups occurred in the south and west areas of Volusia County, four personnel and three of their bulldozers were dispatched to help control the blazes, cutting fire lines for the forestry division of the state.

“The landfill operation is large, versatile and employs staff with a tremendous amount of experience,” says Lovell. “We have onsite fleet maintenance, another division of Volusia County. They are here specifically to perform emergency maintenance, schedule maintenance PMIs and they are onsite every day of the week.

The facility tries to get at least a five-year cycle out of their loaders. “It does pose a restraint pushing garbage up a 150-foot hill all day,” says Lovell. “We also have a vendor that visits us on the weekends to check the wheeled vehicles for us. If tires need to be changed, they’ll do that; we have a consistent maintenance for both tires and overall mechanical maintenance aspects of all our equipment.

“We are far enough inland that sand affecting our equipment is not an issue. The landfill hill will be going up another 30 feet. We will be making more purchases late in the year, but I don’t see any changes in any of the equipment we’ve used; we’re satisfied with how it’s worked for us so far.”

Features Add Up
“Wheel-loaders must be quick, nimble and dependable; there’s limited floor space inside a transfer station and downtime’s unacceptable,” says George Fink, Volvo vice president, managing national accounts.

Volvo has developed special guarding packages, protection packages, and operator comfort and safety tools on its machines. An Excel-based computer program helps companies decide on the size of machinery for transfer stations, based on the amount of inventory leaving and entering daily, as well as the size of the building.

“Transfer stations traditionally buy the largest machinery their budgets can afford: bigger being better,” says Fink. “We contend bigger isn’t always better, instead the correct size is what’s appropriate, including fuel, tires, and the whole package. We try cutting costs in providing the best wheel loaders for each location.”

Volvo designed its own line of trash buckets. According to Fink, they’re lighter, larger, and offer better visibility. One of the company’s most effective buckets, usable with everything from an L90 to an L220, is called the “tamping-clamping bucket.” Its long nose tamps a load right beside a truck, eliminating the need for an excavator and the operator. The bucket’s configuration enables it to reach down inside the truck and pull material out in case of overloading.

Volvo worked with various companies to discover where the greatest machine damage risks occurred. Guards have been developed for machine bellies, rear engines, windows, secure cylinder areas, articulation joints, under-cabs, wheel fields, and hydraulic hose lines. “We’ve made the machines pretty much foolproof,” says Fink.

“Our wheel-loaders contain automatic fire suppression systems in the cab in addition to what’s on the outside of the machinery. This is all a part of our three core values, quality, safety, and care for the environment.”

Wheel-loaders use solid rubber tires for up to 35–40% longer life on the tires of Volvo equipment, according to Fink. “Our tier-compliant engine helps accomplish this, along with low emissions, high torque, and having low-rpm operating levels,” says Fink.

“That, coupled with our load-sensing hydraulic system, saves fuel. We have at least 25% lower fuel consumption. It all adds up for the waste industry.”

Listening to Operators
Case has just introduced the 721 and 821 E Series wheel-loaders, according to David Wolf, wheel loader marketing manager. In addition to a brand-new ergonomically designed cab, these have single lever joystick controls and low-effort controls. “That way all your bucket functions and motor functions are all on one joystick, in addition to having a fast-cycle switch that moves you between neutral and reverse faster,” says Wolf.

“Our cabs are designed especially for comfort, because the more comfortable operators are, the more productive they’ll be. Therefore visibility has been enhanced with floor-to-ceiling glass on the front of the machine for viewing of machinery, wheels and all attachments.”

According to Wolf, Case’s mid-mount cooling module is good for MSW, because of the high amount of airborne debris. “This replaces the stacked coolers of the past. The benefit is that cooling efficiency is increased. The hydraulic-driven fan, reversible from the cab, purges material collecting on the coolers. We’ve just incorporated this system on our 821E Series, and we have field-installed kits for installing these fans on equipment already in use.

“We are constantly interviewing customers to get a feeling for their needs. Customer input and focus groups help us get the customer’s voice in much of our planning. We have guarding packages available for many of the different industries using our equipment including forestry, solid waste industry or demolition work,” says Wolf.

Bobcat Looks To The Future
MSW Management magazine’s contest featured an award of an A-300 Bobcat loader, which was delivered to a recycling facility in Ketchikan, AK, in July 2006. One of the markets that Bobcat’s marketing manager, Kathryn Helgaas, focuses on is the solid waste management market, including MRFs, landfills, transfer stations, and recycling facilities. Sales of their equipment go to facilities ranging in size from small recycling centers to some of the largest solid waste facilities in the world, according to Helgaas.

“We have exclusive technology in our all-wheel steer loader that really makes that loader a great fit for MRFs and transfer stations,” says Helgaas. “Bobcat’s all-wheel loader, the A-300 (which lifts up to 3,000 pounds of material) has been out on the market for a few years now; we have quite a few recycling centers and MRFs using this equipment,” says Helgaas. “The great thing about the all-wheel steer loader is that it has four separately steerable axles.

“The loader may be turned in such a way that it can do an arc in and out of the silo facilities, as opposed to a skid-steer loader, which skids in and out. The result is you end up keeping tire wear and tear in check.”

Helgaas likes to point out that with the flip of a switch the vehicle turns back into skid-steer loader mode, so it’s two types of loaders in one. “Use of this machinery is very simple and intuitive,” says Helgaas. “It has joystick controls, which really saves on wear and tear with the operator as well. All our loaders now are coming with joystick controls or options to have such controls.”

One of the things included with Bobcat’s skid-steer loaders now and which they’ve had for quite awhile is their unique cooling system. The skid-steer loader pulls in air from up above the loader, cools the engine, then exhausts out the sides of the motor.

“The benefit of doing that is there is a lot of debris in the air on these types of facilities. If the air isn’t pulled from below or the side of the loader, where there tends to be more debris, there’s a lot less material pulled into the engine,” says Helgaas.

Recently Bobcat has added improvements to its loaders, including a temperature-controlled smart fan, which helps with engine cooling and reducing the overall machine noise as well, something that makes a difference when the machine is used inside in an enclosed space.

Bobcat has also added K-Force hydraulics to its loaders. “This improvement provides 8% more hydraulic lift and tilt for our loaders as well as 8% more attachment performance,” says Helgaas. Bobcat’s drive chains on its large-frame loaders were updated so that they are 38% stronger than the chains formerly used. “We continue to pursue innovation with a lot of different types of products we’re launching these days, from utility vehicles to many others,” he says.

One of the new markets Bobcat is following carefully is that of biofuel production, according to Helgaas. “We’re waiting to see how those facilities are going to affect recycling facilities, solid waste facilities, and we are counting on there being an opportunity for Bobcat equipment.

“It’s just another type of manufacturing; we’ve been helping manufacturing plants for years. It has everything to do with learning about what they do at those facilities and how they would use our equipment. These are very large facilities which are going to have some waste coming out of them; we’re keeping an eye on things to see what the projections are for the number of those facilities.”