Oversized Excavator Reaches Beyond the Competition

With a 60-foot reach, the Hyundai 290 excavator is a go-to tool for Black’s Excavation

Oversized Excavator Reaches Beyond the Competition

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The tool that makes a difference at Black’s Excavation in Wheatland, Indiana, is a Hyundai 290 excavator with a 60-foot reach. The machine provides that extra versatility to get the job done, and in this part of the country, it provides a service that others do not offer.

Most of the farmers in this region of southwest Indiana have their own excavators, says company co-owner Jeff Black. Beneath this land lies coal mines, and the farm owners have made extra money by selling their mineral rights. As a result, they have the cash to buy their own equipment and do some of their own earthwork.

But, Black says, the machines they buy typically give them only a 21-foot reach. They can clear small ditches and ponds, but to deal with deeper ones, they would have to drive their excavators down onto the unsafe slopes. The Black’s Excavation machine can sit safely on level ground and still reach out to do the work.

When it comes to cleaning ditches, the Hyundai has a boom long enough so the machine can sit on one side of a ditch and reach everything, and that includes piling dirt on both sides of the ditch. That’s important because landowners have to pay to have the dirt piles leveled, so putting dirt on only one person’s property means only one landowner pays for each ditch cleaning.

That 60-foot boom has also helped with digging basements because it can pile dirt well away from an excavation. The Hyundai has been used to fill sand in places where using something else makes for more work. This doesn’t happen often, says co-owner Colby Black, Jeff’s son, but after walls are poured, a builder sometimes needs to add fill before pouring a floor. Equipment can’t get down into a basement once the walls are up, so the options are bringing in a conveyor truck or dumping sand in a big pile, which means guys have to haul sand around by hand. But the Hyundai can reach out and drop sand wherever it’s needed, saving time and effort.

For coal mine work, another Black’s Excavation specialty, the Hyundai can sit on the side of a mine settling pond and stretch way out to clean it. That long boom can also set a pump from the dock.

Taking the Hyundai on the road is a challenge because of its size. The Blacks use an International 9300 pulling a 50-ton Dynaweld low-boy. From the front of the truck to the boom — which sticks out about 10 feet at the rear — the rig is about 80 feet long.

Given that size, going on the road also means having oversize load placards and flags on the front and rear of the truck, turning on the orange beacon on top of the truck, and, on the interstate, putting flags on the excavator tracks. It also means buying the required special hauling permit for an oversize load, with an annual cost of $1,500 to $2,000.

Colby runs the Hyundai most of the time, Jeff says, and logs between 500 and 700 hours annually.

“So it’s one of our tools that we use quite a bit.”

Read more about Black’s Excavation in the May issue of Onsite Installerand keep scrolling to see the Hyundai in action.

Demolishing grain silos. (Images courtesy of Black's Excavation.)
Demolishing grain silos. (Images courtesy of Black's Excavation.)
At a coal mine cleaning out a settlement basin.
At a coal mine cleaning out a settlement basin.
Setting rafters on a garage.
Setting rafters on a garage.


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