Equally important for many construction jobs as on the farm, a wheel loader (wheeled loader) is a popular machine in the UK. Choosing from the range of manufacturers and models of wheel loaders for sale at Plantpages is not a straightforward task. No single manufacturer dominates the listings – although Volvo often come out on top. It is Volvo that claims to have invented the wheel loader in 1954 and this carries some credibility with it. Other popular brands of wheeled loaders are JCB in the UK and Caterpillar worldwide. As with all machines of this nature, there is an array of sizes of loaders available – determine the site requirements, including access and transportability of the machines.
It is a vital piece of kit for moving materials around site. Two key elements – it has wheels (obviously) which means that it can be used on finished surfaces, unlike tracked machines which can cause damage. Since o lot of the machine’s tasks will involve loading a vehicle of some kind, this is often likely to take place on prepared surfaces. It is for this reason that they massively outnumber tracked loaders.
The second part is the loading element. Unlike the backhoe loader which can both dig and load, the wheeled loader is specialised only in the loading element. This typically means that it more effective than a dual purpose machine. Usually fitted with a bucket – which come in a vast array of sizes – many operators will call these ‘Loading Shovels’ – on these pages you will often see the title of the advertisement, ‘Loading Shovel for Sale’.
These buckets will vary hugely in size, from a half of a cubic metre up to sixteen cubic metres. However, if you are loading a relatively small vehicle, you won’t want to dump a whole large bucket load in one go!
In addition to buckets, different attachments make the wheeled loader suitable for specialist applications. You may come across agi specials which use a rake/grab system to collect the bulky materials on the farm. Similarly the smaller loaders can turn their hands to loading using forks. Not as accurate as a forklift or telehandler, a forked wheel loader can nonetheless manage a decent job.
Anything from snow clearing – (a snow plough is good at pushing snow to one side at speed, but if you really want to move the snow out of the way totally then you need the services of a wheel loader), to construction site work, farming and everything in between.
Smaller loaders may be confused with skid steer loaders – these are different categories at Plantpages, although they can be used for smilary jobs, landscaping, small works etc.
A number of manufacturers, including Volvo CE have a category of ‘Compact Wheel Loaders’. These range frrom an operating weight of 4.3 tonnes and a bucket capacity of .045 cubic metres to a ten-tonne machine with bucket sizes up to 2.3 cubic metres.
Again, when considering the Volvo CE range, the large loaders start with an operating weight of 11 tonnes increasing to a massive 56 tonnes and bucket capacities of 16 cubic metres.
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