[ NEWS ]
Time to stop digging
TRENCHES
MANUALLY
A Ditch Witch RT40 ride-on trencher from
ELB Equipment
With the advent of trenching machines nearly 70 years ago, Ditch Witch the
inventors, revolutionised the industry and put paid to manual trenching throughout
most of the world.
“Y
et South Africa still
prevails with
manual labour
used to
painstakingly dig
trenches and foundations, almost as if it
were some kind of job creation strategy.
Unfortunately, the truth is that manual
trenching is not a form of job creation at
all; and if anything, it cripples the base of
construction and infrastructure delivery
to the extent that it prevents workers
from obtaining more meaningful and
sustainable employment,’’ says Keith
Smith, area sales manager of ELB
Equipment, local distributors of Ditch
Witch. “Take a look at the affordable
housing market where a backlog of
12 | HIRE SA | MAY 2017
nearly half a million houses dog the
industry on a monthly basis. So, what do
well-meaning contractors who are trying
to fill the gap do? Well they throw more
men at it in the hope that 10 men can
dig a foundation in a day and help them
start catching up the backlog. But, this is
futile: a small ride-on Ditch Witch RT45
trencher can dig up to 25 or even 30
foundations per day. Redeploy the ten
labourers per house and with a bit of
training they could be increasing
housing outputs 20-fold or more,”
states Smith.
Speed and precision
Smith says speed is just one reason to
use a trencher, but there are many, even
more compelling reasons to add a Ditch
Witch to the construction fleet. “It also
digs trenches and foundations to exact
dimensions. This is important in terms of
quality of trenches or foundation to
avoid failures where they are too shallow
or too thin as is often the case on
building sites.
“In terms of concrete usage alone, the
savings in concrete will more than cover
the cost of the machine when offset
against money savings from accurate
estimation and usage of concrete. If a
chain gang were to dig a foundation just
100mm deeper or wider than the
specification, then the entire calculation
would be out and the foundation may
need 20-30% more concrete.
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