Innovation
Time to
stop digging
trenches
Manually
by Raymond Campling
A Ditch Witch RT40 ride-on trencher from ELB Equipment
W
ith the advent of trenching machines nearly seventy years ago, Ditch Witch the inventors, revolutionized the
industry and put paid to manual trenching throughout most of the world.
Yet in South Africa the chain gang
still prevails with manual labour
used to painstakingly dig our
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. 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 a day. Redeploy
the ten labourers per house and
with a bit of training they could
be increasing housing outputs
20-fold or more.
Take a look at the affordable
housing market where a backlog
of nearly half a million houses
dogs the industry on a monthly Speed and precision
Keith Smith, area sales manager of
ELB Equipment, local distributors
of Ditch Witch, 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
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.
“Conversely, too shallow or small
a foundation can lead to failure
or may necessitate a rebuild if
inspectors deem the foundation
inadequate. This is particularly
important in high volume or
large scale developments where
labour that would previously be
employed for several days just
digging foundations, may now
be redeployed to more skilled
SABI | APRIL / MAY 2017
43