A backhoe is a piece of earth moving equipment with a very specific design. Backhoes are often also called diggers and excavators, though excavators are actually a different piece of equipment. A backhoe is a digging bucket mounted on the end of an arm that usually has a hinge within it, known as a two-part arm. Very often a backhoe will be on the back of a front loader or a tractor. So a backhoe is the actual arm and digging bucket attachment rather than the entire piece of equipment.

The two-part arm has specific parts with different names. The part of the arm that's mounted directly to the tractor is known as the boom. The second part of the arm which connects the boom to the digging bucket is known as the dipper or sometimes the dipperstick.

It's not uncommon to see a tractor with a bucket on the front designed for pushing and lifting dirt and other materials that also has a backhoe on the back designed for digging. A backhoe can actually be mounted on the front of a front loader and it's still considered a backhoe. That's because the term backhoe refers to what the attachment does, rather than the attachment itself.

A backhoe digs backwards by dropping the bucket to the ground and pulling back and down, lifting the dirt toward the tractor. That's where the attachment gets its name, because it digs backwards. The difference between a backhoe and a very similar piece of equipment called an excavator is that an excavator has a dedicated arm mounted on the chassis. An excavator is designed chiefly for heavy-duty digging and doesn't have a bucket or blade mounted on the other side like a tractor with might.

Front loaders and skidsteer loaders can be mounted with backhoe attachments which make them good to use if you need to dig but you also need to use them for other things. They become multi-purpose vehicles because the backhoe can be removed and replaced with a bucket, blade, various types of arms or forks. At many construction sites front loaders are used as backhoes as well as for other purposes which eliminates the need for a separate backhoe. At large construction sites or where heavy digging is needed,  an excavator is typically the equipment used for digging because of its larger size and dedicated arm.

A backhoe mounted on a skidsteer loader becomes a mini-excavator and can be used for small jobs that require less heavy-duty digging than might be needed for even a regular backhoe tractor or an excavator. Today's backhoe is designed very similar to the earliest pieces of equipment used for digging called steam shovels. But today's equipment runs on high-powered diesel engines.

Most people who need to use a backhoe will rent one or hire a company to simply come and operate their backhoe for the digging job, as this is an expensive and heavy-duty piece of equipment designed for large digging and construction sites.

Photo Credits: Dan Zen

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backhoe attachments, backhoes, blade, chassis, construction sites, diggers, dirt, earth moving equipment, excavator, excavators, front loaders, heavy duty, skidsteer loaders