Routing operations in Fort Worth, Texas

Routing operations had to be carried out in order to prepare the ground for the construction of the new Eagle Mountain High School, including a campus and the associated sports facilities. Lead contractor Hammett Excavation chose a Wirtgen 220 SMi Surface Miner for the job, as the machine’s high productivity and versatility enable considerably faster and more economical project completion – pretty much the best decision the Texans could have made.

Conventional methods such as ripping and digging with an excavator would, for example, not have been able to deal with such hard rock. Drilling and blasting also involves numerous restrictions and regulations that can make projects impractical and unnecessarily expensive. These would nevertheless have been the sole alternatives to the capabilities of the Wirtgen Surface Miner for tackling the challenging geotechnical characteristics of the site. The cost efficient, fast and reliable method of cutting and crushing rock and stone with a Wirtgen Surface Miner proved to be far superior to any other excavation methods.

Hammett Excavation makes use of a Surface Miner for the very first time

The use of a Surface Miner is a première for Hammett Excavation. Although generally used for the extraction of primary mineral resources, the power-packed 220 SMi from Wirtgen also reveals its strengths in routing operations, where it reliably eats its way through even the hardest layers of rock and stone on construction sites. So it certainly has the ideal credentials for reliably and efficiently cutting and removing the hard layers of limestone interbedded in places with blueschist* and slate on the site of the new high school project in Fort Worth.

*Blueschist is an extremely hard rock, the removal of which was the most challenging aspect of the work.

The suggestion to invest in this innovative technology came from project manager Derek Billiot, who had already gathered some experience in material extraction by cutting. At first, Gaylon Hammett, President of Hammett Excavation, had his reservations, but quickly became convinced of the outstanding capabilities of the machine. The cutting capabilities of the Wirtgen Surface Miner, which enable it to cope with even the hardest layers of rock, made the purchase of the unit a done deal – and also made the contractor a particularly happy man. His résumé: ‘Without the Surface Miner, we would have never been able to get the job done.’ The initial configuration of the machine by Wirtgen Customer Support was quickly completed without any problems, and any final adjustments required were taken care of right away. Using the machine enabled Gaylon Hammett to finalise the entire project ahead of the planned delivery deadline – and simultaneously guaranteed the successful and profitable completion of the job. Now, the contractor is already thinking about adding a second machine to his fleet.