Muddy conditions are difficult obstacles in construction. And the heavier the equipment, the worse you’re going to make it.
Muddy conditions can get particularly bad in areas like Southern and Central California, where blinding rains and hardly rooted soil can quickly turn job sites into quagmires that seem impossible to work in. Like this past February, when the storms and flooding turned the entire area into a muddy mess.
These conditions can also cause equipment issues, safety concerns, and schedule delays. But ironically enough, you still can successfully work in muddy conditions if you have the right equipment and operational practices.
Read a little more to learn exactly what you’re up against, and how to combat it.
The Problem with Muddy Jobsites
In Southern and Central California, mud is a guaranteed reality when you receive heavy rains. The severe mud is the consequence of exposed dirt and a high volume of foot and vehicle traffic, often just before rains arrive and create mud.
As muddy conditions develop around sites, contractors, developers, and equipment operators face a cascade of issues, virtually all of which can derail what are otherwise bulletproof projects.
These include:
- Reduced Traction: Equipment may not be able to get traction to do its job, making things inefficient and could lead to accidents. Once a machine loses traction, heavy or not, things can get out of hand quickly.
- Equipment Damage: Mud can get into machinery components where it could erode or cause mechanical failure. One mud seal failure that could cost $5 could lead to a $50,000 hydraulic system failure in time.
- Safety Issues: Slippery ground conditions are a significant contributor to slips, trips, and falls, and ultimately injuries of workers. More often than not, it is the simple things like mud and not the huge hazards.
- Project Delays: Inaccessible or unsafe conditions can delay ongoing project work, causing individually to overall budgets and timelines. The site may look passable at 7:00 AM but after one rain and ten trucks, you may be knee-deep in problems.
There is no doubt these challenges will increase in the future due to increased rainfall (some regions are seeing over 600% above average rainfall in winter months) and geological features that have limited plant cover.
Equipment for Muddy Conditions
- Crawler Excavators: Crawler Excavators operate on tracks instead of wheels so the weight is more evenly distributed. While machine rubber tires move quicker on pavement, nothing goes like a tracked machine through mud. The Caterpillar 320 and 336 series crawler excavators both at are excellent examples and popular choices in California for this reason. Crawler excavators also have large and improved hydraulic systems and optional wide-tracked configurations to facilitate continued movement of soft ground.
- Amphibious Excavators: Amphibious excavators are equipped with pontoons to operate in muck and water, typically used for dredging and wetland projects. Given water is the predominate terrain on a job site, equipment type considerations should be limited to amphibious excavator options. Amphibious excavators are less frequently used than traditional earth-work equipment, but nevertheless necessary as dredging, levee building, and environmental restoration tasks along California’s waterways are undertaken including Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta projects to restore habitat in and around California’s Delta and Annex Services.
- Bulldozers with Swamp Tracks: Swamp tracks are wider than conventional dozer tracks and enhance machine operation without sinking. Swamp-tracked bulldozers have laborious grading and clearing applications on muddy sites. A swamp dozer would glide across muddy but potential swamp conditions whereas a track type dozer would often be consumed by the mud. Swamp dozers are relatively slow, but effective bulldozers. In locales such as Santa Maria and the Salinas Valley, the opportunity for agricultural-related projects and construction project overlap frequently leads to tacit use of track type dozers to regrade and stabilize muddy access roads.
- Articulated Dump Trucks (ADTs): ADTs are best suited for the movement of a variety of loads out of the reasonably stable water and mud-covered terrain on wet sites when compared to rigid-frame trucks. ADTs maintain traction while negotiating turns and steep declines while not compromising ground pressure or articulated steering. The CAT 745 model is often a common machine identified in California infrastructure projects, particularly where the weather can dramatically change site conditions quickly.
Best Practices for Working in Mud
- Avoid When Possible: If work can be avoided in a muddy circumstance, this is almost always going to be the safest way. Complete everything you can in different locations until you have no other option to return to the mud.
- Yard prep of muddy work: Bulldozers can flatten mud sites and eliminate tripping hazards.
- Never try to work on muddy/slippery slopes: Vehicles should never attempt to drive down steep slopes that are slippery with mud.
- Regular maintenance: Daily clean-up of equipment ensures excess mud is removed to limit the build-up of mud on equipment that can cause damage over time.
- Access mats: If mats are available in the mud, insulation mats provide a stable surface for vehicles and workers operating in muddy work areas which reduces the chance of getting stuck.
- Trained operators: Operators should have training and understand the uniqueness of operating equipment in slippery conditions and the nature of the risks they are undertaking.
- Site assessment: Regular site assessments ensure that all operators on the project identified particularly dangerous areas of site and adjusted their work accordingly.
Getting Work Done in the Mud:
Muddy conditions can create issues with work, but generally not insurmountable for construction projects. If we select the right equipment and follow the best practices, we can provide successful construction project in conditions that leave the ground as a mud floor.