How Do Backhoes Work?
I get asked this quite a lot, so I thought I’d put up a rough guide to how backhoes work. Even though I couldn’t give a detailed set of instructions for every different make and model of backhoe, I can sure outline the basic movements and how the controls work on most backhoes. Firstly, when we talk about backhoes, we sometimes mean the backhoe part, which is the digging arm and the bucket, or we can mean the whole machine. The whole machine is often called a backhoe loader. Now that might get confusing, so for the purposes of this article, I’ll just focus on the backhoe part. If you want further information on the loader then leave a comment or shoot me an email and I’ll put something together about that too. Just before I explain what the controls do, I ought to go over what the main parts of the backhoe are called. As you sit in the cab, facing towards the backhoe (which is more often than not actually backwards, as on a backhoe loader or tractor) the big arm with the scoop on the e
