Greater Than Graders

How Pull-Graders are the Smartest Choice for Earthmoving Site Leveling

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Graders will always have their place on the construction jobsite. Traditional motor graders were originally designed for basic highway construction projects, or maintaining roads on flat, gravel packed surfaces, and finish grading on jobsites. Traditional motor graders are excellent at crowning roads and evening thin layers of material. Graders have traditionally been the most complex piece of earthmoving equipment on the jobsite to operate, offering blade angling dynamics and precision accuracy. The grader operator is highly skilled, and the job isn’t finished until the grader operator says it is completed to the proper specification.

Traditional motor grader equipment; however, is expensive and delicate to maintain. It is best to keep the traditional motor grader in areas of extreme finish precision to maximize the value of the higher-paid operator and minimize the machine’s exposure to rougher job environments for costly maintenance repair bills.

Today, contractors need to be able to use graders on all earthmoving jobsites to optimize the performance of bulk earthworks projects and be able to complete the job right up to the finish grade. On bulk earthworks projects it is common for haul roads get punched out in spots, causing rutted dips and hills. Often it is essential to fill in these holes for a smooth haul road. Traditional motor graders are also not ideal for dragging larger amounts of material from one spot to another. A K-Tec pull-grader (commonly referred to as a land leveler) is able to pick up the material from a highpoint and drag it all the way into the hole for truly fixing these problems on the haul road.

K-Tec offers pull-grader land leveler units ranging from 12’-28’ widths that are to be attached behind an existing tractor in the contractors’ fleet. High-horsepower tractors can drag (depending on model) between 9 and 22 cubic yards of material with K-Tec’s large moldboard drag box design. Tractors also have large wheels or tracks that are easier to navigate and maintain rugged earthmoving jobsites than traditional motor graders. This is an efficient and affordable way for contractors to get more value out of their existing pieces of equipment, with a smaller capital expenditure up front, as well as having greater retained resale value once the contractor chooses to sell the grading equipment. K-Tec’s levelers are efficient in the construction, mining, and agriculture industries and are an affordable alternative to motor grader equipment.

An entry-level operator will have better performance operating a pull-grader, than compared to a motor grader. Pull-grader levelers are ideal on earthmoving jobsites for smoothing and maintaining haul roads. Pull-graders fitted with GPS machine control can even compete with motor graders in performing some finish grading tasks in most scenarios. Finish Grading with GPS machine control has allowed for an operator-friendly experience with extreme precision. K-Tec’s pull-graders are Trimble-Ready for dual-mast GPS set-ups, to allow operators to achieve most final grade specifications.

Contractors today also have a need for more efficient transportation of equipment between jobsites. K-Tec’s pull-graders have foldable hitchpoles, so that they may be easily loaded up on a trailer and transported between jobsites with a pick-up truck for a legal width load. This ease of transportation can be a considerable annual cost savings for contractors who jump around to numerous, spread-out jobsites.

K-Tec Land Levelers are an exceptional complimentary piece of equipment to K-Tec bulk earthmoving scrapers. To gain an advantage over competition, and to better use grader equipment for the aspects of strength and effectiveness, consider adding a K-Tec land leveler to your fleet by investigating www.ktec.com/landleveler.