Josh Miller, proprietor of Backwoods Grading, Landscape and Excavation, uses the Bomag BMP 8500 articulated, dual-drum, radio-controlled multipurpose compactor, specially designed for earthworks, just about every day and "it works as advertised."
Josh Miller is the proprietor of Backwoods Grading, Landscape and Excavation, a family-owned business headquartered in Fairview, N.C., just outside of Asheville in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Miller uses the Bomag BMP 8500 articulated, dual-drum, radio-controlled multipurpose compactor, specially designed for earthworks, just about every day and "it works as advertised."
"We've used Bomag products our whole time in business because we do a lot of compaction work. One of our specialties is boulder retaining walls, but we build a lot of water features, grading for roads, driveways, house sites, doing a lot of compaction work in the footers.
"The Bomag product sets itself apart. We started out renting whatever the company had, but after we started working with James River Equipment out of Asheville, they just really sold us on the Bomag 8500 product. For the past five years we've used it almost every day."
Miller likes the 36-in. wide trench roller with remote control because of its versatility.
"We didn't have to hire an extra guy, because whoever was on the skid steer or the track hoe could just carry the remote with him and stay in the machine in the air conditioning or the heat, depending on the season. The guys love it because they can charge the remote overnight, get to the job next morning, start it up from inside the cab, and they're able to move dirt and compact it all at the same time. It's really reliable."
This prevents Miller from having to hire an extra person to sit out there and ride on a roll compactor all day long, he said.
On a recent project where Backwoods Grading, Landscape and Excavation was doing an 18-ft. lift with boulder terrace retaining walls it was able to compact the whole way up with the Bomag.
"It's got our compaction up to 99.8 percent the whole way. It's been outstanding because the roller really holds its ground. It's not easy to tip. I'm not saying you can't get one up on its side, but the guys working on some of these steep-slope inclines were working on a 30 to 40 percent grade sometimes and we're able to set the roller down there and take off with it," Miller said.
According to Miller, Backwoods Grading, Landscape and Excavation is on track to build approximately 50 retaining walls this year, and the Bomag will be on at least 90 percent of those jobs.
"Whenever you've got a product that can be there that much and save you time and money, it's amazing to be honest. We love it.
"The quality of the work we do at Backwoods wouldn't be possible without Bomag. When you've got multiple excavators, dozers, skid loaders, and everything else we've got to have in our industry, and one of your main pieces of equipment is a little 36-inch trench roller and you couldn't finish a million-dollar project without it – that's saying a lot.
"You sit out here with millions of dollars of equipment and your job sort of rotates around a little 36-inch trench roller that holds up like a Trojan soldier. That's pretty awesome."
Miller also is impressed by the reliability of his Bomag 8500.
"We haven't had to send it in for any kind of service problems. Any issue we've had we just make a quick call over to James River to the service department and they were able to talk us through just about any issue we've had over the phone. They haven't had to come out to the job site once."
Miller and his crew aren't the only ones taken by the compactor. Customers also are impressed.
"They couldn't believe the compactability. They're getting out there and they're walking on it and they just can't believe how hard the ground is. We have a lot of people that are like, ‘My gosh, I can't believe you're doing this so fast.'
"Uptime is amazing. I'm not having to stop my job to make repairs or pay an extra guy to come out there with this massive five- or six-foot trench roller, and it gets the compaction where we need it and it's going to move me on to the next job faster, then why not spend the extra money? It's a no-brainer. We couldn't do our job if we didn't have this product on our job site every single day. It makes our job and our life easier. It saves me thousands of dollars and, overall, it's been top quality."
The Bomag 8500 36-in. wide trench roller with remote control
Today's top stories
