ForConstructionPros.com

One piece of equipment you can find with virtually every paving or patching crew is the plate compactor, which is ideal for working on small patches and hard-to-reach areas. And many contractors have added rammers to their arsenal for added impact on base and subbase construction.

The demands contractors place on these pieces of equipment are tough, as they are constantly in contact with dirt, gravel, or asphalt mix. The constant vibration adds additional wear and tear on the equipment, and the dirt and dust the vibration and impacts kick up make the environment for these tools arguably the most difficult to work in.

So it's essential that contractors monitor the maintenance of their plates and rammers to make sure they not only will work effectively through the season, but also for many seasons to come. Contractors who perform routine maintenance on their compaction equipment can expect more reliable equipment, less downtime, reduced repair costs, and a longer service life.

"If you do your routine maintenance, the machine will last you for years," says Jonathan Cuppett, compaction equipment product manager with Multiquip. "We have people who have run them for 10 years plus, and then there are the people who can only run them one or two years because they don't keep up with the maintenance on them and an engine that is not properly maintained engine eventually will fail."

While some of these maintenance steps are similar for plates and rammers, each type of equipment requires unique maintenance steps.