Hitachi large excavator blasts away in Oslo

A Norwegian contractor has invested in an n Hitachi ZX490LCH-6 large excavator to help complete a demanding housing project.

Rock blasting and removal are taking place on the outskirts of the country’s capital, Oslo, to lay the foundations for 121 new homes.

And the excavator is proving to be the ideal choice for the job, owing to the machine’s high level of durability.

Morten Gultvedt Entreprenør is overseeing the construction of the new apartments in the community of Kolbotn. The company was established 25 years ago, and specialises in complex construction and earthworks activities.

The development was commissioned to provide accessible accommodation for Oslo’s high volume of commuters. Due to high demand, every unit was sold in advance.

The construction process begins with seam drilling, which is necessary to blast the rock into manoeuvrable fragments. These are then broken up further by the Hitachi ZX490LCH-6, before it loads a fleet of trucks for onward transportation.

Once the bedrock has been completely removed, Gultvedt will prepare the groundworks. Over 30,000 cu m (10.6 million cu ft) of materials had to be removed within a short timeframe.

This prompted managing director Morten Gultvedt to look for a reliable large excavator that could work quickly, and keep up with the rigorous workload: “We needed a powerful machine to help us meet the tight deadline within the short working windows available to us.

“We opted for the Hitachi ZX490LCH-6, because it is ideal for the work we do. It is more than capable of handling the substantial amount of large rock. Smaller machines with less capacity would simply not have been productive enough.”