He later moved on to a long career doing site and excavation projects, ranging from digging a simple residential gas line 60 feet long to a six-level parking garage at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. He was also involved in the construction of several schools, offi ce buildings, hotels and high-rise apartments for the elderly. Among the machines Schrauder uses today are a Bobcat®
T180 compact track loader
and a 341 compact excavator — a popular combination of equipment often referred to as the Bobcat System.
Schrauder’s property was a farm at one time, growing hay, oats and corn to feed his sister’s Arabian horses. When she left home, the horses went with her, and later 10 acres were sold. Schrauder built a 4,000-square- foot house and large machinery storage building on the upper portion of his acreage; the lower valley is a forest with a creek running through it.
The house has been heated by wood since the mid 1980s, burning up to 12 cords of wood each winter. Schrauder brings trees home from lot-clearing jobs, cuts the logs and stores the fi rewood in wooden boxes; some are as large as 6 by 4 by 4 feet. He transports the boxes to his house with his T180.
“My furnace burns the wood to charcoal, and then burns the charcoal to talcum-like ashes,” he says. “At the end of winter, there is almost nothing left of the wood.”
In Schrauder’s garage, he stores a truck he built from a glider kit. The cab, frame and front axle came from a factory and he installed the engine, transmission and rear end. He worked on it for 10 months. “The reason the 1980 model looks new is that I am the only person who has driven it,” he says.
Two years of research
What he is driving these days in order to help maintain his property is a CT122 compact tractor, purchased from Bobcat of Pittsburgh.
“I spend a lot of time — usually a year or two — researching a product before I buy,” Schrauder says. “When I decided I needed a compact tractor, I only considered three brands; I didn’t want to waste my time looking at sub-standard machines. In the
size range I wanted, the Bobcat model stood out. It weighed 500 pounds more than the others and it cost less.”
As someone who has put together his own truck, Schrauder certainly knows a well-built machine when he sees one. Among the factors that helped the CT122 rise above others:
FRONT AXLE THICKNESS: “No other model compares to the Bobcat machine,” he says.
TIRE SIZE: “When I park the CT122 next to my neighbor’s similar model made by another manufacturer, there is a very noticeable difference,” he says. “That’s because the CT122 has 12-inch tires on the front and 16-inch tires on the back. The other machine has 8-inch tires on the front and 12-inch tires on the back.”
POWER: “There are a lot of hills around this property, and also at my cabin, and the CT122 handles them with ease,” he says.
The cabin is located on 15 acres of land up in the mountains in Clarion County, about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh.
“I leave the CT122 up there for the winter to drag logs out of the woods to heat the place and to plow snow,” he says. “Since I don’t go there too often, snow can accumulate quite high and oftentimes there is a hard crust on the top. The tractor with the front-end loader handles the snow very well.”
Schrauder says there is plenty of back-breaking work at both places, and as he gets older, he knows he wants to do less of it.
“The CT122 is saving my back,” he says. “It’s a super little machine. I have been operating tractors for 55 years and I wouldn’t hesitate recommending a Bobcat tractor to anyone.”
Visit
www.MyWorkSaver.com/tractors to learn more about the Bobcat compact tractor line from Bobcat Company.
“When I decided I needed a compact tractor, I only considered three brands; I didn’t want to waste my time looking at sub- standard machines. In the size range I wanted, the Bobcat model stood out. It weighed 500 pounds more than the others and it cost less.” — Randy Schrauder
EARLY FALL 2012 | WorkSaver Homeowner with Acreage
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