Was sure those auto-leveling outrigger systems were a gimmick until I borrowed one

I always thought those auto-leveling outrigger pads were just a fancy way to waste money. Then last month I was on a job at a weird sloped lot in Denver and the ground was all soft. A guy from a rental yard let me borrow his setup for a day and it saved me like 45 minutes of manual cribbing. Has anyone else switched over after being skeptical about them?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_lee9d ago

Man, no kidding. Took me six tries on a muddy hillside last year before I broke down and rented one.

the_elizabeth9d ago

I was reading this article in some trade mag the other day about how those systems actually adjust for soil compaction on the fly, not just the slope. The guy they interviewed said on soft ground like that muddy hill the_lee mentioned, the outriggers will keep pushing down until they hit solid dirt underneath. That's way smarter than what I was doing with cribbing blocks that just sink in after a minute. Makes me wonder if the tech has been good for a while and we're just late to the party on it. But yeah, seeing it work in person was the real proof for me.