Photo: Terex

Mobile crushers, especially compact varieties, are helping to change how things are done on many job sites.

By Peter Hildebrandt

Onsite crushing can lead to on-the-spot use of material as fill. This means less hauling, less road liability, less fuel consumption, less subcontractor use, and, finally, less expense.

In addition, the time line for having the equipment pay for itself has also appeared to shrink, as the economy’s downturns ripple in our direction.

With such road reconstruction projects as rehabilitation and repair, onsite crushing and recycling of fill can effectively eliminate the hauling of ripped-up asphalt, not to mention the expense of fuel to take it to an offsite crushing facility—and the expense in having to buy more material for fill.

Roads are just one exploding area of growth with this equipment. Other applications appear to be growing as the word gets out about the costs versus savings.

Here are some conversations with a few of the players in this growing area.

Just Common Sense
Sand Science Inc. in Beaufort, SC, has supplied portable and semiportable screeners, conveyors, and crushers to the aggregate industry and to such users as quarries, sand plants, environmental cleanup contractors or industrial plants. During the past two years, owner Gerry Kenny noticed that the trend in the industry was for everything to get bigger and more expensive. Meanwhile, he also noted the upper trend in fuel prices, tightening of regulations, and the need to process material as close to the source of where it was generated as possible.

“Subsequently, I also noticed these two issues diverging,” says Kenny. “Some people can’t afford the prices of the equipment; neither can they afford to haul material far away and still have a workable business. Circumstances told me we needed smaller, more compact machinery able to be brought directly to the jobs—even the small jobs—and still be viable.”

The product Kenny came up with as a solution was the line of compact crushers from Guidetti Recycling Systems. He found them to be tidy compact crushers, easy to move and efficient to operate—and their smaller engines burned less fuel.

“It’s practical to bring a small crusher like this to a small job and take care of 300 to 1,000 tons of material and reuse it on that job rather than tying up the cost of hauling it off plus the fuel costs and clogging up the roads. There are a whole lot of issues that are solved right there if you can bring just that one piece of equipment to do the 500 tons of crushing on a job. On an environmental job, this is an especially attractive option, as the liability of taking something offsite has been removed.”

Kenny found a lot of interest in this crusher at the recent ConExpo show, as those who saw it found a viable, less expensive machine for purchase by a smaller contractor—one which gives them a whole different set of working parameters on the job. Jobs can now be bid without having to worry about trucking. Such contractors include those for utilities, pipelines, or demolition, or those involved in modifying houses.

Sand Science has other machinery that it has incorporated with the Guidetti equipment, including compact screeners and tidy conveyors allowing users to duplicate what a large plant would do. “Our ‘plants’ costing a few hundred thousand dollars do everything the larger ones costing a few million dollars will do,” says Kenny. “They’re just smaller in size and capacity—and investment.”

“We see ourselves on the cutting edge of compact processing equipment, including screening and recycling of various different types of materials, glass, stone, concrete, bricks, or even imported minerals that have come in at the wrong size and may just need to be processed to a smaller size at a warehouse rather than be dumped as waste. The whole idea is to convert something into a usable product from what was unusable or too prohibitive to dispose.

“We’re a unique business in that we’re smaller and more hands-on, and we do all sorts of projects. But I noted this trend in the industry before the economy started souring. Fuel prices are not coming down—period. Europe has lived with five-dollar-per-gallon diesel for years, so they’ve been ahead in reuse and innovation. But North America does need to do some catching up.

“Also, not everything should be done for financial rewards. You should do something because it’s the right thing to do, as well. The potential for payoff with compact crushing is there in both the short term and the long term. We’ve got more stuff in the pipeline to make it more viable for small guys to afford a piece of machinery and do things on the job site to make them more competitive. At present, too much good stuff is simply hauled off and wasted in the US.”

Long History in the Field
Terex Cedarapids has a long history of providing a wide variety of crushers to the field for crushing all types of rock as well as concrete, building rubble, or other materials. Terex Cedarapids features a line of jaw and impact crushers that are track-mounted with onboard folding conveyor systems. While the larger-sized machines can be found in stationary quarries, the majority of the Terex Cedarapids equipment is placed on trailers that can be readily moved from site to site.

“A contractor may have access through ownership or leases to 10 to 15 small quarries, but only two or three crushing circuits,” says Dan Slife, Terex Cedarapids application and system specialist. “Many of these quarry sites do not have a need for continuous crushing year-round. The contractor will send in a portable crushing circuit to process and stockpile various products, depending on the needs of that specific area, before moving to another site.”

Terex Cedarapids equipment has been involved with onsite recycling for years. “The construction rubble is crushed to size and then redistributed as base material for parking lots and roads,” says Slife. “The Terex Cedarapids recycle systems prove themselves daily in the field.”

Recently, Terex Cedarapids has introduced its new Mobile Aggregate Crushing System, or MACS. The system is used in shot rock quarries, sand-and-gravel operations, and various recycle applications. All transfer conveyors to move the material through the crushing circuit are onboard and fold hydraulically for travel.

Each trailer has its own hydraulic power unit to operate the run-on leveling jacks as well as the folding conveyor systems. All material transfer points are engineered for rapid setup and no spillage. The main power for the crushers, screens, and conveyors is all-electric and can be provided with line power or diesel gensets.

The combination of Terex Cedarapids Jaw Crushers and Rollercone Crushers has been used in recycle applications for over 40 years. “The large Jaw Crusher feed opening accepts construction rubble with ease and reduces the material to feed into the secondary Rollercone Crushers,” adds Slife.
“Also, our patented, automatic, hydropneumatic, tramp-iron relief system on the Rollercone allows uncrushable material—such as rebar—to pass through the crusher without overloading the machine. We feel the flexibility and durability of the Jaw/Cone crushing system is well-suited to the portable recycle contractor.”

On the Terex Finlay side of things, the smaller equipment is involved in projects such as recycled concrete and asphalt, stone quarries, sand-and-gravel operations and any other such work where the typical output is up to 500 tons per hour.

“Our typical customer is an excavation or demolition contracting company ripping up the asphalt or concrete to dump into one of our crushers,” says Jerod Crane, sales manager with Terex Finlay. “In general, our most popular equipment would be our Finlay 683 track-mounted screen plant. The Finlay 683 Supertrak and Hydrascreen incorporate the popular idea of a complete three-way split for a scraping, screening, and stockpiling unit with the latest in onsite mobility.”

Designed in two variations, the Supertrak model offers maximum on site mobility, incorporating a twin-track undercarriage that can be controlled from a hand-held radio control. The Hydrascreen model is a fully road-going version fitted with fifth-wheel coupling and twin braked axles. Their application ranges are limitless within the aggregates, recycling and demolition industries, processing such materials as sand, gravel, limestone, crushed stone, topsoil, coal, and demolition waste, according to Crane.

“We like to point out to those interested that we can provide a complete product line when someone has crushing and screening needs,” adds Crane.

Silence and a Network Are Golden
Rubble Master crushers enable operators to bring the crusher to the pile rather than vice versa. The company’s first machine was a 6.5-ton machine, the RM50. The first big success of the company came with the RM60 and its ability to process between 50 and 80 tons of concrete and mixed demolition waste onsite or run as a small recycling operation with a prescreen and a single- or double-deck screen afterwards, so operators can process boulders up to 15 inches into fine material.

The track-mounted RM80 features dimensions within the legal load limits, providing mobility onsite, and is highly transportable, moving easily from site to site. “We consider ourselves the inventors of compact recycling,” says Nikolaus Hottenroth, Rubble Master business development manager for North America.

“This means the machines are sufficiently compact to transport them wherever there is a demolition job with processing onsite or in remote, sensitive areas where it may be impossible to haul off or haul on lots of materials. For this reason, the RM80 and the other models are very environmentally friendly as well, with low emissions, low fuel consumption, and dust-controlled with a built-in dust-suppression system.”

Due to the equipment’s low noise levels, it’s often run right next to schools and hospitals, according to Hottenroth. “Usually when people finally get close to the machinery, they’re amazed to find out that what they were hearing from a distance was not the crusher but the excavator that is loading material into the crusher.

“The success of the concept of onsite recycling has allowed us to revolutionize the business model of many contractors. There are now many trying to get into the market of compact crushers as well. It’s more difficult for them, as they came from large crushers and are trying to scale down, whereas we have always built compact equipment and can scale up easily, remaining within legal load dimensions and keeping a very transportable, versatile equipment.”

Instead of using hydraulics, the diesel-electric-drive concept allows operators to drive the impact crusher with a relatively small diesel engine, along with the use of a small hydraulic unit for the tracks and for all the hydraulic adjustments done when working with various crushing specs. The diesel engine also powers a generator, so all conveyors and the magnet belt for separating rebar are powered by electric motors. Thus, the diesel consumption is kept 30%–50% lower than comparable crushers, according to Hottenroth.

The company also supplies lots of know-how from a network of experienced users, dealers, and its own research department to best make onsite crushing profitable. A prospectus gives them the material they must process, the end product needed, the hardness of the material, and whether or not it’s natural stone, and this will tell them exactly what type of model, settings, blow bars to run and what type of training will be needed in order to run that business profitably.

“Businesses are finding a paradigm shift in the demolition process with this equipment and concept—especially in the United States,” adds Hottenroth. “Things are really taking off in the US. Another plus is that any truck that can be taken off the road by running a crusher onsite reduces the liability exposure, according to the dealers I’ve spoken to.

“We try to live up to our mantra: ‘We are happy when our clients make money.’ Also, we always make sure we build the support that is needed for that, so as an end user, you are not too remote from an existing dealership.”

Keeping Expenses Low in a High-Cost Region
Cavaliere Onsite Recycling of Stamford, CT, has recycled asphalt, concrete, and rock material using a Rubble Master RM80 for a year now (the company has been in business for over 50 years), and the equipment has helped tremendously in keeping costs down. “We no longer have to pay the dump to obtain material,” says DJ Cavaliere, co-owner. “We do everything ourselves now, including onsite crushing and recycling for customers, which helps defray the costs.

“Though we do travel around the area with our screeners, crushing, and recycling onsite occasionally, we’ll screen right at our yard. Keeping a 425-horsepower truck off the road, one making an average of 10 loads, burning up fuel, man-hours, and causing a potential liability, compared to simply having an excavator and loader running, creates a tremendous savings for us.”

On job sites, ground material is incorporated into sub-base or backfill material. Cavaliere sees the costs involved with removing debris and waste. “Dumping the waste is very costly today. If you can recycle your own material in-house you’re keeping your trucks off the road, reducing the liability, and recycling all at the same time.”

Versatility on Job Sites
When Ironhustler Excavator President Dave Schielein got into recycling in 2002, the company did onsite commercial demolition or site demolition, while area asphalt and concrete recycle yards were operated by the big competitors at that time. The company had been in construction-and-demolition work for 20 years. “I didn’t like the idea of doing all the site work, having them haul it off only to have to buy the material back from them,” says Schielein.

He wanted to find something where he could recycle it to a gradable aggregate directly on the site to make it acceptable to the engineers. Schielein spent a few years trying out various machines until he found one that suited his needs. He purchased it in 2004.

“The US seems to be just giving birth to the concept of onsite recycling,” says Schielein. “It’s a win-win all the way around.” Ironhustler recently demolished an old vintage Holiday Inn from 1958 and an Applebee’s in East Peoria, IL. By using the Rubble Master RM80, it was able to produce 11,000 tons of one-and-a-quarter-inch and smaller materials that could be engineered right onsite without being trucked off. The engineers approved this use as a substitute in the spec, and the material was sold to the new construction work going on in the area for $6 per ton.

“We bought that machine for our own use,” adds Schielein. “But due to the high exposure nature of the project, people started calling me to crush for them.

“I went from site to site crushing material to save folks the cost of trucking material. By February 2005 [the initial work with the RM80 had begun in August 2004], I had to purchase a second machine because I had so much work.”

Ironhustler’s commercial industrial work includes power plants and related clients. On demolition work or site prep for a new development, the company turns the asphalt or concrete found there directly into a gradable aggregate.

“Our mobile, tracked, recycling crusher gives operators gradable aggregate in one pass,” says Schielein. “We take all the concrete, masonry, and asphalt and recycle it to whatever the engineer recommends—such as a three-minus—and use it for the backfill.”
The company is 60% industrial in its workload, 40% commercial, and probably 30% demolition, which keeps growing each year.

“There are other mobile tracked crushers around, but we’re on the smaller side with our 25-ton machine. But I’ll go out and crush against any of those big ones side by side on the same job; at the end of the day I’ll give you more of a gradable aggregate.

“Ours is partially hydraulic and partially electric for the crushing operation, which means we can track down a road and keep tracking and crushing at the same time. I’ve even created a separate company, On-Site Recycling, to deal with the Rubble Master end of the business.”

Schielein also goes into ready-mix concrete plants in the area and helps them restructure their yards to avoid costly trips to dump extra waste and wash out the trucks at a recycle yard. “I’m in there four times a year, helping them recycle their waste and providing them with a sellable product for their customers.

“The inch-and-a-half, inch-and-a-quarter-minus material is actually superior to most coring materials as base under floor slabs, sidewalks, drives, or paving. The concrete guys can achieve compaction with about 30% less labor under recycled material.”

Photo: Rubble Master

In the quarry or on the demolition site, mobile crushers can turn tough material into gradable fill.

With the ability to do onsite recycling, Ironhustler Excavating deconstructed a few car dealership buildings, doing some controlled demolition. “We ‘eat’ the buildings as we take them down, separating everything out, pulling all steel and metals out. All debris goes to the landfill with as much masonry, such as block walls and concrete kept as clean as possible. Then we come in with our crusher, recycle it, and leave it in a pile for a base for them to repave their parking lot with.

“Our competition has to haul it off, and the owner has to buy material for fill. On one job we calculated that this method saved him some $14,000 dollars. He has a pile of material onsite now, worth that much money. We have to sell the concept of that to a lot of owners. But when we sit down and show them where the hard money is, it’s a different story.”

Ironhustler Excavating also uses DustBoss fog cannons for dust control on job sites.

“We’ve always looked for the edge in technology,” adds Schielein. “I’d say our crusher is some eight years advanced in technology over any other mobile tracked crusher. We’re always looking for a better, more feasible way to do the job, something we keep working at.”

Long History With Crushing Machinery
The past 85 years have seen three generations of the Hartl family gathering knowledge about stone. This knowledge started in the family’s own gravel pit and allowed the Hartls to start producing crushers and screeners in the 1980s. Today, Powercrusher USA LLC is a leading producer and designer of mobile crushing and screening equipment, offering a wide range of products to meet customer demands: track-mounted jaw crushers, impact crushers, vertical-shaft impact crushers, screening plants, and optical belt scales. The Austrian company brings long-term know-how and bold new technological development together and is a global leader in crushing and screening technology, earning several design-excellence awards over the past few years.

Being both dynamic and innovative has helped this manufacturer to succeed. Its plants are fitted with cutting-edge technology and distributed and serviced by a professional global dealer network. It also has a selection and range of machines designed to accommodate all customers’ requirements in this competitive industry.

This year’s turnover for the company is expected to increase by 50% to over 60 million Euros.

“A booming economy in Eastern Europe, where infrastructure improvements are required, helped our bottom line,” says Dominik Hartl, co-owner with his brother Alexander. “A lot also rests on the fact that the East-EU countries are now getting to be and trying to stay on a level that Western Europe has been accustomed to for years. Recycling and onsite operations are becoming the norm. This is in line with environmental trends, and we build the machines to accomplish this.”

Crusher and Screening Manufacturer in Southeastern US
RR Equipment manufactures a complete line of crushing and screening equipment in Lancaster, SC. Co-owner Bob Rossi points out that the higher fuel costs being experienced today, along with increases in dumping fees, make transport no longer a minor issue. “These things have driven a need for onsite processing,” says Rossi. “It makes financial sense; some folks are saving money and others are actually trying to create a niche market for themselves and take advantage of having a machine capable of moving in, being highly mobile, and still able to produce a decent product.”

The company’s main goal remains that of fitting any application and budget, mainly by growing along with its clients. “They may start out with a niche machine and then grow into needing a much larger high-production plant,” says Rossi.

“Even buildings, as long as the work is approved, can be ground up and used as base material for parking lots. You don’t have to visit the dump; you don’t have to buy stone from a rock quarry. We’re essentially recycling most of the building with no harm being done and without burning fuel or filling up a landfill.”

Three of the RR Equipment’s big machines ground up debris from the World Trade Center after 9-11. The company had crushers on Long Island at the time and one of their crushers was in New York during an attempt at delivery on the same day. The equipment’s magnets could remove any steel from the debris.

“We are one of the few US manufacturers in crushing and the first in the world to come out with a bucket crusher,” adds Rossi. “Our Crush-All is an attachment and this is joined by the Rebel Crusher, which is a step over into an ‘in-between’ line of equipment. It’s a tracked piece of compact crushing equipment and is radio-remotely controlled in its operation.

“The Rebel Crusher can be fed with a Bobcat. This is convenient, because most contractors out there have Bobcats or skid-steers. Its lightweight size means it can be towed behind a dump truck, as well. In addition to being incredibly mobile and compact, it’s full of features: a magnet, two screens for various sizes, and is diesel turnkey—operable in the middle of the desert if you want.”

The company is trying to keep up with the market by having machines that burn less fuel, are lighter weight, and still make economic sense. “We have a machine that a man is not making a long term investment to obtain. He can purchase our machines and start making money right away; monthly payments are very low.”

Rossi likes to point out that their machinery represents the evolution of listening to what their clientele is asking for. Smaller less expensive machinery may take a few extra days to do the job, but these days economically, that may be the way to go. Purchasability, operability, and ease of transport are RR Equipment’s bywords. “In essence, that’s what it’s all about with us. We can also easily service our products. We’re right here in the States.”

Filling a Growing Niche
Compact Concrete Crushers LLC of Maywood, NJ, distributes Komplet recycling equipment. This machinery is relatively small as crushing equipment goes. The Lemtrack 48-25 weighs only 3.5 tons. It can be towed to location with a half-ton pickup, where it can break down the job site, process all the concrete or asphalt, and recycle it in place, all with just two workers. The machine is small enough to be brought into house basements, crane-lifted for high-rise demolition, or even transported through an elevator shaft to demolish a building floor by floor.

“Carting costs can be reduced by two-thirds through the use of our crushers,” says Nicholas Baker, co-owner with Darren Becan. “By crushing material down, you’ll only have to use one container instead of three, leading to astronomical savings.

“They’re all remote control–operated up to 200 feet away. One man can be operating this machine, using a small skid-steer or excavator, doing all the work himself. This is a good way for one operator to do the work of two or three—at the same time.”

The two owners also have a decorative concrete business that they’ve had since before they got into the compact crusher side of their business.

When their small crusher equipment was getting borrowed a bit too much, they started to rent it out. Then they started their compact concrete crushing service.

The company’s RCB-6000, a rotary crushing bucket, is the first on the market, according to Baker. The RCB- 6000 is a crushing bucket attaching to any standard 3.5-ton skid-steer. It’s able to crush any onsite debris.

“The small machine, our 48-25, will crush up to 15 tons of concrete per hour,” he says. “That’s not a huge number, but then, this isn’t huge machinery. Our niche is the folks tired of paying the carting fees, dumping fees, fuel, and all the extra labor. This is a tremendous time and money saver.

“Here in New Jersey, the law requires that at least 30% of recycled goods must be used on demolition sites. This will be required as well, more and more across the country. This machinery can be operated in your neighbor’s backyard and you’d never even hear it. The big equipment is going the way of the dinosaur; we’re the tiny mammals that made it through the mass extinction of the big guys.”

From the remote position, such things as belt speed can be adjusted, moved forward, backwards, or turned around if the pile is getting too large in one position. Jaws can be opened in order to adjust the size, depending on the aggregate exiting, adjusting from three-eighths of an inch all the way up to three and three-eighths. Downtime can be kept to a bare minimum, since adjustments are made remotely. “Paying one man $15 dollars per hour, that person can also be doing the work of three people on the job,” says Baker.

“Because it’s a belt-fed system; it doesn’t matter to the feeding system if you are going uphill or downhill. Gravity is not involved for proper operation.”

This machinery’s manufacturer is based in Senigallia, Italy, where production of the equipment takes place, as well as in the Republic of Slovakia.

“Even if everything falls apart with the economy and we go back to New Deal-style road-building projects, we’ll be there ready to help rebuild the infrastructure,” says Baker. 

GEC - Buyers Guide 2009

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