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Anyone have experience with horizontal grinders??

mowingman

mowingman

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Looking into buying a used horizontal grinder to reduce the volume of debris and brush we are hauling from cleanups. We are looking for the smallest machine that will do the job, due to limited access issues on most jobs. I have a lot of experience with rock crushing and screening, but know very little about horizontal grinders. Anyone have experience with these things?
Thanks,
Jeff
 
mowingman

mowingman

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Plan on buying used. Machine will be used mainly in two types of projects.
1. Small land clearing jobs, generally light brush, and fencerows with small trees, less than 12" diameter trunks. We usually have to haul a high volume of brush from these jobs, and want to reduce the amount of truckloads involved.
2. Cleanup at homebuilding jobs. Will pull machine to curbside central location, back dump truck under discharge belt, then use skidsteer to feed scrap lumber, sheetrock, etc. into grinder. Skidsteer can move materials from multiple jobs all along a whole block of houses, thus reducing amount of loads to haul out to landfill.
We are thinking about a machine thay hooks to a pintle hitch and can be pulled with one of our dump trucks.
 
H

Hondaman

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You might look at a tub grinder. I'm looking for 1 now too. The logger who clear cut my land has one he's bringing in to grind everything that is left. I'm removing stumps and wanted him to grind them up too, but he said that the rocks in stumps wear his inserts down fast. I'm looking at morbark. Get on machinerytrader.com under forestry- tub grinders. They have a 950 or 1000 that might work for you. You can get several different inserts from light duty to heavy duty(for stumps). I went on YouTube and watched some videos too.
 
mowingman

mowingman

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We don't want a tub grinder. They are generally too big and heavy to move around on a daily basis, and require too much setup time. Also way too expensive to buy, and seem to require a lot of expensive maintenance. We do not need to grind stumps, rootballs, or large logs.
 
rossaroni

rossaroni

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SE PA
You're in the great land of compromise, Jeff.
Small and portable often times does not equate to high production numbers on primary grinds. I have a small grinder (Sorry, its a tub...I know, you're looking for a horizontal grinder), and unless the job is immense, its often quicker to load out our 40 yard cans packed full than it is to grind up and load out. Even if it is huge, I send the tub to grind some while the truck is out, and the cans still get packed with unground materials. We mulch everything at our yard when the pile is huge and the sky is crying.
The folks I know that have a larger grinder all "need" a walking floor and tractor to keep up with the output. Unfortunately, the solution to their problem was to buy a $100,000 machine that required a $50,000 trailer that takes 10k in maintenance a year, and a tractor to boot.
As far as the maintenance, I won't pussyfoot around this....you'd be buying a machine that karate chops wood at 5000 rpm. I don't care if its a tub or a rotary grinder, if it smashes stuff all day, stuff is going to wear out.
I'm all for the right equipment for the job, but our best bang for the buck was not to reduce volume, but to increase hauling capacity. We bought a used Western Star triaxle rolloff and dumpsters. If we were running a truck anyway, might as well make it 40 yards instead of 20. It wasn't a 3:1 reduction that a grinder could promise, but 2:1 reduction in transportation costs was pretty good for the 20k we paid.
 
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mowingman

mowingman

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Tanks for all the good info. You make some very good points here. In fact, I have been thinking a lot about increasing our load capacity with larger trucks, instead of reducing the bulk by grinding. I need to do some serious cost analysis about which way to go. Both options have advantages, but both options have negative aspects also. We have got a lot more thinking to do, before we make an investment either way.
Jeff



rossaroni said:
You're in the great land of compromise, Jeff.
Small and portable often times does not equate to high production numbers on primary grinds. I have a small grinder (Sorry, its a tub...I know, you're looking for a horizontal grinder), and unless the job is immense, its often quicker to load out our 40 yard cans packed full than it is to grind up and load out. Even if it is huge, I send the tub to grind some while the truck is out, and the cans still get packed with unground materials. We mulch everything at our yard when the pile is huge and the sky is crying.
The folks I know that have a larger grinder all "need" a walking floor and tractor to keep up with the output. Unfortunately, the solution to their problem was to buy a $100,000 machine that required a $50,000 trailer that takes 10k in maintenance a year, and a tractor to boot.
As far as the maintenance, I won't pussyfoot around this....you'd be buying a machine that karate chops wood at 5000 rpm. I don't care if its a tub or a rotary grinder, if it smashes stuff all day, stuff is going to wear out.
I'm all for the right equipment for the job, but our best bang for the buck was not to reduce volume, but to increase hauling capacity. We bought a used Western Star triaxle rolloff and dumpsters. If we were running a truck anyway, might as well make it 40 yards instead of 20. It wasn't a 3:1 reduction that a grinder could promise, but 2:1 reduction in transportation costs was pretty good for the 20k we paid.
Click to expand...
 
CM1995

CM1995

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Running what I brung and taking what I win
I agree with rossaroni, you need to look at a higher volume way to haul debris. A 60CY dump trailer can haul a considerable amount of brush as well, 40's work good too.

If you are already doing homebuilding clean up a roll-off might fit best, you might be in the roll-off business before you know it.;)
 
mowingman

mowingman

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We can not use roll-off boxes in our city limits. Only out in the county. Our city provides solid waste pickup in town, and has a monopoly set up. No private contractors are allowed to set out privately owned roll-off boxes in town. The city wants all that business for themselves. We can do it outside of the city limits though.
 
Tones

Tones

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Mowingman,
There is no way the world I'd put a grinder in a urban street and work it. A horizontal grinder will throw debris though nowhere as bad as a tub. I've had timber go through my ute windscreen when it was parked 60 metres from a grinder.
 
TrentNz

TrentNz

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Jun 28, 2012
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New Zealand
90% of our work is demo, we have about 20 diggers running full time, and about 28 houses a week being demolished. This is the truck we call big balls, he has a trailer too which is a couple meteres longer. Truck and trailer will nearly swollow an entire medium sized house
 

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rossaroni

rossaroni

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Your city would have to provide me with a VERY clear definition of what a roll off box is. I can move an awful lot of brush in this, and technically, its an open top conex:Dsea box.jpgtop view.jpg
 
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CM1995

CM1995

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Running what I brung and taking what I win
mowingman said:
We can not use roll-off boxes in our city limits. Only out in the county. Our city provides solid waste pickup in town, and has a monopoly set up. No private contractors are allowed to set out privately owned roll-off boxes in town. The city wants all that business for themselves. We can do it outside of the city limits though.
Click to expand...

I've heard of this before and that's BS, IMO. A city doesn't have the power to regulate legal commerce between two individuals but I digress...can't fight city haul, well you can but you've gotta have deep pockets.:(
 
H

Hitachi225

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Dec 29, 2013
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Ontario Canada
Most people do not realize how much money it costs to keep these grinders going. We bought a 2010 Rotochopper B66-T on tracks with 765hp , machine has around 4k hours and we are constantly doing repairs on the machine. No fault to the manufacturer it is just the nature of these machines and what they do. One piece of tramp steel or a rock going through the grinder can cause 5-10k in repairs in a heart beat.
 
mowingman

mowingman

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After a lot of thought, I think we are just going to get a couple of bigger capacity trucks so we can haul larger quantities/load. We can really increase our efficiency by going to 18 wheelers, instead of hauling with our 10 wheeler dump trucks. We can buy a couple of older semi rigs for less than what a good horizontal grinder will cost. I do know a good bit about grinder upkeep, having run rock crushers, and forestry mulchers. So, we will try larger loads for now.
Jeff
 
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