Best mobile crusher for recycling concrete

Well as the thread is titled what's the best mobile crusher for recycling concrete and other demo debris? I've been kicking around this idea for years including many conversations here on HEF. Looking for info from the ones who've owned, operated and/or wrenched on mobile plants.

Here is what I am looking to do:

Main function will be targeting crushing demo debris as a waste reduction, LEED, "green" (hate the term but there's money to be made) on job sites both our own and others in addition to having a yard where concrete can be stockpiled to crush when the plant is not on a project. Our company is a DOT certified DWBE so there are opportunities with set aside money on government projects and large private ones as well.

Intake product would be concrete with rebar, masonry, rock and brick. Our yard also is our inert dump so disposal of undesirable crushing material can be sorted and disposed of onsite.

Equipment we have to support is 2 - 50K hoes one with a QC and hammer, 3 CTL's, backhoe, Gradall RTFL, track loader and 2 dozers. If this venture gets off its feet then a wheel loader is in order.

Brands with dealers and support are:

Screenmachine/SMI - Cat dealer reps them. Great support for our Cat equipment and we have a relationship with the dealer. Not married though

Sandvik - Good local dealer along with a variety of screens and other recycling equipment. I have met one of the owners and he is well known around the city

KPI/JCI - smaller dealer that I know nothing about.

Kleemann - Komatsu dealer with a large local presence and good product support.

Powerscreen - Local branch here from dealer out of KY. Don't know much about them but apparently one of their mechanics lives in my area as I see the 5500 service truck on a regular basis.

Next $1M question - jaw or impact? Which one is better for turning concrete into 3 products - fines, 3/4-1" (#57's) and 2"-4" (#24's)? Those 3 sizes are the most desirable for construction here and can be easily re-used on the job site.

Which one is more maintenance? Other than both being maintenance intensive which crusher would be better for reducing product primarily and making product secondarily?

At this point just noodling the idea out but it's something I've always wanted to get into. Always wanted a landfill since I was a kid but age and wisdom has shown me that is not an obtainable option so this is the next best thing.

Thanks in advance!

Here’s what I learned recently. The value of crushed material is affected by proximity to a quarry, if there’s one close then the value of it drops quite a bit. I had an opportunity to get about 10-11k tons of concrete from the Highway they’re fixing. Talked to a friend of mine that runs a very large company. Once we ran the numbers in my area for my needs there wasn’t any profit in it and a good chance I’d have over paid for the rock. I am surrounded by quarries. 8-10 of them in a 30 mile radius. Our cost was within $.25 of theirs.

However, in OKC where they are a good ways from a crusher the recycled material is going upwards of $150 a ton! We had ours figured at 4.75-$5.00 a ton. That was the crusher rental as well as rental of a 30 ton hoe for loading and a 980 size loader stockpiling etc. I had considered doing it to sell most of the material and put a fresh layer on my yard. It wasn’t feasible.

One place it seems to work well, and in my opinion should have been used on this project, is to crush the material on site for base material. Trucking savings alone pays for it not to mention free material. What I also learned talking to him was a true calculation of your costs. Crusher rental as well as support equipment. If you own the stuff it’s easy to say “I already have it” but that means it’s not out making $. It’s gotta pay for itself one way or another. Is ownership cheaper than renting? Sometimes it is.

I can’t tell you which style is best. I know from this conversation that they have to run inch minus to get all the metal out and have a nice product to sell. That slows their machine down to about 400 tons a day he said. It was all new info to me. Glad I had him as a resource or I may have let my alligator mouth overload my hummingbird a$$!

Hope that helps a little.

Do you have steady water for dust control? Can you use the one hoe/breaker to reduce rebar throughput? Either jaw or HSI would work. Jaw has lower maintenance (less wear parts) offers great adjustability but when wear parts come due, costs are higher and more labor intensive.
HSI is kinda the industry standard, they reduce road materials to reusable base, they bring buildings back to useable base as well. Either will serve you well. I'm partial to KPI/JCI and their jaw seems to be super reliable. I know of an underground mining operation using a 2650 as a primary until they remove enough to fit their forever jaw. As far as mobility, you could get one mounted on a trailer with a single conveyor to be screened elsewhere or you could get an all in one FT2650 with conveyor, screenbox , underscreen conveyor and an oversize recirculating conveyor back to feeder. It's a beast. Cat powered. Made in America with non-stop customer support. They put their number on the side and back it up with their name.
Kleeman , a good product, will do the job but has some drawbacks. Foreign manufacturer, parts availability, it's all electric . Scania engine runs a good size generator. 400v 3 phase. When she's running proper, it eats. fast. It has a tremendous appetite for material. The downside, engine problems require a Scania trained tech. That stops there, machine problems need a tech who can think German, as in redundancy. They are safe, but gawd! They can make a simple thing extremely overcomplicated.
If it were me, with my luck and Murphy's law, I'd choose the FT2650 once i made realistic list of desires and spoke to a rep. Get the right Grizzlies, jaw or blow bar material and screen recommendations. KPI does not supply screen but will help you spec what you need for best results.
Now Sandvik, another foreign mfr, in my area, there is one dealer, he's a one man show and doesn't like to answer the phone. I don't know about support in your area. They do make a solid product with a proven track record . Do i think it would hold up to a 2650 or 4250, not while screening. But if it was just churning out material single pass, side by side, i think they'd all be close to one another.
My suggestion, FT2650 with a multi layer screen box have 3/4" to 2" tapered Grizzlies to prescreen material. Anything over 2 goes through the jaw then you can screen 2" off the top and 3/4" off the bottom . Anything over 2" gets recirculated back to vibrating feeder. The jaw produces a lot of undersize and fines as a byproduct, so you could adjust jaws to 3-1/2 to 4" and still hit your target material.
As far as metal exclusion, most all mentioned crushers have a good mag belt running above main discharge conveyor. HSIs don't appreciate the larger expansion joint pins (1-1/2" dia)

Thanks Junkyard.

One would think since we are surrounded by some of the best limestone in the southeast that crushed stone would be cheap - not really. #57's across the scale with no trucking is $18+ a ton. I guess most to the high grade limestone is being used for cement and a host of other calcium required items that they are getting so much money for they don't have time to fool with construction aggregates. Vulcan Materials is headquartered here and they have the most expensive construction aggregates.

If I could crush concrete at $4-5 a ton cost, I could sell all I could produce for $8-10 a ton just through business contacts created over the last 25 years, not withstanding any marketing.

Very good info FWF thanks for sharing.

Water would not be an issue and I should've added a water truck to the list of equipment. The 325FL with hammer could reduce the size and our 321DL could feed. The 325 has a Cat field trial oil quick QC that so far has worked great so swapping between hammer and bucket takes no time.

Want nothing, absolutely nothing to do with German engineering. I've hated Deutz ever since the ill designed 863 Bobcat but that's another discussion.

The KPI brand is rep'd by Stone Equipment here locally and I don't know much about them.

Sandvic is rep'd by an Englishman with a company that is well respected in the recycling market locally.

What are your thoughts on Screen Machine? The best relationship dealer wise is Cat and that's the brand they rep.

CM1995 said:

Thanks Junkyard.

One would think since we are surrounded by some of the best limestone in the southeast that crushed stone would be cheap - not really. #57's across the scale with no trucking is $18+ a ton. I guess most to the high grade limestone is being used for cement and a host of other calcium required items that they are getting so much money for they don't have time to fool with construction aggregates. Vulcan Materials is headquartered here and they have the most expensive construction aggregates.

If I could crush concrete at $4-5 a ton cost, I could sell all I could produce for $8-10 a ton just through business contacts created over the last 25 years, not withstanding any marketing.

Very good info FWF thanks for sharing.

Water would not be an issue and I should've added a water truck to the list of equipment. The 325FL with hammer could reduce the size and our 321DL could feed. The 325 has a Cat field trial oil quick QC that so far has worked great so swapping between hammer and bucket takes no time.

Want nothing, absolutely nothing to do with German engineering. I've hated Deutz ever since the ill designed 863 Bobcat but that's another discussion.

The KPI brand is rep'd by Stone Equipment here locally and I don't know much about them.

Sandvic is rep'd by an Englishman with a company that is well respected in the recycling market locally.

What are your thoughts on Screen Machine? The best relationship dealer wise is Cat and that's the brand they rep.

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I have no experience with them or powerscreen.
I kinda got a thing for deutz. I think powerscreen uses deutz. Sorry you had a bad experience. That's why I like KPI so much. When I was a dealer tech here in Chicagoland for them, I was never left hanging. I had support in every aspect. Not just on the phone either. There were times where they'd have someone on a plane to see first hand what's going on and what's going wrong. Specing up front makes all the difference in the world , that's why I said have realistic expectations of your desired product. Too many times, people try to fudge this or that to themselves only to be sorely disappointed later.

My sandstone quarry customer has a small Komatsu jaw on crawlers on site. He has rented it out in the past to do reduction on demo of buildings and such. The good thing about a jaw is that it eats everything that's inside the concrete. It doesn't like hard stuff like bucket teeth or big chunks of steel. You can set it for the maximum size of broken material coming out the bottom but you do have to screen the outflow for size if you intend to use the that material for any spec. Rebar is a pain. While the jaw will bust the concrete with it in there, the bar tends to get bent into all kinds of odd shapes that seem to want to cut up the bottom belts or get jammed into things. He has a magnetic top belt for the outflow, but it makes a pile of snakes that have to be handled. He has asked me in the past for the cost of setting up one of his other machines with a magnet, but so far he hasn't liked the dollars I give him. He also has one small impact crusher on tracks and one large impact crusher that is trailer mounted. The small crusher works too good on asphalt in that it tends to make a lot of dust and gumbo. The large machine he uses to bust up the waste coming from a shop that makes countertops and other fancy rock stuff.

I never liked the idea of using an impactor for anything that had rebar in it. The thought of that rotor winding the stuff around it and have to cut it out was a non starter for me.

I can't tell you much about brands as this stuff is Komatsu for the too smaller units and a custom built for the large impactor. I am friends with the Findley dealer in Seattle and haven't heard anything bad so far about their products.

The other issue around here is that concrete isn't liked much in that it degrades and drops some stuff into the ground, storm sewers and streams that affect the fish. The only money at present is in the rebar for scrap metal and any rentals who might want a machine on site. I have other clients that take in concrete and asphalt for a fee that is hauled to them and have the large machines able to process very large amounts of it.

JCI-KPI and cedar rapids-terex are huge up here I have three dealers within 2 hours Wear material can be had afermarket we hardly ever left waiting on a part or service truck
I dont know much about concrete crushing though as we run virgin bank with a wheeled portable jaw,cone spread

I would talk to the Cat dealer to see if they just rep the machine or if they have a heavy stock of parts warehoused, At least one aggregate trained mechanic and contact information for other owners of the machine

Rent to own is a common setup if it doesn't pan out the first season let it go if it works great buy out the remainder

Are you sure you really want to go down that rabbithole CM? You seem to be good at what you are doing presently. In your vision you see your equipment feeding the plant and not out on the job where it DOES make you money.
I've taken in concrete and ran it through a jaw/cone/screen spread. Worst thing I ever crushed. The materials my crews hauled in was kept pretty clean, but then we allowed others to dump into out piles. That when the sh*t really started to show up, wheels, tires, sewing machines and almost anything you could imagine.
I didn't have a muncher or a magnet in my string which I should have, but Im glad I didn't add it in . The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. I finally sold the last of the 8k ton we processed and I vowed to never stock that product again. Even though you can get the raw product for free or even get paid to take it.
The finished product in my mind isn't all that great. People wanted it on their driveways which is why we made to product to start with. After a decent rain you could see the yellow run off going right into our lakes and streams. Made me sick. Then after a couple years the concrete has rotted away from the gravel and that's what was left. Gravel. So now I just process virgin materials and feel good inside that's the way it should be.
But, if the burn in your belly, and the dollar signs are so big you can't keep the burn quenched, then deal with your cat dealer. They are the ones you deal with now and you'll become a bigger player with them thus giving you a better relationship bring more support.
Good luck kid with whatever your decision.

A lot of the quarries by me use sandvik track mounted crushers, I don't know if they lease or own them. But maybe I see them more because that's what they are working on and need me, and I don't see the ones that just run and run and run.

I used to move a magnet tower for a road building outfit in Iowa. They were tearing out and rebuilding highways, and would move it from project to project, everything else in the plant they could move with trucks, we just had to lay it down for load out. It was one of the initial screens, to get all the rebar out before hitting the jaw. It made sense in iowa because good rock is a lot more scarce up there than where I currently live.

Also- keep your umbrella handy, looks like your due for some rain.

The first thing to keep in mind. Is the minute you turn that key on in the morning, they are trying to destroy themselves......and they do a very fine job of it.
I have worked around 3 Kleeman spreads and a Cedar Rapids trailer mounted system.
The biggest problem I have seen is the jaws will let the rebar slide down and tear up the belts. Impacts seem to deal with that problem a bit better and I say a bit better. The belts seem to take more abuse than anything from the rebar.
The Cedar Rapids didn't have beans for a water system to keep down the dust, the Kleemans have a rather nice water system, but all require maintenance. That seems to be the key. There is a lot of maintenance to any crushing spread. There is no way around it. I have never seen the rebar get wrapped around a rotor. My belief is a good processor on a hoe sizing the material before you put it through is worth its weight in gold. Of course a good operator helps tremendously.
Kleeman is part of the Wirtgens group. I have not seen any big problems getting parts. The Dealer here has done their best to keep these running and gone out of their way for product support.
I guess that is the key to making anything work is the product support.
Metso is another one that is somewhat prevalent here although I have only worked around their screens.
There is some money to be made but one has to realise it is not a cheap date to make little rocks from big ones.
Best of luck and hope this helps some.

Its none of my business, but are you planning on doubling your equipment and help, or give up other work to dedicate your crew and machines to just one thing, crushing concrete??

Thanks for the replies guys I appreciate it.

FWF the hate I have for Deutz was the ill fated fuel pump solenoid on the 863 Bobcat that would go out unexpectedly on a regular basis. Used to keep 2 in the tool box just to keep it running. Your first hand experience with KPI is impressive. I am a big on service after the sale, the purchase price is not the most important item when I'm looking at a machine to purchase.

John does Komatsu still make crushers? I can remember a Conexpo several years ago where Komatsu had a jaw crusher set up on what looked like a 300 excavator UC on their main display.

As far as the crushed concrete goes the business plan would focus on reducing waste on site primarily and secondarily the end use product. From what I've seen crushed demolition concrete is not good for any surface that will be the final surface like a gravel driveway or parking lot as it just has too much metal.

Recently bought some concrete plant washout out that was crushed to #57 size that was fantastic. No metal or trash just stone and sand. Used it for trench backfill through a parking lot and locked in tight without any compaction, all the rain we had helped. Our 305 mini didn't struggle scratching the trench out for the patching crew but it wasn't loose stone either.

Jonus rental purchase is definitively on the table as we've used that purchase option for several machines with our Cat dealer. Dealer has a very good parts availability but I have not asked further on the Screen Machine aspect of the business and parts inventory. Kinda want to do more research on the options before asking too many questions because my salesman will have a jaw on a lowboy headed to one of our jobs.

Thanks for the first hand knowledge Grandpa, figured you'd chime in. What I'm thinking and I might be completely of base but our main goal would be reducing demo debris primarily with selling the product secondary.

Agreed the demo concrete doesn't make a good product for final surfaces. What I see as a possible use onsite is pipe backfill and other structural backfill behind walls and undercuts. A tremendous amount of money is spent hauling concrete off site and hauling stone backfill back in. With a 25 ton load of #57's averaging $600 delivered it gets one to thinking. Typical dump fees at inert landfills are $50-75 per load plus $90 per hour to take it there.

As far as a muncher goes if another project like the arena expansion we are finishing comes up again I will buy one just for demolition, it's the real deal for concrete demo.

CraneOp so far just weak outer rain bands here in Central AL, looks like we will dodge the worst of it. We haven't had much rain out of Ida compared to the rest of year and it's almost of out of Central AL.

Maintenance would be done in house with some training from the dealer/manufacturer which is another must - we want to know how to not only operate the machine but maintain it and replace wear parts as well.

At this point in the planning I could see the onsite crushing becoming the full focus of the company but that would depend on how the work comes about. We have the opportunity to go into the State/Federal contracting. We'll just have to see how it unfolds.

For greater mobility and slightly reduced productivity you could check KPIs GT series. It stands for global track. No wide loads, made for skinny euro roads. Just a thought. I don't know what your demand is other than size. Volume wise, you can get a lot through a GT205.

Komatsu does make crushers but I don't see them advertised for North America.

https://www.komatsu.eu/en/Product-archive/Mobile-Crushers

My customer has a BR300 that he imported from Japan.

funwithfuel said:

For greater mobility and slightly reduced productivity you could check KPIs GT series. It stands for global track. No wide loads, made for skinny euro roads. Just a thought. I don't know what your demand is other than size. Volume wise, you can get a lot through a GT205.

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Really like the smaller footprint machines for mobility around a job site and transport. The Terex/Findlay Evo is an interesting "city crusher" however not a fan of modern day Terex and probably would not buy one.

https://www.terex.com/evoquip/en/products/crushing/bison

The large 280 at 220 TPH gets close on production. That's roughly 6 -8 tri-axle loads of normal processed (with a hammer and hoe) tri-axle loads due to voids in the bed. A load of crushed rock is 25 tons per tri so 5 loads of crushed product.

At a minimum with a very cheap dump fee of $25 per load and minimum truck time of 1 hour at $90 per a load of concrete demo is $115 cost with no O&P. 7 loads an hour is $805 cost of trucking and disposal. Turn around and say those 8 loads of demo concrete into 4 loads of crush for pipe backfill and that's another $1600 on the low side (4 loads at $400 each).

Hardly numbers to make a $500K plus purchase but interesting enough to start putting numbers together and some of it works.

John the Kommie crusher I saw was at Conexpo '08 IIRC.

It might have been a trial market to check interest. I suppose if you ask your local dealer, they might make some phone calls. I have been able to get some maintenance parts for this machine.

Better check on the MSHA rules on the recycling too CM as I think that may fall under their jurisdiction as well. I didn't worry about it when I ran it because they already inspect my underwear.

Grandpa I know here in AL environmental/permitting wise recycling does not fall under the mining rules but that has nothing to do with MSHA.

So since we have discussed the profit potential end of this en devour, how about some numbers on the expense end as well, what is the per hour projected costs to keep the spread going and maintained. Hours expected before major repairs need to be done, a realistic replacement costs for those repairs, as in once the warranty is off and hydraulic pumps, motors, belts, bearings, wear parts, engines all go bad, what the resale value is of used spreads. You know, ownership costs for the long haul over years of use and abuse.

Good question Randy.

The purchase, depreciation, disposal cycle of the machine is one aspect, then the wear/expense/wrench factor is the other. Purchase to disposal cost is fairly straight forward due to financing terms which can be directly related to TPH production, labor, support equipment and value of those tons produced. However the operating expense is a whole 'nuther ball game that is harder to nail down.

As with any business plan or computer program the outcome is only as good input. Garbage in = Garbage out kinda like crushing concrete with trash in it.