Compact Concrete Crushers are On The Rise

With the rise of compact concrete crushers, bucket crushers, and mini crushers, more and more contractors are considering diversifying their business to benefit from the savings from disposing of concrete, tipping fees, and the cost of virgin aggregates. The cheapest mini crusher is probably too much if the economics don’t pan out or you are not set up for crushing yet. Ultimately, depending on where you are with your business, owning a crusher, renting a crusher, or hauling the material to the dump is worthwhile.

Here are the top 4 Reasons You Should Not Purchase a Compact Concrete Crusher:

1. You have no yard to stockpile material.

It is not impossible, but it will be hard to justify a compact concrete crusher without the capability of stockpiling material. Without a yard, you are 100% reliant on on-site crushing jobs. Having the room to stockpile material allows you to be more flexible, take in material, and manage your materials business.

2. You have not done your due diligence on market demand & material quality requirements.

Purchasing the wrong type-crusher can lead you down a costly path. Jaw crushers and impact crushers achieve different outcomes. While jaw crushers are good for an efficient initial reduction in size, producing a 3”-6” coarse product, impact crushers are suitable for producing a higher-value finished spec product (e.g. ¾”- base material that meets DOT spec). Some finished product specs require an additional screening plant (e.g. #57 stone).

You haven't achieved anything if you can’t use or sell your finished product!

3. You don’t own any concrete prep tools.

Crushing concrete is all about material prep. For instancec, a RM 70GO! Compact Crusher is best fed with an 18” / basketball-sized concrete piece. Larger compact crusher models can be fed with bigger pieces. Some mini crushers require an even smaller 14-16" feed size. While flatwork or peeled asphalt can be easily broken with your excavator bucket, large pieces of reinforced concrete need to be downsized with a hammer or pulverizer before feeding.

If you don’t have any attachments, you lack an important part for concrete recycling.

Concrete crushing is all about material prep!

4. You want to crush big & hard rock.

Big hard rock is for big, sturdy machines. If your rock shimmers with all kinds of colors (e.g., blue, green) and lots of glitter (silica) and is mostly 25” +, it is best not to process this material with a compact crusher. This is a recipe to destroy any compact or mini-jaw crusher.

For temporary projects, you could rent a full-size jaw crusher to preprocess the material before feeding the 3”-6” crushed rock into a secondary compact impact crusher. 100,000 lbs. mobile jaw crushers are designed to take the brunt so that a secondary compact impact crusher can process smaller, more manageable pieces.