Concrete Pump Supply introduced the B18 Mini Placer at World of Concrete earlier this year after field testing the concept throughout 2017. Reports from the field along with contractor interest at the show has generated numerous unit sales to concrete pumping services and concrete contractors.
According to Max Kaska, marketing specialist for CPS, the machines are being leveraged to their full potential on a variety of concrete pumping projects and they’re earning their keep daily.
“We started selling the machines last year with their ability to fill a gap in high boom pump applications,” Kaska says.
Pioneer Concrete Pumping, parent company of CPS, initially put two of the units in its equipment fleet, one in Atlanta and one Dallas, to see how they could compliment a pumping operation.
According to Taylor Williams, CPS equipment specialist, typical 10-12 story concrete projects required a very large concrete pumper or a tower pump setup to supply the upper levels. But with the B18 Mini Placer, concrete pumpers and the concrete contractors working on a project gain an extra 60 feet of vertical reach, which allows for a smaller pump truck to be used and in many cases eliminates the need for a tower pump setup.
“If you’re pouring a slab or working on a three-story building, you may not have room (on the jobsite) to set up a large boom,” Williams explains. “And if you can’t use a large boom pumper to reach the entire project, then you have to hook up a 100-meter hose to the pumper you can get on the site. But the B18 Mini Place allows you to extend the reach of a smaller pump truck.”
The other advantage, according to Williams, is the fact that a single operator can use a wireless control device to move the boom wherever the concrete crew needs material. It eliminates the need to have a “hose” man guide the placement hose at the end of the boom.
“Manual deck placers have been used for a long time in warehouse project for slab and wall projects, but they rely on members of the concrete crew to physically pull and push the boom to distribute material where they need it,” Williams says.
Supplying material to a manual deck placer in a warehouse environment is often another challenge with limited height access for boom trucks supplying the material. The B18 Mini Placer with its three-section boom that can reach 60 feet horizontally on a slab pour only requires 20 feet of clearance to operate in a warehouse environment.
“The feedback we’ve received so far is that customers like them because they can often use them on a project without a placing boom,” Williams says. “And, the with a crane on a project, the B18 can be quickly moved from one level to another, or out of the way all together. It’s not like constructing a tower pumping system as a building goes up and then having to work around that until you can dismantle it. This approach is a lot simpler and convenient for projects that need a little extra reach.”
