Surrounded By Work

How many times have you learned about something new that you'd never noticed before and all of a sudden you see examples of it everywhere you look?

Early last year I considered the fact that when learning how something is done, we often find we didn't even realise there was a problem needing this solution prior to finding out about it. I had not really previously considered how concrete reached the top of high rise buildings before finding out that we can pump it with specialised Schwing machines.

I suppose partially related to this is that once you are aware of a 'new' technology, suddenly you start seeing it all over the place.

It is probably just a random cluster but I have recently noticed a lot of concrete pumping equipment about the place as a drive about London on various errands. I will often find myself trying to identify the model of concrete pump or placing boom and see which company is responsible for it. Over the last week or so I have whizzed past a Camfauds mobile pump (I think is was an S 28 X) working on a site very close to my home, a Byrne Brothers Separate Placing boom near the city (pictured left and identified by our chief engineer as an old 3 section, 27 metre Schwing boom - still going strong), a mobile pump in Putney, one or two Concrete Mixer trucks bearing the Schwing Stetter name and a couple of our mobile pumps being driven to or from site as I have travelled around. I do try to get a picture if my camera is to hand and I'm walking or it's safe and convenient to stop. I took the picture above of a Schwing SPB 30 Separate Placing Boom a short while back when visiting the Isle Of Dogs. I hope this isn't all a sign of impending madness...

Recycled Investment

I was very pleased a couple of days back to go and visit a site in East London where the company MixIt have just installed a new Stetter Concrete Recycler.

The new site is on the Thames just East of London City airport and they produce a lot of fresh concrete at their new facility there.

Jim Taylor who owns the business saw the value many years ago in recycling the leftover unused concrete because it gives him free aggregates and water to use in fresh batches that he would otherwise have to pay for.

It also saves him from having to pay to send all that unused concrete to landfill, which, leading to less landfill is also positive thing for the local community and environment as a whole.

It was interesting seeing it all working together, and in conjunction with a silt press machine for further cleaning of the recycled water.

Normally extra cement would need to be added to fresh batches where recycled water collected in this way was being used but not here. Jim added a silt press machine to clean the water to the point that it can be used just as fresh water in new batches.

The reclaimed aggregates add up to several tons per day and while not a lot in the grand scheme of things, that is money still saved. In fact Jim, who has another similar set up at a different location said that the whole system at the other location, including the silt press paid for itself in six months.

Having the recycling system also allowed the company to gain it's ISO 14001 certificate which is quite good for landing certain jobs where the end client is concerned about environmental impacts.

All in all it seems that MixIt's investment in a Stetter Recycling system is paying serious dividends.

A Day To View

Paul Reilly, Brendan Reilly, Neil Coupe, Mark Reilly

The UK Concrete show has once again come and gone and once again I popped on up to the NEC in Birmingham to see what the great and the good of country's concrete industry wanted me to know all about.

Like last year's it didn't appear to be exceptionally busy but I did manage to speak to a few people I knew which I enjoyed.

The top team from Reilly Concrete pumping who recently bought an S 52 SX mobile pump from us were all there as was Neil, our Financial Director so we took the opportunity to get the photo at the top of Neil with Paul, Brendan and Mark Reilly in front of the new S 52 SX which they thoughtfully brought along with them to display.

It was heartening to see that Camfauds had also brought along a Schwing mobile pump which they had proudly on display. Their's was a new S20 machine.

I also got to see Utiform's new VH2 machine which I hear is already quite popular, so all in all, when added to general look round at what's going on in the industry, a day well spent.

A Big Machine

A couple of days ago a very large box arrived which took our engineers several hours to open... Well actually that's not quite it, but we did take delivery of this, the first of the new generation Schwing S 52 SX mobile pumps which, had it come in a box (I'm not sure how it would have been transported) would certainly have taken a while to free from it's packaging.

One thing is certain though, and that's that this is indeed a big machine. Being able to pump concrete 52 metres into the air obviously requires a big machine. If you think about it 52 metres is actually a long way. It is more than the length of an Olympic-size swimming pool.

This machine is on it's way to Reilly Concrete Pumping based in St Helens, (between Liverpool and Manchester) and I hope to head up that way and get some shots of it once it's in action when I can.

Small Certification

Over a few months around the end of 2014 / start of 2015 we gained four National Small Series approval documents from the United Kingdom Vehicle Approval Authority, the VCA. This means that Schwing Stetter (UK) is:

"able to prepare for vehicles built in full conformity with this approval to be presented for registration."

The four certificates were for DAF, Mercedes, Scania and Volvo and mean we can mount mixer drums on these chassis and do all the bodywork with the national authority confident that the work will be carried out to the standard required for registration.

The actual certificates are three pages long and we decided it would be nice to display these, together with the vehicles they refer to. These four displays, shown above, now sit proudly in our board room.

All Lined Up

A long-standing client of ours, Easymix Concrete recently decided to all get up very early one Sunday morning and get some promotional shots of their fleet including Volumetric Truck Mixers and Concrete Pumps. They also made a short video of the exercise (above) which really looks rather good. It turns out that their marketing guy, Ben, also has a background in video production.

It was a big event for the company. They gathered all of their vehicles very early on the Sunday morning and drove across their hometown of Croydon. The whole company came out in force to show off the growth of the business over the last 10 years, and friends and family joined them in the yard for lunch afterwards.

As Ben told me, as well as general promotion, the reason for this was that seeing as their fleet has grown in size so much, they were curious to see how it would look altogether on the road. What is particularly heart warming is that every concrete pump in the fleet is a Schwing. For the record that's four Truck Mounted Static Pumps and one S20 Mobile. Here they are on the right (taking pride of place...)

It's great to see our customers doing well and reaching such important milestones.

Fulfilling A Tall Order

Over in Saudi Arabia, what will be the tallest building in the world is currently under construction. Kingdom Tower in Jeddah will be over 1km high which is taller than four Canary Wharf towers standing on top of each other. It will house over half a million square metres of floor space across 240 floors. At 120m down, the foundations go deep enough to bury the London Eye or just leave the rooves of the three Barbican residential towers visible.

If you have already guessed that Schwing Stetter will be playing a major role in this development you would be absolutely correct. Indeed Schwing Stetter construction equipment and expertise is being used across the board.

To avoid long drives and unpredictable delays in the concrete supply, the concrete is being provided by two on-site Stetter HN 3.0 Batching Plants. This is being pumped through 3,750 meters of pipeline by four Schwing SP 8800 D stationary pumps and placed by five Schwing Separate Placing Booms (3 SPB 35 and 2 SPB 30s). There are also four Schwing S42SX, truck-mounted concrete pumps.

Pumping concrete to these heights means that equipment will be working at pressures significantly above 200 bar. Every part of the pumping equipment, delivery line and fastening equipment will need to be reliable and durable so as to handle this pressure with high output volumes for the long period of time it will take to complete this project. This is when it's good to know about Schwing Stetter's reputation for reliability.

Given that a Schwing pump holds the record for the highest ever vertical pumping distance, it is perhaps not surprising that Schwing Stetter was asked to provide equipment and expertise for this work. For more details please see the full news story on our website.

Everyone Happy

Leading concrete frame specialists MPB Structures have just taken delivery of four new Schwing Concrete Pumps. MPB have been in the industry since 1987 but have only recently been a Schwing Stetter client, having previously sourced their concrete pumps elsewhere.

Having purchased a Schwing S36X late in 2014 and received it in early January 2015, they were so happy with the equipment and level of service from Schwing Stetter (UK) Ltd, that they placed further orders for a Schwing SP1800D tier 4i, 2 more S36X’s and an SP2800D. All have now been delivered.

Everyone here works very hard to ensure our customers get the best possible service and equipment and it is very fulfilling when this is recognised by our customers through further orders.We are extremely happy to be working with MPB who have invested in a broad range of Schwing Stetter technology and we hope this is the beginning of a long lasting partnership.