Our new supplier, Tanas Concrete, brought its latest and brand new piece of equipment to site. The machine finally resolves the eternal problem of ordering large amounts of concrete, that is how to get the volume ordered precisely right.
Ordering too little is a major headache, especially if a continuous pour is specified in a job like a basement. Ordering too much leaves a disposal problem, as nobody wants a giant dump of concrete left on their front yard.
The new Tanas truck mixes the sand/water/gravel components on site, this means they can shut the mixer off when the job is done and drive away with all the dry ingredients ready for use at the next job. The idea behind this truck seems to be that it can rove around the various pours and finish the last bit of pouring at each job. This means there will never need to be a half empty truck hauling back an unneeded wet load of wasted concrete back to the plant. Over time, having the exact right amount of material delivered to every job is quite likely a huge money saver. We have a cellphone video of the truck in action, however this website only allows still photos and youtube videos. Here are some shots of the truck in action
This is the control panel for the truck, have not seen a digital display on a concrete mixer before today
While this isn't the clearest image, you can see the sand and gravel are on a conveyer belt, these are combined at the end of the truck with water which is then sent to the pump truck for placing in the forms. This truck eliminates any human labour from the arduous task of mixing concrete. Unfortunately this type of machine is only to be found on bigger jobs. Fence and deck builders will still have to mix their own batch.
This is the site mixing truck in action. Note the water supply vessel behind the cab. This truck looks pretty similar to what you would find at a large batch plant at any commercial scale mixing location, just compressed enough to fit on a truck body. This must have been a significant investment by Tanas, but saves a lot of wasted concrete and eliminates the human error factor from poorly measured loads.