A machine’s failure isn’t good news for anyone. But for West Rock Materials, located in Woodbridge, Conn., the failure of the company’s portable jaw crusher led to an increase in production and a decrease in fuel costs.
Warren Luciani, the principal of West Rock Materials, had been using a portable jaw crusher in conjunction with a portable screening plant to process recycled materials. When the jaw crusher failed, he rented a Rubble Master RM100GO! recycler from DJ Cavaliere of COR Equipment.
He noticed two things immediately: production levels increased threefold and the plant went from consuming 125 gallons of fuel per day to 50.
“We had been in the market for a new plant for some time, but once we got our hands on the Rubble Master our minds were made up as far as what we were going to purchase,” Luciani said.
West Rock Materials has been providing the New Haven, Conn., area with road base materials for commercial and residential applications for the last 15 years. These materials are produced primarily through the recycling of concrete and asphalt that is brought to its recycling facility by area contractors. In addition to recycled road base material West Rock also offers a variety of processed material including septic gravel, screened sands and topsoil, processed stone, stone dust, and rip rap. It also offers bulk high quality mulch to meet the needs of local landscaping firms.
With Luciani’s current configuration at the recycling facility an excavator is used to feed the Rubble Master. The excavator operator has a remote control that allows him to operate, shut down and move the RM100GO! from the cab of the excavator. One loader and operator is used to stockpile the processed material and one employee is stationed at the hopper of the Rubble Master to pick out any unwanted solids. This is done in spite of the fact that the Rubble Master magnetic system efficiently removes all rebar from the recycled concrete. The picker is primarily focused on wood and plastic materials.
The Rubble Master is a closed circuit impact crusher with a single deck screen. This means that all oversized material, that is dictated by screen size is re-fed back into the feed hopper. As material makes its first pass through the recycler oversized material is automatically sorted out and fed by conveyor back to the hopper to be re-crushed to a smaller size; completely eliminating the need for running two plants and eliminating a loader and operator that would have been necessary for feeding the oversized materials back through the crushing plant.
“We have been extremely pleased and, at times, surprised by our experience working with COR Equipment,” Luciani said. “In addition we have been pleasantly surprised on several occasions by Rubble Master. When we rented the Rubble Master RM100GO! we had commented on a couple of changes that we felt could increase the efficiency of the conveying system that takes the oversized materials back to the Rubble Master hopper. We were really surprised when the engineers from Rubble Master in Austria contacted us about our suggestions. But, we were really amazed when our new machine was delivered and the suggestions that we had made to Rubble Master had been incorporated in our new machine. As I mentioned, the fuel costs from converting to the Rubble Master were significant, amounting to a savings of about $6,000 a month. That $6,000 a month fuel savings covered well over 60 percent of our payment on the Rubble Master machine. Production levels jumped dramatically and the sizing of the product being made is perfect.
“For a worldwide manufacturer we have been very impressed with some of the attention that we have received from Rubble Master, including a visit from Gerald Hanisch, the owner and founder of Rubble Master. He visited us last winter while we were going through the purchasing process and was instrumental in identifying the right machine to match up with our operation.”
West Rock Materials
A family run business, the day-to-day operations of the facility are run by Luciani’s nephew Blake Luciani; father-in-law Dwight runs the scales at the plant.
Luciani also owns Woodbridge, Conn., based Advanced Paving and Excavation, which focuses on residential and commercial paving in and around the Woodbridge area. In fact, West Rock Materials was originally started as a staging area for recycling asphalt and concrete from the various jobs that Advanced Paving was involved in. Last year the business was opened to the public and area contractors and has experienced significant steady growth ever since. Over time products like processed stone, mulch, and now even propane, were added to his product offerings to increase local traffic to the facility.
The roots of Advanced Paving and Excavation go back to a company that was started by Luciani’s father, Ettore Luciani. Ettore started the company with a Ford single-axle dump truck, a John Deere 450 that was manufactured in the 1970’s and a Case CK backhoe. In its early days the company was focused on excavation and then gradually moved its emphasis to paving. Luciani noted that the first two driveway jobs that they landed they paved by hand.
For more information on West Rock Materials, call 203/387-2587 or visit www.westrockmaterials.com.
COR Equipment
COR Equipment Sales, located in Stamford, Conn., is the Rubble Master dealer of New England and New York.
For more information, call 203/569-0339 or visit www.cor-equip.com.
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