A construction and demolition debris recycling company diversifies with a Rotochopper purpose-built shingle grinder and later a multi-purpose shingle grinder.
In 2008 Jason Haus and Mark Pahl of Dem-Con Companies from Shakopee, MN recognized the amount of shingle material that was being landfilled and wanted to find a higher value alternative. The market for recycled asphalt shingles as an additive in asphalt pavement was established for manufactured scrap but not for post consumer shingles. They felt the post-consumer shingle market showed the most promise for market development.
Simplified Maintenance with a Purpose-Built Grinder
Dem-Con invested in a purpose-built Rotochopper RG-1 asphalt shingle grinder to process the post-consumer shingles they sorted out of their C & D waste stream as well as manufacturers’ scrap that was accepted from local shingle manufacturing plants. “The RG-1 does a great job of processing tear-off shingles with minimal daily maintenance required,” says Pahl. “There is very little hard surface welding required on the wear points. Many of the maintenance points we only need to look at during our scheduled downtime in the winter months.”
“The maintenance requirements are minimal and their service department is outstanding.”
Increased Versatility with a Multi-Purpose Grinder
After running the machine on their own shingles and doing some custom grinding for other contractors for a couple years, they soon found that a single machine was not keeping up with the market demand of in-house and custom grinding that was required on an annual basis. “Our in-house and custom shingle grinding operation grew to the point where another machine was needed to meet the demand,” states Haus. “We opted for a 700 HP Rotochopper B-66 SP horizontal grinder with the shingle package for more versatility. The B-66 SP does well on the tear off shingles, but where it really performs is in the grinding of manufacturer scrap shingles. The B-66 SP handles a wider variety of shingle material so it is our machine of choice when we are on the road doing customer grinding,” reports Jason. “The RG-1 is a slightly less expensive on a per ton hourly basis than the B-66 SP, but the B-66 SP is a more versatile machine in whatever type of shingle material you want to recycle,” says Mr. Pahl.
“We have never regretted choosing Rotochopper grinders for our recycling operations,” says Mark. “We also have an EC-266 horizontal grinder integrated into our C & D recycling plant operations grinding the wood waste stream. The machines are economical to run, the maintenance requirements are minimal and their service department is outstanding.”