Where to get enough material for a large fill project can be a daunting task. When Antico Excavating was awarded a contract on a 120,000-cu.-yd. (91,746 cu m) fill job for the construction of a new Herb Chambers Lexus dealership, Anthony Antico, who is co-owner of the excavating company with his son John, came up with a solution.
Anthony believed that they could realize a considerable savings on the $5 million excavation project by inviting area demolition contractors to bring in their concrete demolition material that could be crushed on the site and used for fill.
The concrete material that was brought in had a considerable amount of wire mesh and rebar in it. There was so much metal that approximately one dozen 40-cu.-yd. (30.5 cu m) trailer loads of steel was removed from the concrete and sold to a recycling facility.
“One of the real challenges in this job was the amount of wire mesh and rebar in the concrete. We placed a person on the machine’s platform to remove any obvious large chunks of metal. The rest was left up to Metso’s magnetic separator, which grabbed any of the metal that became unattached from the concrete during the crushing process and threw it off to the side. We ran the crusher for two months steady without any significant issues whatsoever and great production levels,” Anthony explained.
Most of the material delivered before crushing was 2-ft. (.6 m) minus in size. Some pieces were large enough that it had to be hammered with a breaker to reduce it down to a size that the company’s new Metso LT105 portable tracked jaw crusher could handle. Approximately 30,000 cu. yds. (22,937 cu m) of material were brought in for processing.
At first the Metso 105 was a rental unit from Whitney and Son Inc., but when Anthony saw what it could do, he could not imagine tackling another similar job without the assistance of the Metso crusher. As a result, the rental unit turned into a purchased one.
“We have used portable tracked machines for special projects before and we really thought that we were really satisfied with those machines. That was until we used the Metso,” said Anthony.
“The machine is faster, more reliable and creates a more consistent product than anything that we have seen before. We attribute a lot of that to Metso’s unique automatic clutch and hydraulic crusher drive. The hydraulic jaw adjustment setting on the Metso allows us to make a product down to two-inch minus,” he said.
“Our production levels were wonderful, processing 1,000 to 1,500 yards of material each day. Once the material was crushed, we ran it through our Metso model 90 box screener to finish product separation. We really appreciate the modified, taller extended conveyor on our Metso 105. It really dramatically increased our stacking ability, which again, saves on loader wear and tear and manpower,” he explained.
“Believe me, once we started out on this crushing project, every sales rep from every crusher manufacturer in New England showed up at our door. And frankly, the Metso was performing so well, we never gave the others a second look,” Anthony said.
“Jim Hanscom, our sales rep, and the support staff at Whitney and Son have done an amazing job supporting the equipment. Thanks to the Metso crusher we estimate that we saved $200,000 on this job alone,” Anthony concluded.
Antico Excavating Inc.
Anthony Antico Sr., who started in the heavy equipment business in 1925, founded Antico Excavating. His sons Anthony Jr. and Louis took over the operation in 1949. Today, Anthony Jr. and his son John run the company.
The company works on site construction and recycling projects in eastern Massachusetts and owns a fleet of more than 20 pieces of heavy equipment. One piece, however, a Cat 345C excavator is a personal favorite of Anthony’s, which he alone operates and maintains.
Today's top stories
