While innovation is welcome in every industry, there will always be some who prefer to stick with traditional methods.  They're tried-and-true, they're simple, and everybody knows they work.  But sticking to these traditional and manual methods, disavowing more complex technology, may seriously impact and decrease the efficiency of your site or project.  While it can be tempting to stick to what you know, there are distinct advantages to using new technologies and methods even if it involves greater expenditure or training.  Here's one such example.

Lifting Concrete With a Skip and Crane

As mentioned above, it's a simple, traditional method.  If you need concrete moved, you can't go wrong with doing it manually.  The concrete is mixed directly into the skip or poured into it once mixed; a crane will then elevate the skip and pour it into the required location.  It utilises equipment that you're already likely to have onsite and requires little advanced knowledge, training or calculation.  However, it's quite slow compared to using a concrete pump—in more ways than one.  Not only could human error cause problems, either in transferring the concrete into or out of the skip, but the actual movement of the material is manual and less hasty.  It may also require several trips.

Concrete Pump

Concrete pumps solve all the aforementioned problems with speed and efficiency.  The concrete is moved quickly and directly to the location it's needed and at a constant fast pace—no back-and-forth.  Unlike the crane and skip, it's also a dedicated piece of equipment.  While this means that you will have to hire one especially, it also means that you're not using equipment that may be better used elsewhere on your site or project.  It's also comparatively less expensive; while it does require the initial outlay of cost to procure the equipment, it will require less labour to operate and perform the task than a crane-and-skip solution would and will get the job done much faster.  It's an old adage that time is money, but it's absolutely true.

As such, when you compare the two, there's essentially no argument.  If there's room in your budget, hiring a concrete pump does a far, far superior job than using a skip and a crane, and if there isn't room in your budget, then that's all the more reason to move costs around and make room.  The reduced labour costs and time spent on this small, menial part of the job will more than pay their dividends.

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