senya rock crushing plant

Quoting your concrete and rock crushing jobs accurately helps your clients know what to expect. Accurate cost estimates can help you determine where to reduce overhead costs so you can offer your clients the best prices possible and remain competitive.

Importance of Accurate Quotes

Quoting aggregate crushing jobs accurately is essential for the following reasons:

  • Profit: Quoting accurately helps you make the best profit on your services without overcharging your clients. When you accurately predict incurring costs for a project, you can quote accordingly to ensure you collect enough revenue to make a decent profit. 
  • Client satisfaction: An accurate quote can also increase client satisfaction. Providing your clients with accurate quotes prevents unexpected costs, and clients are more likely to recommend your business to others when they are satisfied with your services and billing processes.
  • Cost reduction opportunities: Estimating project costs and making accurate quotes can help you identify areas for improvement. With accurate estimates, you can determine how to reduce your overhead costs, offer your clients lower prices and remain competitive in the field.

How to Quote Rock and Concrete Crushing Jobs

Consider the following tips to accurately quote a rock or concrete crushing project:

Evaluate the Project Scope

First, you must evaluate your project scope. Completing a site visit is the best way to do this because you can assess the type and volume of material you’ll be working with up close. 

Determine Additional Services

After evaluating the scope of a project, it’s important to determine who will handle the following processes:

  • Material preparation: Material requires sorting and downsizing before the crushing process can begin. If your client plans to process materials, you must state in your contract what size the downsized materials must be and make it clear that you will set oversize sections aside. This detail prevents you from crushing material that could wear or damage your equipment. If you decide to prepare materials, you must factor the use of a concrete pulverizer, excavator with hydraulic hammer attachment or other prepping equipment into your quote.
  • Moving and stockpiling: A tracked conveyor or wheel loader is necessary for moving and stockpiling crushed material. Tracked conveyors are typically more consistent and reliable, but you may require a wheel loader if the jobsite space is limited. If your client wants to move and stockpile the material themselves, indicate the required machine size to prevent them from using equipment that could slow and delay your work.
  • Transport or recycling: Determine who will transport the recycle and use the material after crushing is complete.

Calculate Costs

Once you determine which tasks you will handle and which responsibilities your client will take on, you can calculate your expected costs. You should take the following costs into account when creating each quote:

  • Labor: Consider the length of your project, the number of workers you will need and the pay rate per hour for each worker.
  • Equipment: Which equipment do you need to use for each project, and how much money do you need to make on each project to maintain a high return on investment?
  • Fuel: How much fuel do you estimate you will consume while working on the client’s site?
  • Maintenance: You must also consider equipment maintenance costs. How much does general maintenance cost for your equipment, and how will you handle unexpected repair needs if they occur during your project?
  • Fees and permits: Determine if you will need local permits or need to pay fees to complete the job.
  • Transportation: If you are responsible for transporting material away from the jobsite after crushing it, you will need to consider how much fuel and time you will use to move it to a concrete disposal or recycling location.

Choose a Pricing Structure

Your pricing structure determines how you will break down costs for the client and helps them know what to expect. Consider which of the following structures is best for your next job:

  • Hourly rate: An hourly rate is typically ideal for projects that may vary in duration or scope, especially for smaller jobs that may even not require a full day of crushing. 
  • Daily rate: A daily rate may make more sense to those mid-sized jobs where crushing for more than a day or two is required.
  • Flat rate: Flat rates may attract more clients because they’re straightforward. A flat rate is excellent for smaller, specific jobs where contingencies are less of a factor.
  • Per ton: Quoting a job by ton is a popular option in the aggregate processing industry. With this option, the quoted price is per ton of crushed material. This is a good option when the material is well prepped and tons per hour production is realistically estimated.

Consider Contingencies

You should include a contingency percentage in your quote to prepare clients for potential project delays and unexpected costs if they arise. Contingencies in the construction industry are typically 5% to 10% of your total project cost. 

Write a Detailed Quote

When you write your quote, ensure you include the following details:

  • Contact information: Include your company name and contact information so clients can easily reach you if they have any questions.
  • Project details: Detail what the project will entail, covering your role and the client’s responsibilities thoroughly.
  • Total estimated cost: The total estimated cost is the sum of your estimated costs and the profit you wish to make on your time and labor.
  • Cost breakdown: A cost breakdown lists each estimated cost so clients know precisely which services and materials their payment covers.
  • Terms and conditions: After agreeing on a quote, all parties will sign a contract that includes the expectations and responsibilities for the work to be completed.

Material Calculators

Estimating material weight and volume can help you determine how long a project will take and the costs you will need to account for in your quote. You can use the following online calculators and apps to estimate a project’s scope:

Hydro-Terra Group Materials Calculator

Hydro-Terra Group offers a materials calculator to help you estimate field weight and volume. This calculator uses common measurements to estimate stockpile and excavation measurements, assuming a reasonably steep repose angle for stockpiling and a vertical sidewall for excavating.

Apps

If you have an iPhone or iPad, you can download a calculator app to estimate materials such as gravel, asphalt and concrete slabs. You can download a single app or an app bundle to estimate material weight and volume based on its length, width and depth. There are also apps that allow you to use your phone’s camera to walk around the pile and get a good estimate such as SR Measure. Drone powered stockpile estimators do a great job as well and provide very accurate estimates for larger piles such as SmartDrone Corporation | American Mapping Products & Services

Important Concrete and Rock Crushing Equipment

The following equipment is essential for completing aggregate processing jobs efficiently and offering the best quotes:

  • Efficient crushers: High-quality crushers such as mobile jaw crushers and portable impact crushers operate efficiently so you can reduce overhead costs.
  • Scales: Scales weigh your processed materials precisely, helping you determine an accurate final cost.
  • Screen plant: A screen plant addition sorts materials by size, helping you complete jobs quickly and efficiently. Screened material also greatly improves the value of the material.
  • Loaders: Loaders are needed to load the crushing equipment and handle the material moving to distribution points on site.
  • Breakers/Material Prepping Equipment: There are many methods to prepping material for processing. Excavators with hydraulic hammers are the most common, and pulverizer attachments can be an extremely efficient option as well. 
  • Magnetic Metals removal conveyors: These can be extremely valuable in removing rebar and wire from your material post processing.
  • Dust Suppression Equipment: These can be extremy valuable depending on the climate and location of the job. Many urban or suburban jobs may make it a necessity.
  • Conveyors/Stackers: A conveyor or stacker enables you to move and organize materials quickly and easily without moving your crusher around on a jobsite. They can also be configured to load material directly to trucks.

Consider the scope and size of the job as to which size equipment makes sense

The size and quantity of the material to be processed can be the most crucial determinant of how to quote the job. Larger jobs over 20K tons may justify the cost of larger rock crushing equipment with greater tons per hour capacities up to 200+ tons per hour. How quickly the material needs to be processed is also a significant factor.

Consider the opportunities a small portable crusher can offer

There are many opportunities in smaller crushing jobs where the bigger equipment just isn’t cost effective for the $30-40K costs to mobilize such equipment. Senya Crushers MICRO Crushers unique portability and significant productivity offer tremendous opportunities for those smaller crushing jobs where the customer and crushing company can both save and increase profit significantly by crushing on site. The Senya 5 can even be pulled with a pickup yet still crush 400 up to 600+ tons even on a good day’s work. The Senya 6 is also extremely portable being able to be pulled with a dump truck or 5th wheel pickup and can crush up to 800+ tons per day. Both can utilize the MICRO Screen Plant sorting and grading three sizes of material with custom screen sizes from 1/8″ up to 3″. The S2318 MICRO Conveyor/Stacker can give a 16′ pile or load directly to the trucks. All can be run off the crusher’s generator’s diesel over electric configuration for the ultimate in efficiency, reliability, productivity, and longevity. The Senya MICRO Plant is literally a portable quarry on wheels.

Return on Investment on Smaller Equipment

Average demolition disposal costs as well as aggregate purchase costs are now easily averaging $30/ton. After several years of exploding demolition disposal/tipping fees, some places are now allowing you to dump for free as they realize the huge value of crushing and reselling material. Aggregate costs have almost doubled over the last three years as well, with some regions costs even approaching $50/ton. The Section 179 Tax deduction allows for 100% deduction of capital equipment expenditures the first year. The tax savings can easily save up to ⅓ of the cost of crushing equipment. The capability to economically and profitably take on the smaller crushing jobs the big boys leave behind provide tremendous opportunities for smaller rock crushing equipment. The trend and even requirement of some jobs to use recycled material further boost those opportunities. There is also minimal to no competition with these smaller jobs other than the large crush on site services. The fees they charge are easily beat with small and portable crushing operations. At average rates of demo disposal aggregate purchase prices, a Senya Crusher can completely pay for itself with even as little as 2500 tons of material, or only 125 quad truckloads. 

The profit potential to be made in this vastly underserviced niche cannot be understated.

Reduce Operation Costs, Increase Profit with Equipment from Senya Crushers

Accurate project quotes and competitive prices can help you boost revenue and build your client base. Senya Crushers offers dependable MICRO crushers to help you provide high-quality aggregate processing services while reducing your operation and maintenance costs. With our fuel-efficient crushers, you can decrease overhead costs and offer your clients the best prices possible. From recycling asphalt, concrete, glass, block, brick, concrete washout, glass, even granite countertop shop, the opportunities are endless when you have the ability to process material with a small portable crushing operation. Contact us to learn more about our portable crushers, find the perfect option for your projects and hear more about how our customers have endless profitable jobs with our equipment. We especially love talking to those new to and considering getting in the crushing business. You simply can’t help to make a lot of money partnering with Senya Crushers!