• Amanda
• September 28, 2016

What does hiring a conveyor actually cost?

Many times, when in discussion with a potential client about hiring their first temporary site conveyor, the old question of price comes up… Often one of the main questions in their mind is simply:

“Why should I pay hire for a piece of equipment to do a job that my labourers are already doing with dumpers, wheelbarrows, bags or buckets?”

There are too many answers to cover them all! The following are the main points to consider:

What goes up must come down!

Any receptacle or vehicle used to carry site materials, must come back in order to collect another load. Most of these have to travel back empty, meaning that at least 50% of their working time is non-productive.

By contrast, a belt conveyor presents you with a constantly available loading surface for 100% of the time it’s running, due to the fact that the belt forms a continuous loop giving maximum productivity.

Reliable performance, day after day!

Unlike human labour, a conveyor doesn’t suffer from fatigue, or need regular breaks throughout the day. While some of your workforce are resting, others can still be operating the conveyor to keep your site moving all day long.

Conveyors are always there from first thing in the morning, up until the very end of your day! They don’t phone in sick, and if a problem does occur, a good rental provider will provide assistance quickly to restore efficiency to your operation.

How much will it move?

Whether loading with shovels, wheelbarrows or an excavator, you’ll have a job to keep the belt on a conveyor fully loaded!

I once witnessed a bit of a contest between our smallest conveyor (300mm wide) and three site labourers who were determined to prove that they were better than the conveyor was at their job! After about 3 minutes of shoveling flat out, they gave up exhausted, while the conveyor rumbled happily on with a now-empty belt! They then tried again to prove that the conveyor wasn’t fast enough, by all loading it together with loose, stockpiled material. Again, they gave up quickly as the belt had empty sections in between each shovel load which they simply couldn’t fill.

Another time, one of our customers put a 600mm wide belt to the test by loading it with two diggers, positioned either side of the hopper, and loading the belt directly from a pile of brick rubble. Again, the belt took the rubble away, and even with two buckets working in tandem, there was always available loading space on the belt between each load!

My point is that even a small belt conveyor will comfortably out-work three site labourers (even when they’re working at an unsustainable pace), and larger conveyors can shift significantly more material than site dumpers could ever move in the same time period! With site labourers earning an average of £7.83 per hour across the United Kingdom in 2016, it’s looking like more of a cost NOT to hire conveyors, rather than looking for ways to justify the hire rate!

I could go on at length, about reduced personnel on site and the huge benefit this is to site safety, but in fear of boring my readers, I’ll wind up with a quick cost comparison chart to illustrate the financial benefit of using conveyors to move your material on site. Don’t forget to consider the note underneath the table – it’s worth thinking about!

And that’s only small conveyors! Upscale your conveyor; upscale your savings! Can you afford NOT to use conveyors on your site? IT’S YOUR CALL…

Chargeable Days	Labourer Per 8 Hour Day*	12M Easikit 300 Conveyor Per 24 Hour Day
Day 1	£62.64	£60.00
Day 2	£125.28	£120.00
Day 3	£187.92	£180.00
Day 4	£250.56	£240.00
Day 5	£313.20	£300.00
Day 6	£375.84	£360.00
Day 7	£438.48	£420.00

IMPORTANT NOTE: THE ABOVE TABLE COMPARES THE COST OF ONE LABOURER WITH A CONVEYOR, YET THE CONVEYOR WILL USUALLY MOVE CONSIDERABLY MORE MATERIAL THAN THREE LABOURERS OVER ANY GIVEN TIME PERIOD.

*Based on 2016 average UK Site Labourer wage of £7.83 per hour.

Get in touch

Why not let Coveya see how much time and money you could save?