Guide
Concrete pump site access: the set-up checks that decide your price
Updated
Access is the variable that most often turns a competitive quote into an expensive morning, because it is the one the customer is least able to judge from the ground.
What the contractor is looking at
- Where the machine will stand, and whether that spot is firm, level and clear of drains, inspection chambers, cellars, basements, culverts and recently backfilled trenches.
- The route in: entrance width, height restrictions, turning circles, weight limits, and whether mixers can also get in and out without blocking a road.
- Overhead: power lines, trees, canopies and scaffolding, all of which constrain where a boom can be slewed.
- The distance from the standing position to the furthest point of the pour, which is what reach and hose length are actually measured against.
- What else is happening on site: other trades, pedestrians, and whether pedestrians have to be routed around the hose or the outriggers.
Working from the road or the footway
If the only place to set up is the public highway or the footpath, that is a different job. It can require permissions from the highway authority, signing, lighting and guarding, and sometimes a licence or a temporary closure. It can also require a banksman for reversing mixers. The HSE's workplace transport guidance is the standard reference for managing vehicle and pedestrian movements on and around site (HSE workplace transport). None of this is free, and none of it happens by accident on the morning of the pour: settle who arranges it when you take the quote.
Abortive visits: the cost nobody budgets for
If the machine arrives and cannot set up safely, the contractor has still lost the day, and you will normally be charged. Worse, the concrete is already on its way. Photographs of the entrance, the standing area and the pour position, sent before booking, are the cheapest insurance available on the whole job.
A five-minute pre-booking checklist
- Photograph the entrance, the proposed standing position and the pour area, with something in shot for scale.
- Walk the standing position and note every cover, chamber, gully and area of fresh backfill.
- Look up. Note any cables, branches or scaffold that sit over the standing position or the pour.
- Measure roughly from where the pump would stand to the furthest corner of the pour, and tell the contractor that number.
- Agree in writing who supplies a banksman, who arranges any highway permissions, and where washout goes. See the washout guide.
Access information also improves your quotes, not just your day. A contractor pricing a clearly described site does not have to price the risk of an unknown one. That is a real discount, and it is free.