STUFF
Appetite for Destruction The navy blue Pirtek service van is a familiar sight on demolition sites the length and breadth of the country. And little wonder. The company’s market-leading hydraulic hose replacement service keeps the wheels and tracks of the industry turning. Mark Anthony reports. Pirtek outlet; one that reflects the modern and forward-thinking nature of the demolition sector. In an application where a high reach excavator is the prime mover, everything on that site hinges upon the uptime of that main machine. If it fails, the support machines, crushers, screen, haulage trucks and – more importantly – the men and women on site all stop.
To the layman, demolition is just pure destruction. It is explosives, wrecking balls and great piles of debris. Nothing could be further from the truth. The modern world of demolition is one of precision and engineering. The use of explosives – in the UK at least – is something of a rarity (which is probably why it makes the news headlines when it does happen). A wrecking ball probably hasn’t been swung at a structure in the UK for more than a decade. And as for debris, the UK demolition sets a global standard for recycling and reuse of materials with many achieving recycling rates of 98 percent or more.
To help prevent this, many of the UK’s more forward-thinking contractors are investing in Pirtek’s Total Hose Management system. As part of this system, all hoses on a machine (or a fleet
But for all that precision, demolition remains a hostile environment for the equipment used to bring down structures and to process the arisings. That is why Pirtek has placed such emphasis on supporting this highly specialised industry sector.
Getting Attached
The once ubiquitous wrecking ball has been almost entirely replaced by the advent of high reach and standard sized excavators all equipped with a multitude of hydraulically-actuated attachments and kitted out to withstand the harsh demolition application. But virtually everything tool in the modern demolition man’s armoury requires hydraulics. And with hydraulics comes hoses that require care, attention and replacement. Throw into the mix the gradual adoption of hydraulic quick couplers such as the OilQuick or Lehnhoff systems, and it is easy to see why most UK demolition contractors have their local Pirtek centre on speed dial. Yet there is much more to the relationship between the demolition contractor and its local
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