Hot take: found out that one dredge pump can move more sediment in an hour than a dump truck can haul in a full day

I stumbled on a stat from the USACE website last night that a 12-inch dredge pump pushing 4,000 gallons per minute can shift around 500 tons of material per hour, which blew my mind because I always figured trucks were the backbone of moving dirt, not our pumps.

3 comments

3 Comments

amymiller2mo ago

See it totally different though. Once you factor in mobilization costs, permitting, and the fact that most small jobs can't even get a barge or pump close to the water, those numbers start looking a lot less practical for the little guy.

morgan_lewis182mo ago

Idk man, once you see that number it's hard to unsee it.

angelacooper2mo ago

...and then you add in the downtime from haul roads, loading times, and dump site traffic jams. My brother runs a small excavating outfit and he's always complaining about how many truckloads it takes just to clear a pond. He told me once that a single pump running for a week could do what his whole fleet of five dump trucks struggles with in a month. Honestly it makes you wonder why more small guys don't invest in a decent pump setup instead of just piling on more trucks. Tbh the math on fuel and labor alone probably makes the pump the smarter play long term.