Adamo Demolition discovers new possibilities with SENNEBOGEN fleet for recovery of ferrous metals from demolition debris

Like most demolition contractors, Adamo was accustomed to using specially-equipped long-reach excavators to tear down structures, then further machines with a grab followed up to pick through and load the debris for disposal. It was in 2004 that the company first experimented with attaching a magnet to an excavator to pull out rebar and other ferrous scrap from the piles of rubble. “We were floored by the amount of scrap we were recovering,” Richard Adamo, President of Adamo Group, recalls. At the time, he had a team working on a big project, with a large volume of metal in the structures. “Look at the recovery we can get – all this material we’ve been sending to the landfill, picked as clean as you can get it.” For this important project, metal recovery thus brought Adamo considerable additional revenue.

A short time later, Adamo took advantage of an opportunity to acquire a used material handler for the first time, which demonstrated the advantages of replacing excavators with purpose-built material handlers for the task at hand: Their mobile undercarriages offer essentially more flexibility on the construction site than tracked excavators when it comes to getting from A to B. And they are designed for heavy lifting and constant horizontal rotation under load, which results in less stress on their parts when performing these movements. This is when Alta Equipment, a leading equipment dealer in Michigan, connected Adamo with its SENNEBOGEN line-up of material handlers. “I attended an open house at Alta and I saw an 821 E in the mobile version on their lot: I thought ‘That’s a really interesting, compact and agile machine, that would suit our specific need.”

With projects scattered across the country, the ability to transport equipment efficiently is a key point in planning. Larger sites also call for machines that travel quickly between work zones under their own power. And, as in any major project, reliability through long operating shifts is essential to meet deadlines. Richard Adamo therefore continues: “SENNEBOGEN has a great dealer network and the dealer support is simply outstanding. We have had no issues with downtime or parts availability. We rely on factory-certified technicians for all our equipment service. Alta works well with our dealers in other regions to give us a strong support network.”

The fleet was expanded recently to include even larger material handlers. Adamo is just as pleased with the other machines that Alta has supplied. He purchased an 825 E soon after seeing his first 821 E, then larger 830 E models, all in the mobile version with solid tires, were added for new projects. “We leave the magnet on it rather than using an orange peel grab. This way, we can extract the purest loads of scrap for onward transportation in no time,” states Richard Adamo.

As the latest acquisition, a SENNEBOGEN 840 E was acquired for a power plant project in Ohio, where barge loading operations required a heavier machine with longer reach. The laydown area is located near the barge facility, a considerable distance from the demolished structures on the site: First, the 840 E starts to load off-road trucks with the recovered material, which delivers the scrap to the laydown area. Once enough material is accumulated, the 840 E is driven to the river to fill the barge. “Our biggest accomplishment, really, is segregating the metal to recycle,” says Adamo. “We were among the first to use the magnets for sweeping and cleaning the piles. We are now getting paid for material that otherwise would have been a cost for tipping fees at the dump.”