Whether you call them skip lifts/hoists/handlers or load luggers, this type of garbage truck foreign to most Americans had recently piqued my interest so I was especially keen on seeing some in action while in Poland this summer. Having hit a few dead ends in my search for companies to film I stumbled on a bright orange DPR skip sitting streetside while on a tourist-y midday stroll through Kraków's Old Town. Naturally I stopped to snap a few pics for future reference, drawing the attention of the company owner who was on-site for an interior demolition job. After a quick explanation on my part Damian showed off the DPR Kontenerowy Wywóz Facebook page with pictures of his two trucks prominently displayed. As luck would have it the pair were both favorites of mine among European makes, a sharp looking DAF CF and pretty-faced Scania. The next week I took a late-morning train into Kraków main station and hopped into the cab of the Scania for a glimpse of a day's work at Kraków's premiere hauling operation.
I really do think DPR Kontenerowy Wywóz is a top notch company. While Damian focuses on the demolition part of the business, Krzysiek and Artek bomb around Kraków in their trucks hauling both for DPR's own demolition projects as well as standard skip bin service. DPR seems to have secured a disproportionately large piece of the Krakow hauling market between a healthy dose of entrepreneurial drive, all around competence, and choice of skip loading equipment over hooklifts.
The advantages of the skip loader (bramowiec in Polish) are numerous. Telescopic lifting arms open up a world of versatility. Containers can be stacked and nested for both storage and transport. They can be lifted and lowered at various heights like on loading docks, or over short fences or walls. Models with independently telescoping arms can manipulate the angle of the container mid-air; a neat trick is setting containers between parallel parked cars. Unloading is accomplished by lowering the arms while restraining the rear of the container. Normally this is done from the comfort of the cab with the pneumatically actuated tipping hook but chains or straps combined with the telescopic arms can be used to dump farther or higher behind the truck like in the beginning of the video. Extreme dump angles will unstick even the most stubborn loads, be they packed tight or frozen. The container stays level throughout the loading and unloading process ensuring spills are kept to a minimum.
Of course there are trade offs. Much more steel goes into one of these skip loader bodies than a comparable hook lift or cable roll off. Accordingly empty weights are higher, legal payload is lower, and the initial purchase price is quite a bit higher. These factors combined with the smaller container sizes (skips top out at roughly 20 yards for the largest tandem axle mounted units) and lack of confined spaces mean we aren't likely to ever see the skip handler / lugger hoist take off stateside the same way it has in Europe. But for the intended market there really isn't a better tool for the job.
At the beginning of the video we join up with Artek's Scania as it tips a 6m (almost 8 yd) skip full of fill into a pit. In this case a chain is used to restrain the rear of the container for extra reach behind the truck while dumping. The stacking/nesting capability of the system is next demonstrated with the now empty container. Next we join Krzysiek in the DAF picking a skip full of mixed construction waste in Nowa Huta, a demonstration of the DAF's 12 speed transmission (turn on Closed Captioning for translation) on the way to dump at the local C&D MRF, and unloading with the more conventional method of using the built in tipping hook. Then back into the often frustratingly tight confines of the city center to drop the container for the next customer. Finishing off back with the Scania as it demonstrates yet another skip loader advantage: what would be a 6 way switch for a hooklift or roll off hoist becomes a 3 way with no need to re-position the truck throughout the container switching process. Technically the “officially approved” method of switching bins in place is to first nest the full skip on the ground into the empty on the truck, drop both, then lift the full skip out of the empty one leaving it behind for another batch of waste. In the video Artek skipped a step to save time, easily done with a container leveled to the top with dirt.
Thanks to Damian, Artek, and Krzysiek for letting me tag along. Be sure to show DPR Kontenerowy Wywóz some love on Facebook: / dprwywoz as well as their website: dpr.info.pl/ Filmed August 31st, 2015.
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4 окт 2024
