Ways to Save Money With an Auger Cone Screw Splitter

In business, you know there’s two ways to make a profit. You’re either making it or saving it! Sometimes that additional profit can be found with efficiencies that come with a new equipment investment. If you’re reading this, you’re probably operating a land clearing company, a mulch yard, recycling yard or tree service. Our goal is to give you some general information about auger cone screw splitters that you can apply to your business model and hopefully become more profitable.

Reducing Costs By Using an Auger Cone Splitter Before Processing Big Wood In a Shredder or Tub/Horizontal Grinder

If you can reduce your shredding or grinding time, you’re absolutely going to save money! Less time running that equipment means savings on fuel, reduced labor costs, less repair parts, and less maintenance. We’re speaking in general terms here as every work-flow is going to be different. There are too many variables with equipment you already own and how you use it to be precise with these numbers. We can’t tell you specifically that you’re going to save X amount over Y years and your ROI will be Z. What we can tell you is that if you’re processing large diameter logs or stumps, we have the tool that likely makes your business more profitable. Auger cone splitters are uniquely suited to break down really big logs before they are shredded or ground. After splitting, that smaller wood runs much faster through the shredding and grinding process, especially if the shredder or grinder isn’t the biggest on the block. That translates to savings on fuel, reduced labor costs, less repair parts, and less maintenance because your shredder or grinder doesn’t have to sit and gnaw on big wood. 

And, if you’re running a smaller operation with a relatively small grinder, now you may be able to accept big wood, break it down with a  cone splitter, and process it with your smaller shredder or grinder.  A U.S. Pride auger cone splitter may save you from investing in a larger grinder or shredder. You may also be able to charge for dumping large wood on your yard, providing new income. One other aspect is mobility. If you want to keep smaller equipment around because you transport your shredder or grinder to jobs, our auger cone splitters help you do that by being able to break down the logs first. If you can resize those big logs, you can still run them in a smaller tub or horizontal grinder efficiently.

Reduced Travel Expenses

We’ve had tree service guys tell us that their auger cone splitter saved them significant transportation costs on certain jobs. If you have a large job where you’re removing a lot of wood or big trees, and can’t make use of the wood, you may think about grinding it all through your chipper. If you have to truck it very far, chipped wood takes up less space than logs and is generally easier to deal with. You may make a lot less trips removing chips rather than logs. That saves payroll, fuel and miles on your log truck! Using a U.S. Pride cone splitter to break the logs down first will make it chip much faster. And, if you don’t have a huge chipper, it can be necessary so you do not run your mid-sized brush chipper into the ground. You make the call based on your experience, current equipment and how the HF splitter may fit into your work-flow on jobs likes this.

A New Equipment Investment Means New Risk

It is true. There is always risk in business. We consider investing in a U.S. Pride auger cone splitter a very low-risk endeavor. First, U.S. Pride cone splitters generally hold their value pretty well. Even if you find out you don’t use it as much as you thought you would, you can resell it and recover a good portion of your investment. If you use them as they are intended and keep up some basic maintenance, they should last for many, many years and split thousands of logs. Like any equipment, if you abuse a cone splitter, you will incur costs to repair it. That being said, there isn’t a lot to go wrong. You can’t drill into concrete or rocks and expect the auger tip to survive. We don’t hear about a lot of thefts of auger cone splitters, but equipment is stolen every day. Make sure you keep insurance on your equipment and splitter attachments to protect your assets.

U.S. Pride Products has a range of auger splitter attachments that work with different size equipment. Starting with the smallest, the HF-100 Mini is built for mini skid loaders. These are meant to split logs with a mini skid loader. These are generally used by firewood companies, rental yards and tree service companies.  As you would expect, it’s for a smaller operation. Moving up, we have the HF-150, HF-300 and HF-400. These are our mid-sized auger cone splitters. They split good sized logs, can run on mid to large skid loaders and mini excavators as well as some other equipment that has enough hydraulic capability. They are generally used by land clearing operations, on jobs and on small to mid-sized yards to process wood. The HF-800 (1 & 2 speed) are our largest auger cone splitters. They run on large skid steers, full sized wheel loaders and large excavators. These are our most productive auger splitters and split the biggest logs. In general, pricing increases as the the model numbers get bigger, but you get more productivity and can split larger and larger logs.  

Contact us to tell us about your operation. We will recommend an auger cone splitting solution that works for your business!