Steel vs Polyurethane Rollers: How to Make the Right Choice
With Hevi-Haul, you have two rollers to pick from for your move: steel vs polyurethane. Based on your specific situation, one will be a better choice for your moving purposes. Steel and polyurethane rollers are interchangeable with all our machinery skates, including utility, straight line, and compact swivel skates. Once you’ve decided which type of machinery skate you need, you will need a roller to pair it with. Let’s take a look at the difference between steel and polyurethane rollers.
Steel Rollers
Steel rollers are the best choice for all-purpose movements. You’ll be using these skates for a wide variety of moves, even moves you don’t know you’ll need to make yet. Therefore, steel rollers are the best option if you move things around often.
Steel is the most durable material used with heavy-duty roller skates. Because of that, steel rollers can handle very heavy loads with ease, and can even be used for extended or even fixed placement. Subsequently, you can keep the rollers under the machine permanently without worrying about damaging them. If you are moving across a rough surface, steel rollers would be the right choice.
Polyurethane Rollers
Polyurethane rollers are good for protecting your floors or rolling surfaces while maintaining the durability and function of steel rollers. These rollers should not be used for extended periods of time. Leaving a heavy load to rest on the skates for too long can damage the polyurethane coat. If you are going to leave the skates below a machine for extended time frames, then you should go with steel rollers.
Moves are best accomplished when rolling surfaces, such as factory floors, are clean and relatively free of debris, cracks, and holes. Make sure to check that the surface will support the load and reinforce weak spots with steel plates.
Steel vs Poly Rollers – Hevi-Haul Helps With Both
If you have any questions about skates and roller pairing, feel free to contact us right away. Our team of experts here at Hevi-Haul are always happy to answers any questions and give recommendations about the best choice for you.
Why Would Anyone Want to Move an Entire Home?
Why would anyone need to move their entire home to a new location? Imagine your own home being moved. It’s in its current location. Then someone comes over, picks it up from its foundation, carries it a couple miles, and then drops it down in a new spot. It sounds pretty much impossible, right? It has been done though, and a lot more often than you think!
Here are just a few possible reasons someone might need their entire home moved.
You Love the House, But Not the Location
Say you find a home you love, but you don’t like the location. It’s your dream home: the perfect size, the perfect style, the perfect everything—except the location. You could purchase the home, and then have it moved to the perfect location for your family. Alternatively, sometimes people want to move away but they’re too attached to their home to sell it. Instead they can shop for an empty plot of land, and then pay someone to move their house to it.
For anyone considering moving a whole house, it is important to keep finances in mind. It may be financially prudent to move the old house to the new spot instead of building a brand new home, but not always. The cost of moving your home will depend on many different variables.
You Want a Bigger House
Other times, people just want a bigger house and don’t want to pay to have the house demolished. That’s where moving the whole thing can help.
By moving it, you can basically recycle your home by selling it and then having the buyers pay to haul it to their own property. This can save you the costs of demolition. True, you typically wouldn’t sell your home for much money when doing this, but it prevents your entire home from being wrecked and put in a landfill, which is environmentally friendly.
Your Land Was Bought
There are situations in which your your land is bought to expand for developing highways or shopping centers. It isn’t very common, but it does happen. In these situations, people love their homes and don’t really want to move, but they don’t really have a choice. In a case like this, someone would have the option of having their home moved to a new location instead.
You Encounter Environmental Problems
Environmental problems like flooding and erosion might prompt you to consider moving your home. For instance, after a harsh flood, someone might consider moving their home to less risky location. If erosion were an ongoing issue in your location, you might consider stilting the house or rebuilding the foundation at first, but after dealing with years of environmental erosion, you might decide moving your house somewhere else makes more sense.
There’s Nothing Easy About Moving an Entire House
House moving is not cheap. It also isn’t easy to plan. So before you dig up your house and move it somewhere else, make certain that it makes sense, both financially and logistically. There are some limitations to house moving, so be certain to work with experienced and knowledgeable professionals who can help you make the move a successful one.
And if you’d like to learn more about moving huge structures like houses, check out this article on the five biggest structures ever moved.
How Did Ancient Civilizations Move Heavy Things?
How did ancient civilizations move heavy building materials? From the Great Pyramid of Egypt to Stonehenge in England, all builders will run into a similar problem when dealing with large structures, materials, or equipment: How are we going to move these things?
Here is how two of the biggest structures in history were moved.
The Great Pyramid
It’s estimated that about 2,300,000 stones were used to build the Great Pyramid. Each individual stone block weighs in at about 2.3 metric tons (about 5,0000 pounds). Add all that up, and we’re talking about some serious hauling capabilities for a civilization working over 4,000 years ago. So, how did they do it without the help of modern moving equipment?
Recent discoveries have led experts to conclude that the Egyptians constructed massive sleds to pull the giant rocks through the sand. They’d also have someone at the front of the sled pouring water into the sand to reduce friction. Questions still surround how they were able to get these rocks up in the air to give it such awesome height.
Stonehenge
The largest rocks, called sarsens, that make up Stonehenge are up to 30 feet tall and weigh about 23 metric tons (about 50,000 pounds). These massive stones are widely believed to have been transported from nearly 20 miles away. Still, the smaller interior rocks, called bluestones, weigh around 4 tons and find their closest home 140 miles away. That’s a big job, so how’d they pull it off?
No one can say for certain how these rocks were moved. Stonehenge is somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 years old, but it’s obviously man-made. Some say the massive rocks were carried by glaciers, but leading ideas are that the rocks were placed on tracks made out of tree trunks and rolled the distance. A group of students in London tested this theory, and they actually covered a lot of ground moving a couple tons with just a small group of people.
Having the Right Technology Helps
Ancient civilizations are not very different from societies of people today. They were no less intelligent or less physically capable, these civilizations just didn’t have the advantage of hundreds of years of technological advances on their side. They had to be innovative. Thankfully, moving heavy things now is easier than it’s ever been, as long as you have the right equipment.
Get the Right Equipment for Your Move
If you have any heavy machinery, structures, or materials that you need moved somewhere, Hevi-Haul has the best equipment to get the job done right. With weight capacities up to 150 tons, weight or distance shouldn’t be an issue.
For more information about which skates will best meet your needs, contact us for a consultation.
5 Industries That Benefit From High-Quality Machine Skates
When you need to move a building or a helicopter, you can’t settle for a mediocre solution. How do you move such massive structures without fear or crazy costs? Tons of weight need moving and lives are on the line.
A lot of money is on the line as well. It costs a great deal to move massive objects and structures. Popular Mechanics says it costs $12-16 per square foot to move a building. That means jobs and entire businesses are also counting on your team to get the work done.
Cranes and powerful trucks are expensive and aren’t always available. They are also not always customized to each specific job. So, what other options do you have? Machine skates are the answer to your quandaries.
What Are Machine Skates?
Machine skates are steel pieces of mechanical equipment. This equipment moves heavy machinery and other large objects for short distances. They can move many types of heavy loads under a variety of conditions.
There are many advantages of industrial skates and machine skates dollies. The benefits include affordability, durability, portability, and versatility.
Although industrial skates are useful for moving loads in any industry, these five industries benefit the most from using high-quality machine skates.
1. Agriculture
Farms and ranches have a lot of equipment that needs moving. This could be due to relocation, repairs, or a weather-related concern.
Building or moving a barn could also be a necessity. Tractors and forklifts are versatile, but they can’t do everything! Heavy farming equipment and parts are tricky to transport.
Budget is also a major factor. A lot of farmers and ranchers don’t have the big bank accounts needed to hire entire crews. Machine moving skate supplies provide the most bang for their buck.
2. Construction
Construction companies move steel beams, concrete dividers, industrial equipment, and other structures. Machine skates allow construction teams to support and move heavy pieces.
The most common construction equipment used includes bulldozers, cranes, dump trucks, and excavators.
Machine moving skates can also help to reduce the average emissions at a work site. Machine skates compensate for the pollution from the usual construction equipment.
3. Manufacturing
Manufacturing industries include a variety of factories and plants. They use enormous pieces of equipment to produce and store products or chemicals.
Common manufacturing equipment includes conveyor belts, massive containers, and assembly platforms. If these sections get damaged or replaced, basic forklifts can’t move them. Building or rearranging these sections requires the use of industrial skates. These versatile skates can move tons of metal with safety and precision.
Machine skates will see more use in factories and plants. Here are some of the main reasons:
- Manufacturing centers need to update their technology. Safety requirements change for employees. Production materials and processes change over time.
- International competition means factories and plants must cut costs and increase production. More heavy equipment and robotics are being added to factory floors.
- Profit margins are thin for many factories and plants. Any improvements in efficiency go a long way.
Machine skates provide affordable means of moving heavy equipment and facilitating necessary upgrades.
4. Military
Business Insider estimates that the United States military has 13,000 planes and helicopters. Military bases also have countless ground vehicles, boats, weapons, and heavy equipment. That takes some real steel to transport and store!
Without proper care, military assets get damaged. That puts security at risk and costs tax-payers millions of dollars.
5. Shipping and Receiving
Machine skates also benefit warehouse industries that stock, package, and ship products. Boxes and shipping containers can weigh thousands of pounds.
Forklifts, carts, pallet jacks, and plenty of trucks get used in these facilities.
Only Buy the Best Machine Skates
Not all machine skating equipment is high quality. And given what’s at stake—damage to equipment, property, and people—it’s important to know you’re using high-quality equipment.
Take a look at our wide selection of superior machine skates. These include utility skates, straight-line skates, and compact swivel skates. They are the highest quality available and American made.
Remember to trust your equipment, clients, and coworkers with the best. Safety first!