Concrete casting company JKH Drainage has added a customised 35 T Combilift straddle carrier as part of an expansion.

The expansion included relocating to a larger site which will allow even further growth.

“Growth this year was at around 30% and we expect this to continue due to ongoing large infrastructure projects such as rail links, road improvement schemes and in housing construction,” says JKH Drainage managing director Daniel Prince, the grandson of the business’s founder.

“These all generate increased demand for our products which we like to call ‘offsite solutions for onsite problems’. 

“Together with our partner Althon, we supply standard and bespoke precast concrete products such as underground drainage chambers, headwalls and outfalls for pipes as well as gratings and steelworks to customers across the United Kingdom.”

After casting, products are demoulded inside and then moved to external storage areas.

The new site means the heaviest products will be 12 T.

“We can move smaller, standard castings with our regular forklifts,” Prince  says. “But once you get above around 6 T, or for bespoke oversized products that can have a footprint of 2.5 x 4 m, this gets problematic as load stability becomes an issue. 

“We therefore investigated the potential of a Combi-SC straddle carrier as recommended by Jimmy Pascavage of Fork Truck Direct.” 

With a telescopic facility, the SC’s closed height of 5.5 m enables it to pass through the 5.8 m high doorway, where it has just enough clearance in the 6 m roof space to lift the largest castings and take them to the outside storage areas. 

Chains can be connected to various points on the two side shifting beams mounted on the top of the frame and the full open telescopic height of 8.1 m offers plenty of room for castings to be rotated and set down at the most suitable storage angle. 

The remote-control model chosen by JKH Drainage offers very good all-round visibility for one operator without the need for banksmen. 

Diesel power was considered the most suitable as the Combi-SC spends around 75% of its time working outside. 

“Combilift has provided us with a high level of versatility when handling products and when we need to load them onto trailers for customer delivery,” says Prince. “At 1.8 acres, our old site was much smaller, and the extra space represents a vast increase in business opportunities. 

“We currently manufacture around 50 T a day, and we wanted to future proof our handling procedures from the outset, and this is exactly what we have done.”