Buying Pavers on TuffWerx
Buying road paving equipment on TuffWerx is easy. From your home or office you can check out our selection or type in the make, model, year and price of the equipment you’re looking for. If we don’t have it, we’ll let you know as soon as it becomes available. So we do the work of searching for you. You can even use our premium services and have the equipment inspected before you buy it. TuffWerx is the leader in used heavy equipment.
About Pavers
Pavers, also called finishers, asphalt finishers and paving machines are large construction machines used to lay asphalt on roads, parking lots and other places. There are also concrete pavers called slip forms.
Asphalt Pavers
With pavers, dump trucks or material transfer units put the asphalt into the paver’s hopper. A conveyor carries it to the auger which dumps a stockpile of material in front of the screed. The screed spreads the material over the road and compacts it.
Pavers must move at a constant speed with a consistent flow of asphalt from the hopper to the screed. If the paver moves faster or slower in one place, different amounts of asphalt will be deposited and the road covering will be altered. Or, if the flow of asphalt is inconsistent, the same problem will arise. After the asphalt is deposited, it is compacted by a roller.
Some asphalt pavers have tires while others, operating in areas where more traction is required, run on tracks. Screed extensions can increase the width of the asphalt spread from an average of 8-to-12 feet all the way up to 40 feet.
Concrete paving
Many large freeways and highways, as well as curbs, sidewalks, parking lots and driveways are paved using concrete because of its durability and capacity to carry heavy loads and traffic.
Slip form pavers replace the old system of pouring concrete into forms and waiting for it to dry, which made projects take months. With a slip form paver, trucks deposit loads of readymix concrete in piles on form plates before this machine. The paver spreads the concrete, wipes excess off the slab, reinforces it with a vibrating apparatus that moves dowel rods into the concrete and refines the surface with a float finisher. The side form of the paver slides over the edges to make smooth surfaces that harden, using an auger accessory.
Slipform pavers can pour concrete at a rate of 20 feet per minute.
There are attachments and accessories that increase the capabilities of a slipform paver including concrete saws that cut the completed slabs into shapes, finishing equipment that determines what kind of pattern will be on the concrete, grade trimming machines and curing machines that speed the curing time for the concrete.
Tips for Buying Pavers
- Determine what size of paving machine you’re going to need for the bulk of your jobs. Smaller paving machines work best in restricted areas but will make a big job take longer.
- Consider having the equipment inspected before you buy it. A machine with an inconsistent conveyor, for example, will need repair before it can be used.