Hiring a pump answers the vertical question, not the narrow one
If the truck reaches your gate but not your pour, every published answer is a hired pump, and for two conditions it is the right one: concrete that has to go up, and volume that has to keep arriving. For horizontal distance on a tight site it is one answer of two. A pump is hired to send concrete past an obstacle the truck cannot cross. A self-loading mixer is bought to stand on the far side of that obstacle and mix there, so the distance is not there to be crossed. Which suits your site is decided by figures rather than by preference, so what follows is what a chute reaches, what the industry's own guidance says has to happen past it, what our machines measure, and where a pump remains the correct call. The cells we cannot fill say so.
Source: this section introduces no figure of its own. Every figure used below is sourced in the section that uses it.
What a chute reaches, and what the guidance says happens past it
Eighteen feet is the number to plan against, and it is a distance from wherever the truck can stop rather than from wherever the concrete has to go. A concrete contractor in Maine, publishing figures from his own trade practice, gives a rear-discharge truck carrying three chutes a reach of 18 feet, measured from the back of the truck to the end of the chute. Backing the rear tyres right up to the forms, where the access road allows it, gains another 2 feet for a total of 20. A front-discharge truck reaches 20 feet with the chutes straight out in front of it, and 21.5 feet if its tyres can go all the way to the forms. A ready-mix supplier publishes the same 18 feet but measures it from the tyres to the discharge point rather than from the back of the truck. Same figure, different datum.
What the distance costs when it runs out is set out in the industry's own British site guidance. Where the truck cannot discharge directly into the works, it requires transport to be provided to move the concrete from the delivery vehicle to the works: a front shovel or a dumper truck for small volumes, and for larger volumes it states that hiring a concrete pump is usually more efficient. At the formwork it repeats the same list, skips, barrows or pumps. It puts a figure on the manual option too: a barrow load weighs over 100 kg, and a 10 litre bucket would hold 25 kg. The choice at the end of the chute is between a pump, a second machine carrying concrete across your site, and a crew moving it a hundred kilograms at a time.
Source: rear- and front-discharge chute reach as published by a concrete contractor in Maine writing from his own trade practice — https://www.everything-about-concrete.com/how-far-can-a-concrete-truck-reach.html ; the same 18 feet, measured from the tyres to the discharge point, as published by a ready-mix supplier — https://mirreadymixconcrete.com/how-far-can-a-concrete-truck-pump-reach/ . Neither is a standard and neither cites a test, which is why both are named. The transport-to-works requirement, the skips-barrows-or-pumps list and the barrow and bucket weights are quoted as printed from the British Ready-Mixed Concrete Association and the Mineral Products Association, "Ready-Mixed Concrete – Practical guide for site personnel", first published 2017, updated June 2020, sections 3.1 and 4.5 and the safety note in Appendix A, page 22 — https://brmca.org.uk/documents/BRMCA_Ready_Mixed_Concrete_Practical_guide_July_2020.pdf . The metric conversion of 18 feet is ours.
Where a pump is still right, and we are not going to pretend otherwise
A pump is still the right answer when the concrete has to go up. We hold no discharge-height figure for any of the sixteen self-loading mixers in our records, so this page will not say how high one of them places concrete, and a dealer who quotes you such a figure has taken it from somewhere other than a specification sheet. What is not in dispute is that a machine can only stand where it can drive: a second floor, a lift shaft or a core is not an access problem that driving a machine in solves. Volume is the second condition. Rated discharge is on record for fourteen of those sixteen and runs from 1.0 to 4.5 cubic metres, which is one batch at a time; a continuous pour measured in hundreds of cubic metres is a plant-and-pump job. The five crawler dozers in the same records carry no discharge figure and are counted nowhere here.
Source: rated discharge as declared by the plants, on record for fourteen of the sixteen self-loading mixers and quoted as recorded. No discharge height, chute length or discharge reach is recorded on any of the sixteen, and none is estimated here. The point about where a machine can stand is reasoning and carries no figure.
What hiring a pump does not remove
The pump has to be fed, and it is fed by a ready-mix truck. The same guidance that recommends the pump describes the vehicle supplying it: the largest of which may be up to 10.5 metres long, 2.6 metres wide and 3.8 metres high and weigh 32 tonnes when fully loaded, and it still has to reach the hopper and discharge into it under a banksman's supervision, which the guidance requires. Hiring a pump does not delete the access problem. It moves it to wherever the pump can stand. The same guidance adds a second charge, on the concrete rather than the schedule: where concrete is moved on site by dumper, skip or pump there will be a reduction in consistence, and that should be taken into consideration when specifying the consistence at delivery. Double handling is designed into the mix before the first load is ordered, or what reaches the form is stiffer than what was signed for at the chute.
Source: the truck envelope, stated with the association's own ceiling qualifier, and the banksman requirement are sections 3.1 and 3.2 of the British guide cited above; the loss of consistence during on-site transport by dumper, skip or pump is its section 3.3.
Stop solving for reach, and solve for where the machine can stand
Ten of the sixteen self-loading mixers in our records carry a set of overall dimensions, and their widths run from 1.60 to 2.30 metres against the 2.6 metres the guidance gives for the largest ready-mix truck. Length by width by height in metres, narrowest first, as the plants supplied them: 4.35 × 1.60 × 2.45; 4.95 × 1.65 × 2.75; 4.95 × 1.80 × 2.80; 5.00 × 1.85 × 2.80; 5.10 × 1.95 × 2.80; 5.30 × 2.10 × 2.80; two machines at 5.30 × 2.15 × 2.85; 7.06 × 2.21 × 2.58; and 5.45 × 2.30 × 2.90. Lengths run from 4.35 to 7.06 metres against the truck's 10.5. Only one of the ten is named with specifications on this site, the SLM-18, at 2.21 metres wide and 7.06 metres long; the other nine carry required specifications not confirmed in writing, so their dimensions appear with no model number attached.
Read that band honestly and it is not a claim that these machines go anywhere. The 1.60 metre machine is one machine, and anyone quoting 1.6 metres as the width of self-loading mixers is quoting the narrowest entry on a list as though it were the list. At 2.30 metres the widest of the ten stands 300 millimetres inside the largest truck the guidance describes, and a lane that turned that truck away will most likely turn it away too. The first four are 1.85 metres or narrower, and those are the ones a gateway measurement decides between. On nine of the ten the plant did not state what position the machine was standing in when it was measured; width barely moves between positions and height moves a great deal, so those heights are on record and are not offered here as clearance figures.
Source: our specification records for the sixteen self-loading mixers. Ten carry a set of overall dimensions, reproduced here as supplied and sorted by width; on nine of those ten the plant did not state the measuring position. The 300 mm is worked out here against the association's truck width quoted above. No turning radius is recorded for any of the sixteen mixers; the five crawler dozers in the same records are a different category of machine and are not counted here.
The evidence this page runs on is the customs record, read with the step most rankings skip
China declared 18,017 concrete-mixer vehicles exported under HS 8705.40 in 2024, worth USD 800,257,504, across 145 partner entries whose rows add back to the world row exactly. The seven largest destinations take 9,523 of those units, 52.9 per cent, while 57 entries record fewer than ten units and account for 200 between them. Reading that correctly needs one step most published rankings skip. The public interface returns the total alongside every partial view of the same total, separated only by three code fields that are easy to read past, so adding the rows up double-counts. Peru's 2024 imports from China come back as twelve rows, eleven of them pieces of the twelfth: sum them and you get 1,124 units and USD 77,132,667; take the one row where all three fields sit at their totals and you get 281 units and USD 19,283,167. The ratio is exactly 4.000.
Two further filters decide whether a figure means anything. Five of the twelve countries that filed a 2024 import figure did not count their quantities, and the estimates give themselves away twice over: they are not whole numbers, and value divided by quantity collapses onto USD 58,536 for three of them and USD 63,315 for two, which is a shared divisor rather than a shared market. Malaysia's 16,507 declared units work out at USD 1,445 and 313 kg each, against 11,623 to 16,978 kg per unit on every destination China declared 100 units or more to, so that column is not counting machines. What survives is usable: the Philippines recorded 1,760 units arriving from China in 2024 at an average declared CIF of USD 22,320. That is a customs authority's own declared average and a yardstick for what a duty or an origin certificate is worth, not a quotation.
Source: UN Comtrade annual data for 2024 under HS 8705.40 — China's export declaration across all partner entries for the 18,017 units and USD 800,257,504; Peru as importing reporter with China as partner for the twelve-row comparison; the twelve importing countries' own world-import rows for the estimated-quantity and Malaysian figures; and the Philippines as importing reporter with China as partner, 1,760 units against USD 39,282,497, for the declared CIF average. The kilogramme-per-unit band is the same China export series across every destination carrying 100 or more declared units. The de-duplication rule and the reading errors behind it are worked through on our guide to reading a customs table.
What we put in writing that this category does not
Eight things go on this site that a specification sheet in this category usually does not, and every one is checkable against a page already published here. The drum's geometric volume and the volume of concrete that comes out of it are published as two different numbers and never derived from one another: on the one model with a complete sheet, a 2,900 litre drum discharges 1.6 to 1.8 cubic metres, a ratio of 1.61 to 1.81 that is not constant across machines. Where a dimension's measuring position is not established we say so, which is why nine of the ten measured machines above have heights on record that we decline to call travelling heights. And a cell stays blank rather than estimated: one of the six catalogue models shows no discharge figure at all, because two specification sheets we hold disagree, and it keeps the name it was issued and an empty cell beneath it.
The other five. Two fields carry no value on any of the sixteen mixers, the drum-lowered transport height and the emission standard, and both are named as absent rather than filled. No output per hour, per day, loads per shift or fuel figure appears anywhere on this site: the column exists in the catalogue and is empty and unverified on all six models. Electronic hydraulic weighing is recorded as standard on one of the six, optional on four and on neither list on the sixth, so on five of the six the bucket is charged by eye unless it is specified at the order. A specification is attributed to a model number only where the plant's sheet is complete, which today is one model of six. And the origin rule is written as the treaty writes it: the common claim that a Form E missed at loading loses the preferential rate is wrong in the direction that costs the buyer money, because Rule 11 says the certificate shall be issued retroactively at the exporter's request within twelve months of the date of shipment, marked ISSUED RETROACTIVELY in Box 13.
Source: the drum and discharge figures, the measuring positions, the blank discharge cell and the equipment entries are all as recorded on the model comparison table and the model pages of this site. The two fields with no value on any machine are named here and nowhere given a value or a range. Rule 11 is quoted from the ACFTA Rules of Origin, Attachment A, Revised Operational Certification Procedures, and is worked through on our Form E page.
The two methods, on the dimensions we can source
Six dimensions. On one of them the ready-mix and pump route is the stronger answer, and on crew we state no figure of our own at all.
| Dimension | Ready-mix with a hired pump | Self-loading mixer |
|---|---|---|
| Access width | 2.6 m for the largest truck. No standing-area, outrigger or boom figure has been sourced for any pump, so that half of the cell is unknown to us | 1.60–2.30 m across the ten of sixteen records carrying a width |
| Batching accuracy | Within 1 per cent of required mass on cementitious material at or above 30 per cent of scale capacity, and within 2 per cent on an individual aggregate load | Weighing is standard on one of six models. No accuracy, tolerance or calibration figure is held for any machine |
| Haul time | The allowance runs from the mixing water and covers the drive, the queue and the discharge | Batching at the pour collapses that interval to the machine's own cycle, for which we publish no figure |
| Minimum order | The supplier sets one. No figure has been sourced for any destination market | No commercial minimum, because there is no round trip to amortise. The technical minimum charge a drum needs is recorded for none of the sixteen |
| Crew | A banksman is required to supervise the truck's movement and positioning, and a barrow load is put at over 100 kg | Unknown to us. No crew-size figure is held for any machine |
| Pour point moves | The pump is re-sited and the truck's haul lengthens while the allowance does not | The machine drives |
Source: the 2.6 metre truck width, the banksman requirement and the barrow weight are the British guide cited above. The batching tolerances are the American ready-mixed specification's figures as set out in US Nuclear Regulatory Commission training course E117, module 10, "Batching, Mixing and Transporting Concrete" — https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1215/ML12153A346.pdf . The discharge allowance running from the mixing water, and the deletion of the standard's default limit in favour of a limit the purchaser states and the producer prints on the delivery ticket, are clauses 6.1.9 and 6.1.10 of that specification's 24d edition, read in the appendix to California HCAI Policy Intent Notice 82, effective 9 October 2025 — https://hcai.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/PIN_82-Ready-Mix-Concrete-Placement-Times-10-02-2025-A.pdf ; the standard itself was not obtained. The minimum-order material is three United States calculator pages read on 24 September 2026, and the three-cubic-yard minimum and the eight-to-ten-cubic-yard truck are two of those pages' own American figures, carried with their market attached. Every cell described as unknown is unknown to us, not withheld.
What to send, and what comes back
Send a model number and a port. What comes back is a written quotation to that port with the shipping mode written into it, because on this range the mode is settled from measured dimensions before a figure is quoted rather than discovered after one. Two of your own measurements decide the machine first: the narrowest gap on the approach, measured at the height a post, a kerb or a wall return actually sits at rather than at ground level, and the volume of your typical form, which is the number the discharge figure is divided into. If the model you want is one whose plant sheet is not yet complete, the quotation says so, and the dimensioned drawing and the specification on the plant's own letterhead are requested before it goes out rather than after. No price is published on this site, because a figure that means anything is quoted against a named model and a named port.
Source: this site's own procedure. It introduces no figure. The shipping-mode test, model by model, is on our container guide; what is and is not confirmed in writing, model by model, is on the published model range.