Waltrip estimates that they are grinding an average of 200 yards an hour of finished product-about 500 yards an hour of unprocessed material. Between the two grinders he guesses they are grinding between 85,000 and 100,000 yards each year. "That's a good deal of strain on any piece of equipment but Diamond Z's tub grinders are obviously built to take that kind of punishment. Because of their power-they are rated at between 850-990 horsepower-they grind almost anything we can throw at them from smaller brush to 14 foot logs and 10 foot stumps. All we do is ensure that solid preventive maintenance routines are followed and they do the rest."

Waltrip adds that the company's ability to quickly and efficiently get onsite, get the job done and remove the material, have also separated them from the pack. "A lot of companies will come into a project, grind the waste onsite and leave the contractor with huge volumes of processed wood waste and a new problem: what to do with it. While we're not the cheapest company in this area, we ultimately end up saving the contractor money by reducing the time needed to totally finish the job. With the waste processed and removed, the contractor is free to move on to subsequent parts of the project such as topsoil, footings and so on, and do so much quicker than he could with other grinding contractors." As with the unit that remains in Williamsburg, a rigorous PM program has helped eliminate any major problems and the downtime associated with it. "With either of the tub grinders we have accidentally fed excavator bucket pins, miscellaneous pieces of steel-even a transfer case from a truck. Despite that, the Diamond Zs have never sustained any major damage; they literally will grind most anything."

Efficiency is key in almost every aspect of Waltrip's operation. In fact, he makes no bones about the fact that every piece of his equipment is designed to be operated by one person. "I built this company on a basic premise that every facet of this site should be a one-man operation. As a result, most every piece of equipment we own features remote operational capabilities-allowing access to the tub, the stacking conveyors, the unit's RPMs, the water that is injected into the dust suppression system, and so on. If a piece of equipment can't be run by one person, we simply don't need it in this operation." In addition to the trommel, Waltrip says they also can make easy changes to the screens on the tub grinder, thereby allowing them to create other saleable products. "We generally use two different size screens: a primary screen to generate materials in the 4" minus range which is used for burner fuel, and a screen to take it down to a 2-1/2" minus size for other uses. However, in most cases, simply sending the material through the unit a second time will create a similarly reduced product, eliminating the need to change screens at all."

"There was a two-month span where we worked seven days a week," he says. "Our people did an incredible job and worked the overtime even though it was not mandatory for them to do so. Ensuring that trucks were where they were supposed to be-when they were supposed to be there-was a critical facet of the undertaking and Ed Swedenborg, who heads up our trucking division made it all happen seamlessly. Not to be overlooked, however, was the fact that we had no downtime for maintenance problems during the entire period. For the most part we were grinding right into the trailers and never stopped the grinders at all-not for lunch, not to switch trailers, never. That's asking a lot of a piece of equipment, and the Diamond Zs really rose to the challenge.

"No matter how you cut it, maintenance is the real key to any company's success. My son, Lawrence Waltrip, who oversees maintenance for the company, understands that even well-engineered pieces of equipment like the Diamond Z tub grinders, left poorly maintained, can break down, adversely affecting our operation. His insistence upon a strict regimen of PMs is largely the reason we have had virtually no downtime.