A curb machine, or extruder, is a small tracked hopper that squeezes stiff concrete through a shaped mold and leaves finished curb behind it. Rental runs roughly $400 to $700 a day, and a practised three person crew places somewhere between 500 and 1,200 linear feet in a shift. The machine is the easy part of that; the mix and the string line are not.
The mix is stiffer than you expect
Extruded curb has to stand on its own the moment it leaves the mold, so the mix is dry and harsh compared with anything you would pour into forms. Order it as curb mix and say what you are doing, because a load batched for a slab will slump into a ridge and no amount of machine speed fixes it.
Molds are hired separately, so name the profile
The machine is one line on the ticket and the mold is another. Barrier, mountable, valley gutter and a plain landscape edge are different tools, and yards do not stock every profile at every branch. Decide the profile before you book and confirm that mold is at the branch you are collecting from.
String line, grade and the crew behind it
The extruder follows a line you set, so the survey work decides whether the curb looks right. Two people usually feed and steer while a third finishes joints and edges behind the machine. Short of that, the machine outruns the crew and the finishing is where the day is lost.
What a day of hire actually buys
Very little of the day is spent extruding. Setting line, positioning the truck, getting the first ten feet consistent and cleaning the machine at the end all take real hours. Budget a day for a short residential run and expect the linear footage to arrive in the middle of it, not at the start.
Questions people ask about concrete curb machine for rent
Is extruded curb as strong as formed curb?
For landscape edging, parking lots and traffic islands it performs well and it is far quicker to place. Where the curb is structural, or where a specification calls for reinforcement and formed dimensions, extrusion is not a substitute. Check what the job is specified for before you hire the machine.
Can two people run a curb machine?
It is possible for a short run and it will show. One person minding the machine and one finishing means the finisher is always behind, and curb sets whether or not you have reached it. Three is the number most crews settle on for anything past a hundred feet.
How much concrete does a run take?
Work it out from the mold's cross section and the length, then add for waste at the ends and for what stays in the hopper. Ordering short is worse than ordering long, because a cold joint where the second truck arrives is visible for the life of the curb.