Asphalt Plant Transport

Asphalt Plant Hauling Services

Asphalt hot mix plants are among the largest and most complex portable industrial facilities that move by highway. A portable drum mix plant or batch plant can generate dozens of individual loads — the drum itself, the aggregate cold-feed bins, the dryer burner assembly, the bag house or wet scrubber, asphalt storage silos, the control house, the RAP system, and the conveyor network that connects these components. Moving an asphalt plant from one project to another requires careful logistics coordination to ensure all loads are properly permitted, routed, and delivered to the new site in the correct sequence for efficient reassembly.

R&RM LLC has been handling heavy haul transport for construction and paving contractors across all 48 continental states since 2011. Based in Cumming, Georgia, we regularly move asphalt plant components throughout the Southeast and coordinate long-haul moves for contractors relocating plants between distant projects. Whether you need a single asphalt silo moved to a nearby project or an entire portable plant relocated across multiple states, we handle the permit process, trailer selection, and delivery scheduling as a single coordinated project.

Types of Asphalt Plant Equipment We Transport

Portable Drum Mix Plants

The drum mix plant is the most common asphalt production configuration for highway contractors and large commercial paving operations. In a drum mix plant, aggregate is dried and mixed with liquid asphalt cement simultaneously inside a large rotating steel drum — typically 6 to 10 feet in diameter and 30 to 50 feet in length for a production-class unit. Portable drum mix plants are designed to transport in sections, but the primary drum assembly and its supporting frame are almost always the largest single load in the plant move:

• Drum diameter and width: Production drum assemblies — particularly parallel-flow drums and counterflow drums from manufacturers such as Astec, Gencor, CMI, and Ciber — range from 6 feet to 10 feet in diameter and can exceed the 8-foot 6-inch standard legal width in transport configuration when the drum and its support frame are loaded together. Overwidth permits are typically required for any drum exceeding 9 feet in transport width.
• Drum length: Long drum assemblies transported horizontally on a flatbed or RGN trailer can exceed the 53-foot trailer length when the drum extends beyond the trailer bed, requiring overlength permits in all states on the route.
• Weight: Large production drums with support frames can weigh 40,000 to 80,000 pounds — within standard weight permit ranges for most states, but at the upper end for bridges and posted roads on rural routes to remote project sites.
• Combustion system and burner: The burner and combustion air blower assembly is typically transported separately from the drum, on a flatbed trailer, and is usually within legal dimensions.

Batch Plants

Hot mix batch plants — in which aggregate is dried, screened by size, and then combined in precise proportions with asphalt cement in a weigh hopper and pugmill mixer — produce high-quality mix formulations that drum mix plants cannot always match, making them the preferred plant type for airport pavement, bridge deck overlays, and premium highway construction. The central tower of a portable batch plant contains the hot aggregate elevator, hot screens, weigh bins, and pugmill, and is by far the tallest and most complex transport challenge in the plant:

• Portable batch plant towers can reach 50 to 70 feet in erected height and must be laid down horizontally for highway transport, creating a load that is often 45 to 65 feet long and 10 to 14 feet wide — requiring both overlength and overwidth permits
• The tower structure is a self-supporting steel frame that carries its own weight in service; during horizontal transport, it must be supported at multiple points to avoid racking or permanent distortion of the structural frame
• Aggregate storage bins — the cold-feed bins that meter aggregate onto the feeder conveyor — are typically 4 to 6 individual bins each 10 to 12 feet wide and 20 to 30 feet long; each bin section usually requires an overwidth permit
• Batch plant weigh hoppers and pugmill sections weigh 30,000 to 80,000 pounds and often require flatbed or lowboy transport with overweight permits on weight-restricted routes

Asphalt Storage Silos

Vertical asphalt storage silos — used to accumulate hot mix asphalt after production and meter it into trucks at a controlled rate — are among the most commonly transported individual asphalt plant components. A single silo on its transport cradle presents a distinctive challenge because of its vertical form factor:

• Height in transport: Silos are transported vertically when the overall silo height is within highway height limits — typically 13 feet 6 inches including the trailer deck height. Smaller surge silos (50 to 150 tons capacity) with overall transport heights up to 13 feet can often be transported erect without a height permit. Larger silos must be transported horizontally on a lowboy, which then creates an overwidth and overlength load.
• Width: Typical silo diameters range from 8 feet to 14 feet. A silo transported horizontally on a lowboy at 12 to 14 feet in transport width requires overwidth permits and often pilot car escorts in most states.
• Weight: A 300-ton capacity asphalt storage silo weighs 40,000 to 70,000 pounds in transport, generally within weight permit limits but requiring careful weight distribution when transported horizontally on a multi-axle trailer.

Multiple silos are common at high-volume asphalt plants, and moving two or three silos simultaneously to a new project site requires coordinated transport scheduling to arrive in the correct sequence for the erection crew.

Aggregate Cold-Feed Bins and Conveyors

The cold-feed system — the row of bins that stores and proportions different aggregate sizes before they enter the dryer — is typically the widest series of loads in an asphalt plant move. Each bin section is wider than the aggregate conveyor that feeds it, and the bin structure itself is often 10 to 14 feet wide in transport. For plants with 4 to 6 bin sections, this creates multiple overwidth permit loads that must travel in the same window. Feeder conveyor sections and radial stacker conveyors associated with the aggregate plant are similar to the conveyor systems we transport in other applications — long, wide, and requiring extendable flatbed trailers for the longest sections.

Bag Houses and Wet Scrubbers

Asphalt plant emission control equipment — the baghouse dust collector or wet scrubber that captures fines and combustion byproducts from the dryer exhaust — is a substantial structure that is transported separately from the drum or tower. Large baghouses on their transport frames are often 12 to 14 feet wide and weigh 30,000 to 50,000 pounds, requiring overwidth permits and multi-axle flatbed transport. The baghouse exhaust stack, if transported separately, may require overlength permits depending on stack height.

RAP (Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement) Systems

Plants equipped to process reclaimed asphalt pavement — which reduces material cost and the environmental footprint of new pavement production — include additional components beyond the basic plant: RAP bins, a RAP crusher or shredder, and additional conveyors to feed recycled material into the dryer drum. These components follow the same transport rules as aggregate bins and conveyor sections.

Control Houses and Liquid AC Tanks

The control house — the climate-controlled operator cab that houses the plant control system — is a portable building that is transported as an oversize wide load. Liquid asphalt cement (AC) storage tanks, typically 20,000 to 50,000 gallon vertical or horizontal steel tanks, are transported on lowboy or flatbed trailers as pressure vessel loads. Horizontal AC storage tanks are similar to other pressure vessel transport — see our pressure vessel transport page for dimensional and permitting details on tank hauls.

Trailer Types for Asphalt Plant Transport

Flatbed Trailers

Standard 48-foot and 53-foot flatbed trailers are used for aggregate bin sections, smaller drum components, and control house transport. Extendable flatbeds that extend to 65 to 80 feet handle longer conveyor sections and drum assemblies that exceed 53-foot trailer length.

RGN (Removable Gooseneck) Trailers

RGN trailers are the preferred platform for drum assemblies and batch plant tower sections that are too heavy or too tall to drive over a rear ramp but need a lower deck height than a standard flatbed provides. The RGN hauling process involves positioning the trailer under the load by crane or forklift, then attaching the gooseneck after the load is positioned on the deck — which works particularly well for large drum frames and batch plant structures that are loaded at paved plant sites where crane access is available.

Multi-Axle Lowboy Trailers

When asphalt plant components exceed 80,000 pounds gross vehicle weight — particularly large horizontal asphalt silos and heavy batch plant sections — a multi-axle lowboy spreads the weight across additional axles to comply with bridge formula requirements and state axle weight limits. The lower deck height of a lowboy also reduces the total transport height for components that would otherwise exceed 13 feet 6 inches on a higher-deck flatbed.

Multi-Load Plant Moves

A complete asphalt plant relocation generates 10 to 30 individual heavy haul loads depending on plant size and configuration. Coordinating these loads — permitting each individually, scheduling them to depart the origin site in a sequence that allows efficient disassembly and to arrive at the destination in a sequence that allows efficient reassembly — is a logistics project in itself. R&RM LLC coordinates multi-load plant moves as a single project, with a single point of contact managing permits, drivers, and delivery sequence.

Our permit services team obtains all oversize and overweight permits for every load in the plant move through the permit services process, coordinating timing across loads so the entire plant moves within the available project schedule window.

Permit Requirements for Asphalt Plant Transport

Typical permit requirements for asphalt plant components:

• Overwidth permits: Required for virtually every major asphalt plant component — drums, silos, bins, and baghouses routinely exceed 8 feet 6 inches in transport width. Loads wider than 12 feet typically require at least one pilot car in most states.
• Overlength permits: Required when drum assemblies, conveyor sections, or batch plant tower sections extend beyond the trailer deck to create a total load length exceeding legal limits (53 feet in most states).
• Overheight permits: Required when the combination of trailer deck height and load height exceeds 13 feet 6 inches. Vertical silo transport must be carefully calculated to ensure the silo top clears all overhead obstacles on the route.
• Overweight permits: Required for components that exceed 80,000 pounds gross vehicle weight. Large drum sections, heavy silos, and multi-component assemblies may require weight permits in addition to dimensional permits.

Get a Quote for Asphalt Plant Transport

To provide an accurate quote for your asphalt plant move, we will need:

• Plant manufacturer, model, and production capacity
• List of individual loads (drum, silos, bins, baghouse, conveyors, etc.) with dimensions and weights where known
• Origin and destination addresses, including site access conditions (paved vs. unpaved roads, weight restrictions, overhead clearances)
• Desired transport window and any reassembly deadline constraints
• Whether the plant is currently erected or already disassembled for transport

Call R&RM LLC at (404) 987-6225 or submit an online quote request to get started. We serve all 48 continental states and have the experience to coordinate even the largest plant relocations.