Screw Conveyors

Engineered for Western Canada’s Toughest Bulk Materials

Mainland Machinery designs, fabricates, installs, and retrofits screw conveyors for sawmills, aggregate and concrete plants, biomass facilities, and agricultural operations across British Columbia.

As a strategic partner of GSI and WAM, and with 50 years of industrial fabrication experience out of our Abbotsford shop, we build both shafted CEMA-type screw conveyors and shaftless spiral conveyors sized to your material, your footprint, and your shutdown window, with a local field team that responds fast when something goes down.

What Is a Screw Conveyor?

A screw conveyor moves bulk solids — wood residue, aggregate, feed, biomass, or process powders — through a fixed trough using a rotating helical screw. Mainland builds two core configurations:

  • Shafted (CEMA-type) screw conveyors — a center-shaft helicoid flighting supported by end and intermediate hanger bearings, built in 6″ to 24″ diameters, in carbon steel or 304L/316L stainless. The standard choice for consistent, free-flowing materials.
  • Shaftless spiral conveyors — an extra-heavy-duty spiral that rides on a low-friction, wear-resistant liner with no center shaft to catch stringy or sticky material, built up to 30″ diameter. The right choice for wet biomass, fibrous wood residue, and materials prone to wrapping and bridging.
  • Tubular screw feeders and vertical screw lift systems for metering and elevating applications where floor space is tight.

Every unit is sized, drawn, and drive-selected for your specific material, capacity, and layout — this isn’t a catalog part number, it’s an engineered system.

Built for BC’s Toughest Bulk Materials

Sawmills and wood products: 124+ BC sawmill facilities run aging conveying infrastructure handling abrasive, moisture-variable wood fiber. Our shaftless spiral and abrasion-resistant trough liner options are built specifically to reduce the plugging and wear that drive unplanned shutdowns.

Aggregate, concrete, and cement: constant mechanical wear and rising dust-compliance pressure make enclosed, easy-to-service screw feeders a priority. We engineer for maintainability, not just throughput, so your crew can service the system without a specialist on-site.

Biomass and pellet operations: wet, compacting biomass is one of the most demanding materials a screw conveyor handles. We design trough geometry, liner material, and drive sizing around your specific moisture content and particle profile, and we build with combustible-dust safety practice in mind.

Feed, pet food, and agriculture: food-safe material options and sanitary design details are available where your process requires them.

Common Screw Conveyor Problems We Solve

Plugging, bridging, and material wrap-up: usually a symptom of shaft geometry or trough clearance fighting your material, not a reason to replace the whole system. In many cases, converting a shafted unit to a shaftless spiral — or upgrading to a UHMW or high-density polyurethane trough liner — solves it without a full casing replacement.

Abrasive wear and frequent bearing failures: addressed with heavier flighting gauge, replaceable liners, and sealed hanger bearings matched to your material’s abrasiveness.

Retrofit without extending your shutdown window: we assess your existing trough, shaft, and drive before recommending a fix, so a maintenance-window retrofit doesn’t turn into a full rebuild.

Combustible dust and safety compliance: for wood, grain, and biomass applications, we design and discuss containment and housekeeping details relevant to WorkSafeBC and NFPA-aligned practice as part of the engineering conversation.

How We Work

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1. Access

We evaluate your current conveyor’s capacity, condition, and failure history, and identify where a modification or upgrade extends its service life versus where a full replacement makes more sense.

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2. Engineer and Build

Our engineering and fabrication team develops a plan built around straightforward modifications — right-sized flighting, liner selection, drive and bearing upgrades — that reduce mechanical stress and deliver reliable, repeatable performance. We manufacture in-house in Abbotsford, handle installation, and provide testing and fine-tuning before handoff.

3. Support

When maintenance, repairs, or quality checks are needed after startup, our local BC team is positioned to respond quickly — not book you into a national call queue.

I really appreciate the extra work and effort demonstrated by the Mainland team to expedite a pair of screw augers required for a shutdown on short notice. They were extremely accommodating and a pleasure to deal with in a tough situation.

Why Mainland Machinery

  • 50 years of industrial fabrication experience — we’ve seen how BC’s bulk material industries actually operate, not just how a catalog says they should.
  • Fast, local response — our team and shop are based in Abbotsford, not dispatched from out of province.
  • Strategic partnerships with GSI and WAM — access to proven component technology (including WAM’s CEMA-type and shaftless spiral conveyor lines) backed by our own engineering and fabrication.
  • Custom-engineered, not off-the-shelf — every conveyor is sized to your material and your facility.
  • One partner from design through fabrication, installation, and field support.

Get a Quote on a Custom Screw Conveyor

Click the button below to talk to an expert about Booking an appointment to talk to an expertor call 1-844-202-2169 to talk to our engineering team directly.

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FAQs

In most cases, yes. Wet biomass compacts and bridges inside a standard shafted U-trough long before it reaches the discharge. Converting to a shaftless spiral configuration, upgrading to a wear-resistant trough liner, or adjusting flighting pitch can resolve plugging without a full casing replacement. We assess the existing trough and drive on-site before recommending the scope of work.

A shafted (CEMA-type) screw conveyor uses a center shaft with hanger bearings and performs well with consistent, free-flowing materials. A shaftless spiral conveyor removes the center shaft entirely, riding on a low-friction liner instead — it’s the better choice for wet, fibrous, or sticky materials like biomass and wood residue that would otherwise wrap and bridge on a shafted design.

At minimum: the material being conveyed (type, moisture content, particle size, bulk density), required capacity and duty cycle, available footprint and incline, construction preference (carbon or stainless steel), and any food-safe or dust-containment requirements. We’ll work directly with your team to fill in the engineering detail if you’re not starting from a full spec.

Yes. Our field team regularly assesses, repairs, and retrofits existing systems from other manufacturers, including sourcing replacement components through our GSI and WAM distributorships.

We design and fabricate out of our Abbotsford, BC shop and field-service screw conveyor systems across British Columbia’s sawmill, aggregate, biomass, and agricultural sectors.