That's a solid point from dakotab13 about the waste stream. I saw something similar at my old place where the new classifier cut our dump rate by like 15 percent. It's easy to just look at binder use, but you're right, the real win is keeping good sand in the loop. A lot of older gear just beats the sand up creating more fines you have to get rid of. It's like any system, fixing one bottleneck just shows you the next one.

That "small money drains" line really hit me after reading a piece on kitchen waste.

Man, that's so true. My friend tried smoking a brisket with just the built-in lid thermometer on his grill. He was checking it every hour like clockwork, letting all the heat out. The temp kept swinging wildly and it took forever. He finally got one of those leave-in probes you can check from your phone and said it was the most relaxed cook he's ever done. Why do we always try to cheap out on the stuff that actually matters?