Hey guys our company is looking at a large water line contract in alberta canada. our company Has over 40 years experience in water and sewer instalation with a large fleet of 63 pieces of iron. The job consists of 1100m of residential c 900 replacement and 14 miles of cross country 8inch hdpe that has to have a minimum cover of nine feet, O yea and the browns, clay and topsoil have to be stock piled on a striped rite of way and put back with a maximum roach of only 2 inches!!!. The tender closes in 2 weeks, so all the work has to be done in our harsh winter conditions of -40 C. The terrain is mostly flat stubble feilds with lots of oil and gas pipeline crossings and 17 road crossings with steel casings to be pushed through. I want to hear any and all ideas or sugestions that u knowledgeable guys would have to offer me to give me the edge over the other 32 guys that are looking at it. ointhead
It all depends if contractors are bidding or buying work.. If the companies are really hungry for work then expect some low bids... I've worked on 2 different 150 mile water lines.... each took about 2 years to complete... one was bought.... they left 7 million dollars on the table.... The closest bidder to them was 13 million... I talked to several foremans from that company they said no way could they do the job for 6 million. the second one... different company but it was bid, there was just 10 to 20 thousand difference.... In the last ten years.... one company that I worked for had their pipe shipped by railcar.. It's a pain to unload... but it must have saved some money over trucking it from the supplier...
:shf:shf Thats my fear is that some idiot is going to low ball every one and Take a loss just work , Its to bad that there is no longer competitive bidding .
I'm no super, estimator or foreman or nuthin... but... 17 road shots? That's a lot of trenchless work. I assume you don't have an auger boring rig/crew so you're going to sub the boring out, but you're going to have to compete with Sureway and the rest of the boys who do both open cut and boring. 17 shots... It kinda sounds like an auger boring job with some open cut. Shucks, I reckon a guy could pay off a small, used boring rig in 17 shots. Open cut section: Backfill with something heavy like a 973 track loader. Whatever you have that's heavy, bring it. If you have a D8 that's sitting around (preferably with something heavy like a big effin ripper on the back) that would be good. A loaded 35-40 ton rock truck is also one of my favorites for packing clay. I'd use 2 hoes, a 45 ton hoe digging, one 30 ton backfilling. Wheel loader like a 930G or something. That's with a trench box, if there's no trenchbox and it's just vee'd out like a b*****d then scratch everything i just said and dig with 2 45 ton hoes, one subcutting in front of the other... I worked with guys that put a mile of that dia. pipe in per 10-12hr. day with a trenchbox, a 345 digging and a 330 backfilling with a D6 or something in the back levelling it out (bell and spigot, not HPDE. HPDE should be way easier to get that kind of average daily production if everything's lined up and the crew doesn't have to stand around and wait for anything... Those guys were working in loamy easy digging clay, nothing too wet or heavy, no rocks, the 345 just bailed it easy with a big bucket.
about 75 bores between the two jobs I did the boring with a 24" american auger machine... someone dug pits ..we showed up and drilled for a day or two..generally in the 50' range ...then moved to next pit...the first company had a 50's Mack with a trailer...and an old gallion crane... The worst one was a railroad bore...1 set of tracks... 175' of right of way ...would they let us do a 50' bore...NOPE... the whole 175'....
hahaha damn rail guys, they're no fun at all. won't give a guy an inch. if you gotta keep the counterweight 12' away from the track, and you're 11' 11" away... oh boy better walk the hoe back an inch. I did some work on a rail bridge this summer, fixing up the abutments with that shale ballast... glad that's over... a 1950s mack and an old gallion crane? wow there's some stuff you don't see every day. That sounds like one of my dad's stories from 20-30 years ago...
actually I could... There's one contractor that has a 50's ish Mack.... not looked at it close up... but it looks like it Just time warped 50 years... nice truck... I think the last time I saw it he was pulling a rock trailer... Well deeretime..... did you put a bid together....
So where is this job goin on exactly? I have some idears on how we would do it, shoot me a PM if your interested. Of course I would expect a job offer for some hints....lol
This job starts in carmongay and runs to champion that is the first stage that im bidding on then the second stage comes out dec 15th that goes from champion to vulcan. I might b able to throw a job ur way but i think its to far south for ya !!
My new and improved stradigy is to open cut Alot of the roads cause theyre jst gravel and i have a good reputation with the county and a good friend that aproves construction for alberta transportation. I got a good company that i use for all my bores i do have a large pipe push but i am the only one that knows how to use it so, im gonna sub what ever is left to them. Im gonna strip the rite of way with my 16M and my 850j dozer, take it down to clay and im gonna dig with our 2 350's and back fill with our 230 for the first lift followed by a 160 with a plate tamper, then a 270 with the 2nd lift followed by the 160 with a plate tamper and then a 143H,D7R and our 84" bomag sheeps foot . and maybe our old 770Bh to pick up some slack either stripping or on clean up. I figure we can do over a half mile a day safely like that. What i have used before and will give me the huge edge is called a spider plow but the clay here is so hard and dense with sand stone pockets I don't know if it will work we will be meeting with the county and transportation and doing test holes some time this week. ill keep u posted, but check this plow out it is seriously impressive ! http://www.spiderplow.com/
you better get pictures of this job, this sounds interesting.
Photo by Google images .
PM sent, didn't feel like posting our stuff on the forum.
spider plow sounds interesting.... test holes are done here, but the companies take turns digging... just whoever shows up... you may have 5 show up or 20.... the city decided this.. to save the city money ... less inspectors needed... 1600 miles from my house... I guess that rules out a daily commute.... plus it may be a little colder than I like (insert frozen smilie) One of the 150 mile jobs, the right a way crew when down the wrong side of the road... the landowner didn't want it on his property...all he wanted was a free meter..they said no... so it was changed to the other side... except the right a way crew didn't have an updated plan... we were digging on his property... shut down that night... when we came back the next day the temporary gates had chains and padlocks on them... He said it was his equipment now.... then the sheriff showed up and bosses.... It took a week to get the equipment back...
Iron - what is the point of this picture? I have seen you kid us in the USA for overcomplicating jobs, maybe so. But please post some pics of your jobsites that have involved excavation through HEAVY ledgerock (common in North America - this is no land of wimpy-ass beach sand), so that I can view your opinion without prejudice.
I dont know if youve ever used a chain trencher but they work like **** when theres rock (which Im sure you know, didnt really understand your post heh), they just bounce up and down. Bigger ones just bounce up and down harder. If theres no rocks though they will dig circles around excavators. New jersey has some good spots for chain trenchers.
This is exactly the point of my post. I believe he is suggesting using a trencher alone for that job.......and I didn't even mention the frost that those nutters have up there.
yeah I think those things work good on the west coast. I mess around with the smaller ones sometimes they arnt always bad.
Like you said - they work great on the beach, scoping out chicks when there is no rock......or 3 feet of frost - like in Alberta. Not too much frost "down under":lmao
Trencher Special Tool I don't know how those trenchers would work in blue rock. (Ledge as you call it up there.) But I have seen a big trencher like that in red shale, it didn't seem to have any problems. It had teeth on the chain like milling machine teeth. I believe the one I saw was a Trencor here's their site: http://www.trencor.com/www/docs/222.858 And here's a website of a company that uses those trenchers: http://www.hlchapman.com/work.htm
The trenchers use carbide tipped steel teeth that can cut through almost anything in my experience except for railroad tracks. The problem is that the trencher booms dont have enough weight to them. The same teeth are used on vermeer rockwheels which are a completely different story. The only type of rock that trencher will get through is if it can easily be broken up, otherwise the booms will just bounce up and down pretty violently, lol its pretty scary.
I am not familiar with the conditions at the proposed waterline, so I don't know if a trencher would be productive there or not. But re: trenchers in rocky conditions, did you look at the Trencor website? Their biggest trencher weighs 185 tons! The boom is hydraulic, it has down pressure. I don't know if it can deal with all rock or not, but they are not limited to sand. Read this page on the website. http://trencor.com/www/docs/10.202/pipeline-construction.html
A big trencher runs fine in rock.... even stuff that you can only make 50' a day in. I ran a 955 or 1055 Vermeer... They came out several times to check the cutting pattern... said the pattern was OK... Just hard rock... besides we couldn't blast.. We have a rock here in the rocky dirt... that's terrible to trench... It come out of the ground about the size of a peoples head.... it's easy to dig... but the ride a little bouncy.. Back in the early 80's ..I worked for a company with a 800 vermeer... he started in the river bottom area... So we never seen him after the 1st day of trenching...he was off the the races.... the next job that company did they were lucky to get a joint of sewer pipe every 2 days...
WOOOOOO boys! stand the pram back up on its wheels, pick all the toys back up and lets try again If Deeretime is talking about stripping the right of way down to the CLAY and then digging with a couple of hoe's, then puts up a link to a winched plow I can see no reason at all to not thinking that the best machine for excavating that trench would possibly be a bucket or wheeled trencher, in my experience ( non around them on mainline pipe ) only seen the resulting ditch ( I couldnt track fast enough to catch the darn thing ) I dont recall any mention by Deeretime of rock or ledge or swamps or minefields but just like Ironhorse I am on a different piece of rock so your local experience of the ground conditions is of great value in this debate. :drinkup
I feel like using a trencher is always gambling, if you hit some rock youre in trouble, but if youre running excavators or backhoes its no big deal.
project we're on now thought of renting a wheel trencher for this 5 mile of 6" rural water line. glad we didn't....we have areas where you can sheet and geet....and areas that it's just like digging in a bowl of oatmeal, and you have to have a 20' wide excavation. here's a few pics.
one more on edit, nothing like posting the same pic twice, huh? sorry
I seen the Vermeer as another suggestion or idea.... He has a plan now... beat 32 other companies Hopefully they are all bidders... and NO buyers... All I can say is good luck and may 32 bidder not have a clue and over bid the Vermeer I ran was in 10,000 dollar range as far as rental ,,,, but I can't remember if it was weekly or by the month.... I'm leaning more toward weekly.. because one City wanted to know if we could do 4 road crossing in a week before they started the new highway.... so they wouldn't have to bore..
It's always better to have every one think your a dill than to open your mouth and proove it . If you would have taken the time to look at the post , you would have seen that your memory of events is not clear as some one else said what you are implying .
I was only really talking about the "trencher solution" anyway.
Wow that bucket wheel that trencor has would work the best i think it even digs up to 9ft it would be ok for this job but alot of our stuff is 9ft or deeper so some one find me a used one that digs 36inces wide
not a wheel trencher but cuts 36" http://salem.kijiji.com/tools/salem/2005-vermeer-t1255-trencher/?ad=583170 450,000 bucks I've seen a 800 vermeer get over mile in one 12 Hour day... bottom land.... The solid rock job w/955 or 1055 was on 50' to 1000'... just depends on the rock
YouTube - trenching rock 2
this is a "dig and doze".....no compaction.....VERY wet conditions...day in/day out...we're averaging about 1400-1500' per day.
Not bad for a CASE !! just joking :usa
Haha you have to remember Dt.... in some parts of the world Case gets some respect. Just not here in Alberta. Maybe it's because they don't have to deal with those guys over at Hammer.
lets not get started on hammer lol
Ahhh so you've dealt with them too.....Well you gotta figure someone around around here has to make Coneco.... i mean SMS look good. Oh wait I forgot... no one could make Coneco look good
Ha ha ha broke the left hand stick off a 300 komato hoe last year took the stick in parts guy goes whats that told him what it was he says I really dont think we sell those here. SMS love it
We bought 2 new PC1250's last year. One went back half way through the season because the engine took a dump in it. It sat there until this march.....it sat there so long I think they had to pay storage fees on it. The boat carrying Komatsu parts must have broke down... and Coneco/SMS must have been sent out to fix it. It got bad enough for us, we just said eff it and hired one of their best mechanics to come work for us. Now our new Komatsu iron runs half the time, instead of part time.
Haha who hasent tried to deal with hammer, not only do they sell alot of second grade equipment, they don't know how to service it! We bought a brand new ammann 84'' packer last year and we got it off the trailer and ran it for a few hours, only to find out that it had blow'n a celinoid on the fuel pump. It took them 3 days and two service men to call a cummin's mechanic just to hook up his computer and tell them what was wrong, needless to say we wer'nt impressed with hammer !! Plus all of the terrible demo case machines that we tried to demo!
We bought 10 or so brand new Dynapac CA362PD and CA512PD sheepsfoot packers from Hammer in '07. Within 500hrs all of them were either consuming oil like they had Detroits in them, or were fogging out the ditch because of unburnt fuel, and oil. Hammer has come out countless times to fix them but nothing has ever changed.
we had Kawi loaders from hammer WOW what a mistake needed a side window they shipped a seat to us. sent it back re orderd the window same seat came back.