Here are a few pics from inside the plant. We are getting some new equipment, and they are removing the concrete and dirt for new footings. Were going to dig seven feet, but hit water and mud, so now going deeper and going to have to add fill. I'll post more pics as this ordeals plays out.
What is manufactured there???
Cooper Tires
so how you guys haulin the materail out?
This happens to be in a part of the 47 acres building that is near a large outside door. Have three 10 yard dump trucks hauling the dirt outside. It is pretty tight though, the excavator just barely has enough headroom to dump into the truck without hitting the roof joists.
Why the dozer though? there is nothing he could possibly be doing in that hole that I wouldn'tt be able to do with that excavator? I must be so set in my ways of doing what i need to with the equipment I have.
I think they are using the dozer to push material up to the excavator so he can load the dump trucks. Even though we are in a 47 acre building, The plant is running, and we have our maintenance people running steam lines in the same area so, it is still close quarters with an excavator and 2 dumptrucks. Kirk DeFoor
In all reality, it is quick to put a dozer in the hole to grade, than it is to take the time to grade with the hoe. This way the hoe can concentrate on loading material rather than grading. There is enough to worry about when working in tight quarters like that.
Looks like a nice challenging job. Keep the pics commin!
wow! some tight areas there! good luck to you! be safe!
Very cool and confinded work space. At least they don't have to worry about rain days or the machine being cold in the morning. Is that a 321?
Seems that digging the mud out of the bottom has only let more water in. They are down past 11 feet now, and still gaining water. I'm thinking this is a great spot for a swimming pool. Yes, it is a 321C. I'll take a few more pics in a little while and post them.
Is ventilation a problem with the diesel fumes and the factory running? We have worked inside a few times with a skid steer and mini excavator and some of the workers complained and said they were getting sick from the fumes even with ventilation fans running.
pretty neat to see a job like that done indoors
I can see where ventilation might be a problem someplaces. Here we move so much air through the building that you never even smell a propane forklift. We have large grates around the side walls, and curtain walls hanging from the ceiling around the tire curing presses and large exhaulst fans above the curing presses. We inject outside air in the building as well. Even in the winter, a short sleeve shirt is plenty warm. In the summer, it is very HOT. There is always a pretty steady breeze of air coming through the plant. We have probably 600 HP of exhaust fans in the tire curing area alone. and about the same amount of fresh air fans as well. A diesel puts out very little carbon monoxide also, but the smell and particulate is there. K
um i just have to ask, why if your digging on a hole and a dozer is pushing materail to the excavator , why's the excavator sittin on/in so much dirt ? it just seems like a mess
That photo may be decieving. The excavator is sitting up on the last section of the cut - that has yet to be dug. He will leave that portion unexcavated until the dozer drives out, then dig it with the shovel. Whoever is running this job has made an excellent plan and it looks VERY professional to me. The only thing I might question is the logic of digging DEEPER to get away from table water??
Is that the Texarkana plant?
Yes, this is in the Texarkana Plant. The idea wasn't so much to get away from the water, as it was to get to better dirt. Today, they are hauling in clay and compacting it. When finished, it should be around 7 ft. deep. Then comes the concrete...... K
Now they are compacting CLAY on a saturated table with a sheeps foot roller?? Where is the gravel or crushed stone? I think I am starting to lose respect for the supervisor. Structural fill is ALLWAYS porous....
Im not really liking how thats looking either, I was thinking 6 inch minus crusher run. Clay may lead to problems down the line.
I just got through talking to the man that owns the excavating company, he said they dug the mud out and got to hardpan that was dry, and the engineer and him both felt like crushed stone wasn't needed on this application. Time will tell Kirk
How do you get in and out of the hole? Whats stopping the dumptruck from backing in?
Right now it is just a big rectangular hole in the ground with straight sides. I'm guessing that when they get everything on grade, they will either lift out the equipment with a forklift, or add some extra dirt to drive everything out and then use the excavator to remove the final dirt. The hole will only be 7 feet deep when they get to final grade.
It seems like overkill to have two dozers working the fill in such a confined area.:beatsme No, that is not correct, at least around my neck of the woods. I have built many projects with structural fill, 98-100% compaction requirements, with clay type on-site soil that would definetely not be classified as porous. The dirt doc gets a proctor of the fill material and sets the specs for compaction, the fill could be on-site material or borrow pit material. I have worked with some fat clays that had a very tight moisture tolerance that was a pain in the rear-end to meet compaction.:Banghead However, the compaction specs were met. To import gravel or other porous fill was not an option due to the cost.
I agree with CM on this one. We do structural fill like that all the time. If you find a nice wet spot down there we normally blast in a good first lift to seal the wet stuff down there. Usually end up around 18"-24" thick. We then static pack that lift and then continue with our standard backfill of 16" lifts so that once they are compacted with the vibratory sheepsfoot its 12" thick. Granted we don't normally do this in buildings, but we have done it on large building pads, roads, yards and parking lots. I'd say that looks like quite the fun little project though. Reminds me of a road I dug up last year. Was supposed to be 3' of topsoil under the gravel.... 3' turned into 14' in some places.
UMMMM.............brakes maybe..........just guessing....thats how our drivers stop anyway.......:falldownlaugh
your trucks have brakes rueben
hell ya...........and we use them also.Its pretty neat....we push the middle pedal thingy on the floor and SHA-BAM!!!we stop. That option came standard with all of our trucks.
My truck drivers just back up till the hit something.... usually resulting in the loss of a few grade stakes:stirthepot that does look like quite the operation. I will agree, that's alot of equipment in a small hole. But it's needed it looks like. That would be stange working in a building with a excavator that big ointhead
I was kinda looking at it as tho it was trench for pipe where you have to have ladders for the crew to get in and out.
Structural fill over a high water table will not be clay, especially when it is a very heavy (potentially vibrating) piece of industrial equipment. At least I would never do it, because who is going to pay when it fails?? The engineer??LOL:roll Here is what the engineer will say, "Well, it appears as though my foundation system plan has been deviated from"
I must have mis-understood such a broad statement.
is that 413 doing the work?
What kind of load is this footing going to receive (capacity) and what will it be used for (machinery, vibration)? Also in pic #19 is that the pier footing sticking out the side of the cut? How much deeper are you then existing bottom of footings? No shoring or underpinning for existing footings?
I was going to ask about the depth of the existing footings as well, until I saw that one sticking out of the side of the cut. Now I have to ask why the water wasn't an issue in the original construction?
You are right, I should have clarified. I don't because my work is almost exclusively related to building/bridge footing construction. That clay makes me cringe.
No, that is an old floor chain drive enclosure, that has been filled with concrete, years ago. They have a brand new Cat 420 backhoe with hammer here today to bust it out so they can form up the wall in that area. I don't know how deep the other footings are. I also don't know if there was water present when this was originally built in 1964. There have been lots of changes in this area since then. The I don't know the weight of the curing presses that will be installed here either, but I know the floor gets two mats of rebar on 12'' centers. They are almost finished compacting the clay, somewhere in the area of 400 yrds, left. I'm glad its Friday. Saturday and Sunday I can tend to my own toys and :drinkup
I can tell that you and I come from similar backgrounds. These are the things that strike me most looking at these pictures. The excavation plan seems excellent, but no way I am ever signing off on clay being used under a building or any kind of HD industrial machine. And undermining of adjacent footings with no ammendments, NO WAY, Jose.
This depends on your location. In my area, Sand is prevelant as fill. Most building pads have sand under concrete. I used to work around Columbus Oh. Sand was a dirty word down there. If we got into a sand seam, we had to stretch it out in a fill as far and thin as we could. All their concrete is on stone. In some cases its even on clay. This project, im assuming it is local material. Soils tech is down there testing it, so it must work for their application, as im sure they are the ones that suggested a plan of action for this fill. Ive done fills over wet areas. In fact, areas so wet we could not run adts or scrapers through. We dumped along side of the area, and pushed a 2 and a half foot thick lift over the area with a dozer. Then compacted it with a non vibratory sheeps foot. Four years later, no cracks in the concrete, so it must have worked just fine. Personally, in this situation, I would lean towards stabilization. Adding portland of lime would help out a lot. Then again, im going to guess, the plan of action may be to use more concrete than planned. So that will help support the equipment that is going to be set there.
And I agree with you. You and I both know that soil tech ain't taking responsibility for anything, either. Who are they going to blame?? YOU and ME. I would put anything on sand, at least it perks.
the simple fact that they are 'nuking' the backfill speaks volumes to me.......they are not messing around.
To me it seems like a lot of earth work for some footings. Thats why I ask what kind of load the new equipment will produce. Based on the load you could have just cut out the old slab put in some minipiles and pile caps? But I do not know the specs of the new equipment.
I have been on jobs where they "nuked" the soil and it passed as I was walking on it still was pumping, it has a lot to do with moisture content and a testing lab that know what they are doing.