We started a new project this week for a hotel in Tuscaloosa, AL. This project involves demo'ing an existing cul-de-sac, under cutting the building pad 6' and recompacting the existing material, retetion pond, utilities, site concrete and asphalt paving. It's a good size commerical project for us. First pic is the "before" The next 3 pics are "during" and that is yours truly running the loader, what fun it is to run some iron. The last pic is loading out the tri-axle. It's alot more fun to remove a cul-de-sac than it is to put one in.:cool2
This site was an former mobile home sales center (you know it's Alabama ) and the whole site is covered with 8"-10" of dense grade base. So far we have skimmed 60 tri-axle loads of very clean dense grade base and stockpiled it. The pile of dense grade in the second pic is the "small" one.
The first pic is the finish product of the "cul-de-sac deconstruction". The second pic is a bird that decided this parking lot would be a good place to make a nest. I tell you one thing, this is one tough ol' bird. We graded all around her today, look at the windrows around the nest, and she stayed vigilant - even with a D6N blade a few feet away. We are giving her enough time to hatch her brood, lucky for her she is outside the building pad. You gotta respect something that is that tough.
Nice pics! :drinkup The bird goes to prove... Sometimes it's the little things in life that matter the most.
Haha... the title of this thread almost sounds like your challenging me.... So I hereby challenge you to a who has more bucket cylinders contest....
HAHA I bet that bird was cool at first, but eventually you will be annoyed by it! Its called a killdeer, and they never shut up, and the noise they make is horrible. But they are good birds to have around because they eat mesquitos! But any way yes Burnout just out did ya with the nicer loader, but I like the d6n though!
No doubt, brother.:drinkup Kinda gives you inspiration, if that little sack of feathers isn't scared of a D6.............. OK - you got me on the bucket cylinders.:notworthy (actually not a challenge - just the first title that came to my mind:beatsme) But I still got to tear some stuff up today.:bouncegri: I am usually running the roads, answering phone calls and replying to emails on the laptop. Not today - laptop safely in truck, along with cell phone and myself firmly planted in my 953C for a couple of hours.:cool2 Deere9670, the D6N is a nice tractor and thank you for the compliments, although I prefer the 953. My grade forman can do alot with that dozer.
You Alabamians sure do it different, just tear out the pavement and haul away, no grinding, just git-r'-done.
In these parts concrete, cured asphalt, dirt, rock, gravel, brick and block are non-regulated, which means you can pretty much use it as fill anywhere. At this particular job we found a place to dump for free a few miles away, all we have to do is push it off when we are finished. It took a day to demo the cul-de-sac and we will finish hauling the debris off Monday. So how would you guys go about it? Do you have to grind and recycle the asphalt?
Yeah, or mowers either, when I was working with my father mowing we had a diner that's got a gravel lot and there was one that nested every year in the lot same place too, http://www.letstalksnow.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12864 Damn Nesters! - Snowplowing-Contractors.com - Let's Talk Snow.com Discussion Forums I always get a kick out of the broken wing act that the parents do to get your attention away from the nest.
Any asphalt here must be hauled to a location where it can be crushed and sent through a rotary kiln to get rid of the oils, then it can be used as filler for anything.
I am just glad to see someone else using a track loader for jobs. I think track loaders are more of a East coast thing. I like that shot of the dual cylinders on that 973. I want to run one some day. I learned on a 1984 963 and I thought that thing was a beast. Other than that it has been 953B's and 953C's.
I have a 973 you can come run.... when can you start? It's a 1999 model, she got a brand new engine, pump, transmission, drivemotors and undercarriage last spring, she has 18700 frame hours. I now sit in a 2006 973C with 5000hrs on the clock, and a brand new engine, transmission and drive motors under the hood. I for once got to spend a whole day working without people bugging me constantly for stuff. And I got some humor when the mainline hoe hit the watermain we're pulling services off of. I will admit though Corey... that D6N is lookin mighty sexy right now compared to the old D85 we have on site.
Tuscaloosa, AL Haven't been there for a few years. Last time was running a load of paper too of from one of the mills. Had some of those birds wind up nesting in one of our trucks after a long weekend. :beatsme mama bird got pretty mad when we started the truck when I got back. about beat herself to death against the window. Looked under the truck and all around. didnt find the nest. went to grab my grease gun out of the toolbox sure enough right under the passenger side toolbox was the nest. had to have a buddy keep mama busy while I moved the nest. put some cones around it and drove off. pretty birds but the only thing that compares with the screeching is my mother-in-law :eek2
You know the rules. PICTURES !
I never got to see him hit it, I just saw some water flying out of the hole and labourers right behind it. They hit it at 11am, I was supposed to be done by 2pm because we were goin wheelin yesterday. I got out of there at 6, went off roading for a couple hours and came home. Today I went out to the wheelin area in the city and found coolant pouring out the bottom of myu waterpump.:bash
ever try a 977L, now that is a powerhouse
what kinda birds nesting in your truck, bro?
Speaking of birds... Every year, for as long as I can remember, these two have flown in from who knows who where to get together and do their thing. I hear that ducks mate for life....which is amazing. Also that they don't get shot, run over, poisoned, or run off by some of the local scumb/good neighbors. Once again, its the little things in life.....
Frederick county! I'm down in Calvert county.
Hey pete, I do believe they mate for life. We usually have at least 2 pairs every year in the pond behind my house. Mallards are beautiful water fowl. Do you have a pond/lake close by? The pond in my back yard attracts all sorts of wild birds: bluejays, cardinals, finches - all different kinds, eastern blue birds, red-headed wood peckers and many more that I have not identified yet. These guys really help keep the bugs out of our small garden. The ones I don't care for are the Canadian geese. Make a bunch of noise and just poop everywhere (Burnout y'all can have them back ) The geese used to fly back over summer, now they stay year around. ointhead OK since this is a project thread, let's get back to the project. We should start the undercutting and recompacting of the building pad, 6' deep and 10' outside of the buidling. The dirt doc's were worried about the existing fill not being compacted well, so we are going to cut it all out and put it all back in - an addendum to the contract of course. The pick below is the south end of the pad that will have about 1'-2' of cut to get to subgrade and another 6' of undercut and recompact. On the north end where the cul-de-sac used to be will have approximately 5' of fill from existing grade. The building pad including the undercut is roughly 70' wide by 210' long. This is what we have to do the project with: D6N, 953C, 420D, T250 and possibly a 315/160 size track hoe (rental purchase). How would some of you guys go about this using this equipment . I know a 627 and a D9 would do it in a day, but this is a "run what ya' brung operation" and this is what I have to use. Of yeah, also have a borrowed:cool2 or rented 60" pad foot roller and a tri-axle dump.
Hey Corey... how far are you moving the material? If she's a simple cut and paste job, why not rip with the 6N, and then push it off with the 6 and the 953? I was amazed how amazing a track loader works for stripping operations.
The good thing is the material is a nice sandy clay. We have to undercut the pad 6', push the same material back in and compact in 6-8" layers. So I want to keep the material we cut out as close to the excavation as possible. The problem is I don't need a hole that rain water will collect in so I have to keep it draining some how. And I also want to make sure we get a full 6' of depth and blend the engineered fill together under the pad for liability reasons. ointhead More info - the cul-de-sac we deconstructed has approx. 3-5FT of fill in and around it, we are raising the north end of the site. I was thinking of starting at the north end (the lowest) and cut from the south end (the highest), pushing the material into the fill area. I just have to go down 6' and not leave any areas to collect water while we are doing it. The south end of the project also has some minor cut for the parking area and we are regrading some of the slopes towards the Cracker Barrel sign in the picture.
I say do er up with your D6N and 953... you have the iron sitting on site. And your gonna push a monster amount of material with them.
Yep - that's the way we have started and I am heading down today to hopefully get the rest of the pad undercut today (very optimistic ) The north end of the pad has 4' of fill from existing, so we only had to undercut 2' for about 30% of the pad. Today is the deep part. Burnout - BTW- good pics in your other thread. When I slow down a little and get off the road, I'll post some more pics here. The 6N and '53 will suprise you in how much dirt they can move together.
mallards are tasty!
You'd crap a brick if you saw the amount of dirt we're moving with 2 track loaders on site. My 2 packer operators hate me right now. I stopped putting lifts in about an hour and a half ago and their still on site packing.
I here ya' Burnout. The problem we are having now is getting 98% on the on-site material. It is a heavy sandy clay and the moisture is too high. Oh yeah we are supposed to get T-storms and severe weather today.:beatsme Dayexco - they are quite tasty, leave the skin on the breast and grill it a few minutes on each side to a nice medium/rare in the center.
Better seal your piles up my friend. We had rain storms last night. I had my second 973 and D85 out sealin piles last night. The top was a bit mucky this morning but down a few inches was dryer than a popcorn fart. Last year I had some sandy clay I had to deal with. I just raked'er with my teeth in a cross pattern, let the sun hit it for a couple hours and then skin off the creme on top and repeat the process. I just skin the top 6" off thats nice and dry, mix it with some wet underneath and toss it in as a 6" lift and then compact it. I was hittin my compaction numbers everytime, and my optimum was 13.5%. The dirt was testing at 19-24%!
pm me if you want a really good recipe for mallard.... Im an avid hunter with a freezer full of them, ... we have a pond in our backyard with a pair of mallards nesting right now. Feed them bread and corn...they love it...we have geese to, but I like the mallards better.
A little update.... Yesterday the pipe crew cut in the 90 and valve for the hotel's water service, thus killing the live line and FH we had on the edge of our building pad. There is approx. 70LF of 8" ductile and a FH that will be removed. It rained here all day .:Banghead So the too wet fill saga continues but I have a nuclear weapon on my side - ag lime. We have 5 tons of it coming in the morning on a spreader truck to coat our previous lift and our spoil piles. Dirt doc said 3% per CF, 120LBS per CF= 3.6LBS per SF. We will be turning the first 1ft of lift in the morning and hittin' it with lime. I have only used lime to stabilize soil once before and that was several moons ago, so I hope it does the trick. The elevator contractor is scheduled to come in and drill the shaft on Monday but I don't see that happening, probably be more like Wed. Oh well if I could control mother nature I wouldn't be in the construction business. Anyway, not complaining about the rain - we needed it. Last year at this time we were in a drought and it only got worse. More updates tomorrow and pics.
Lime! Wonderful stuff No really it is.................. quite suprising what it will do to your windows if you dont stay up wind :Banghead Keep it on the ground its great:drinkup get it on you glass and you will be looking for wire wool to clean them :Banghead
The lime we used was the agricultural grade which is more granular than powder. I have used the powder type once before and it does go everywhere. Since this was the first time I have used the ag type, I was hoping it would perform the same and it did. The following pics are a few days old, before we got all the rain and had to go to plan B. The first pic is starting the undercut on the pad. The second pic is my pride and joy. And the last pic is getting down to the undercut subgrade. We will be fine grading the building pad tomorrow, worked all weekend to get the job done - I hate working Sundays.:Banghead
In reference to the lime, keep a spray bottle wiyh white vinegar in it. It is the only thing, next to acid that will cut it,and not destroy everything else.bad thing is you smell like a pickle when your done. I used to haul lime for a living, it is Mserable on a rainy day!
lime Thanks, hope I never have to go near the stuff again I will keep that tip in mind :thumbsup
Do you spread / mix it the same as the powder ? If so and it works just as well, I wonder why we choke ourselves on the powder :beatsme :drinkup
I actually carried a 2 gallon sprayer with vinegar ,Dawn Dish soap,and Simple Green mixed at all times. I could spray it on, let it set for about 10 minutes, and hit it with a light brush. Dirt bugs, and lime all came off. Worked so good I still use it, minus the vinegar.
We found a local farm store that had a spreader truck. They loaded it up, came out to the job and spread it with the truck. There was some dust involved but nothing like using the powder. The dust settled rather quickly. It worked very well after turning the soil a couple of times with the blade. The GC's super got a couple of pics of it spreading, when he emails me the pictures I will post them. This is not the truck but it was very similiar: