Here is a pic of the setup we use to make cement for our manholes on our sewer crews. We drag it around the site with a dozer. I know in this area they are quite common. Other areas of the country I have gone to I do not see a cement mixer setup on the sewer crew sites. What are you guys doing? Calling in ready mix trucks when the have a few manholes ready? Just curious other guy's setups, most everyone does it exactly the same around here right or wrong.
That thing looks like something from a 50's B science fiction movie gone bad.No offense but why would sewers even be out there,looks barren .
tuney443, we are adding sewer and water to the back of an existing housing development. Most of our work is in areas like this were we are building greenfield housing developments. I don't think the dreary winter land scape helps.
The slickest setup I have seen in my area is a crew cab 4700 International with a flatbed mounted mixer on the rear. They have a box for sand and sections of the flatbed to load brick and mortar on with tool boxes underneath. We only do storm so when it's time to pour inverts we either order redi mix or if the timing is right, take whatever is left over when they pour the building slab or footings. A pump truck will dump about 1/2 CY or so out of the hopper on clean-up. For mudding up pipes in manholes, I just buy the mortar mix in bags at one of the big box stores. We mainly do small commercial projects with a fast timeline so the storm sewer is usually overlapping the foundation construction for the building. I have horse traded a yard of concrete for unloading trowel machines or borrowing our skid steer as well.
CM1995, I started off working on the "mud sled" and know it all to well. I guess i was hoping someone else somewhere in the country figured out how to make something work better or easier. I think our biggest issue with ordering redi mix is timing. We need to mud up the pipe coming into the precast structure so we can backfill. That wouldn't take nearly a full load of concrete so we need to do it then. Also on sewer and water manholes we need to mud each section joint inside and out, not sure if this is common everywhere on the country. The towable batch mixer in my picture is an issue since they are usually cheaply built. We go through two a year it seems. Then there is the load the a laborer forgets to use up quick or dump out. Then it needs to be chiseled out. Not to mention the ability of the person to count and make a "good" batch of mud.
If you buy C Mix from the batchplant or their supplier, counting errors are substantially reduced if not eliminated. Rapid setting cement is another advantage to 'mix yer own'.
We do pre-poured manholes around here. Just a little hydrolic cement around the pipe where it comes in and goes out is all thats neede.
buckfever, are the holes usually that tight on the storm sewer pipe. Seems like we are always filling a gap around the pipe with brick and then mudding that. I assume you guys do not have a mixer on site for your sewer crew then?
On storm we have our boxes made per plans. Just a little mud around the pipe. The bottom can usually be poured with 2-3 bags of 80# gravel mix. If we have more then two to do we put a mixer in a truck with all the bags and water and let a laborer go to town. Any less and we mix by hand.
Last project I tried to get the EOR to approve round structures with pre-cast holes in them but they wanted square inlet boxes which required us to use standard knockout boxes. It would have saved them money to go with round structures but :beatsme Typical pipe connection to a knockout box, the invert hasn't been poured yet.
That's a handy looking rig S120483 . I like the simplicity of the sled as it's at ground level so your not climbing up on to it . No worry's about a muddy site as it's drug around with a dozer . I actually poured my own manholes on this job . Set up my forms at the Ready - Mix plant and poured the base section . Then hauled them to the job and set each one . After we set them I installed the wall form & called the truck to pour to the finished level at the site .
I had something similar mounted on a wagon frame first that only lasted a couple of jobs my men destroyed it try ing to load it on low pushing it side ways it was over loaded so it converted it to a roll off frame it seemed to work pretty good then we just done precast storm drain boxes they do work out pretty good to keep all your pipe laying tool's and supplies in a common place have seen some contractor's use a flat bed trailer tow behind and semi but the tow behind get over loaded and the semi's are hard to move on the job site. the sled idea doesn't sound to bad if it's heavy enough to push around with dozer be cause they all seem to get pushed where they are designed to to not that seem's to be what you do when it's to wett to to do anything else is go mud those boxes by the time it get dry enough to backfill they will be set up at least we can that done in this mud today and then thaw goes the dozer push the mixer wagon closer to the hole so we don't have tromp through the mud as far:thumbsup
Our manholes are usually precast...give the company the drawings they make it we install and most inlets outlets come with built in ferncos, if we are tying into existing I will core bore a hole and just get bagged mortar mix to butter it up or use a manhole fernco, then just do covers with blocks and bagged mortar mix
CM do they let you use knock-out boxes in paved areas? Around here the only place your allowed to use knock-outs are in green spaces. Everything else has to be solid poured and those suck to cut pipe into.
Yeah we can use them in paved areas - curb and grate inlets. I will backfill with total stone around the box if it's in a paved area.
We have 3 different set ups depending on the job. A volvo cab over with a mixer on the back a water tank and flat bed space for brick and sand. A 8x10 steel plate with a tank mixer and pile of brick and sand that is on 2 I beams so the 950 can carry it around and the last is a trailer with a mixer on the back. They all seem to work a lot better than wheel barrow and shovel. We use them for both inverts and raising covers.
John do you have any pics of those setups?
our sanitary manholes are all prepoured inverts...plus we get boots for the pipes..zero mudding until job is done or a rainy day, just fill in around the boots with some non shrink grout.