I was asked to bid on this and it would be my first foundation demo so I was curious what it would take to get these things gone. There are 12 of them and I was just going to over estimate and figure 1 container per unit. I thought I might be able to just get under them with a 160 sized machine but upon further inspection it looks like it may take more than that to break these things up. Any suggestions/advice?
That could be somewhat easy with a bigger hoe and then it could be a big PITA. Do you know the size of the footings? If those stem walls turn out to be heavily reinforced with L dowels into a large footing it could turn into a nightmare if you didn't have a hammer. I would plan on a 320 sized machine. If the walls and footings can be dug out, then you can use the poor man's hammer trick and break them up by dropping them on one another. Might have to cut some of the rebar that will still be holding the pieces together with a rescue saw but it's faster and cheaper than a hammer. In my experience, if you can pick the large pieces of concrete up and drop them on another chunk they'll break easily. You don't have to lift them high and have shrapnel flying, a few feet works with repetition. If they don't come out with a 320 or larger hoe, then a hammer is your option to break them up. What are you defining as a unit? I would take some measurements of the walls and get a CY number. Redi-mix trucks on average haul 8-9 yards of wet mud, you're not going to get more than that in a 20 yard can as it's weight not volume with concrete demo. The footings will be harder to estimate unless you have the drawings or info on how they were built. For example, I figure 5 CY of existing 4" concrete paving as one tandem dump load. Just from the pics, I would say one stem wall and footing would fill a 20 CY can, not including the demising wall in between and even then I might be underestimating it. It's hard to give good advice without being able to walk the site.
CM sounds like he is dead on. I also think one wall would fill a 20 yd can. I would go to the site with at least a shovel and dig down and see if I could find the footer and see how wide and thick they are. Little investigating could save a lot of trouble later. One other thing I have done in the past is dig along wall/ footer for about 6 or 8 feet than pull the end into your hole. The remaining dirt will make a hinge for a breaking point.
Very good advice as I was thinking with the estimators hat on instead of the operators. If you dig out around the footings a rather large chunk of concrete can be removed easier as Landclearer said. On a recent small demo job we did, had a 4x6 concrete landing for a door leading out of the medical clinic. What complicated things was it was recessed 4" or so to the door threshold, around the CMU facade that clad the bottom 3' of the building. Not knowing if it was doweled into the slab or not we dug on all 3 sides of it below the bottom of the slab. A little lift on an edge determined that it wasn't doweled into the slab and came out easily. I had bid the job with time to use manual labor to chip out the concrete and cut the dowels - if they were there. The GC put the risk on me if there were dowels and there were none. Sometimes you win one.
Thanks for the advice guys, I will be calling the company tomorrow to ask about plans and I will probably take a trip down there with a shovel, I figure a week with the right size machine is enough time or am I wrong? I'm just trying to leave myself some room for error.
This may sound kind of old school, but a wrecking ball will do wonders on the vertical walls. I have a pear shaped ball (maybe around 1500 lbs., don't know for sure) attached to about 6' of heavy anchor chain. Other end of the chain is attached to the center of a piece of 6" pipe about 5' long. Grab the pipe with the bucket & thumb and start swinging. After a dozen swings or so the concrete starts to crumble out of pure fear. Never tried it on anything really heavy, but it does surprisingly well on 8" walls with single rebar mat. Only takes a second to pick up or drop the ball when you want to dig as opposed to switching over to breaker.
Brian where exactly are you located? This is in Tacoma.. Anyway, I went back this morning and did a little digging. The footers look to be 16 in wide and 6 in thick. After doing some measurements, I came up with about 720 linear feet of walls. After further calculation, I came up with 92.6 cu/yd of material including footers, not including all of the footing drain pipe Im going to have to get rid of. I am renting the equipment I would need for this job and that would include a 25t zero swing machine and a breaker if I get into trouble. I am figuring 1 week to get this done, and just hire maybe 1 or 2 roll off trucks, Im guessing it should take about 20 containers or so. Does this all sound about right?
Aliate, I am surprised by how small the footers are but that is good news for you. A 25 ton machine should have no trouble breaking the walls and footer into pieces. I would suggest removing them all and piling them up then get 2 trucks for a day depending on travel time. Do you have any concrete recycle yards nearby. The guys around here will pay a few bucks a ton for it and that helps out on trucking.
Same here on the size of the footings, surprising their that small. 25ton ex as Landclearer said will do the job, probably won't need a hammer just use the poor mans method above if the footings are consistent. The walls and footings will break up. If there's 100 CY of poured in place, I would plan on 25 - 20's just to be safe. No comment on the recycle yards, we have just one and they charge by the load, most of the concrete goes to inert dumps. I'm in the land of limestone, crushed stone is cheap.
The proper tool to use for this job would be an excavator mounted concrete densifer/crusher/pulverizer. They make short work of concrete foundations, most have built in cutters for rebar and as the name suggests they densify the concrete for max loads. Rent one. A link for example - http://www.bodinemfg.com/concretepulverizer.html Containers? Munch the concrete up on the first day and load it into triaxles on the second. I used to use wrecking balls mounted on lattice boom cranes back when it was still a viable method. Too slow and too much stress on the excavator. I know things vary great from region to region but crushed concrete has been a DOT approved road base around here since the 1980's. You pay the recyclers to dump a load and you pay them to put a load of road base on your truck, quite the racket. Unless it's rebar heavy crushing concrete is candy all day long. I can send you my address for my royalty check later.
Don't bother, the check won't cover the postage. If this project were in my area I wouldn't waste time with a pulverizer if the footings were that small. Pull them out with the 321, break them into manageable pieces and load out on 20's - done. As you said David427, things vary greatly region to region.:cool2
I agree with CM. No sense in using a pulverizer on something that small. I would rather cleanup 100 pieces of concrete instead of a million The recycle yards around here cannot get enough concrete. We pay about $30 a ton for limestone base delivered and you buy a lot of water sometimes than you fight it to get it dried out.
I know from experience in 'Bama you guys like to take your time and use them there git er done old school methods. On the East and West Coast, not so much, time is money. But hey, where is the fun in using a rental machine unless you can beat the snot out of it. The correct tool for the job, a concrete densifier, the incorrect tool, beating on it/prying on it with an excavator. One constant in all regions is they have their big leagues and their little leagues. I was introduced to the wonder of a concrete densifier mounted on a Komatsu PC750, it munched up a failed subdivision of townhouses that never got pass the foundation stage, the city seized the property and built a school on it. It was a little overkill, the person who brought it in was getting a skim from the demo contractor but it took 2 days to munch 20 townhouse foundations. After you include the mob/demob costs it was probably a wash but a few days were saved and the subgrade was done way ahead of schedule. All the concrete was crushed onsite by a tracked crusher and used as site fill. Time = Money = EMC2
First of all you don't know me or how I operate my business, assumptions are well assumptions. Old school methods make money. This is a straight forward project and I would do it exactly as I said. I own a 321 and I don't abuse it - wouldn't have to. Those large chunks will break up easily to load into 20 yard cans - read my method posted above. There would be no reason to beat or pry on those foundations if the footings are the size Aliate stated.
Maybe you might want to break open the piggy bank and buy some of those new fangled work tools for the Ol' Gal? Why jockey around 20yd cans when you can use a densifier to make piles you can back ten wheelers to and max legal load them? One day munching, one day loading - git er done! Ya know, I hate to sound silly cause I don't want to assume anything but have you actually ever used a concrete densifier?
This job looks like it is on a slope, perhaps this distinction may affect the type of machine to be recommended? Cant tell if the materials have to be drug uphill and loaded or can be pushed downward and loaded. This may also affect the size of the machine that can be sent to the job. I can see some straps for holddowns: I would suggest there is plenty of rebar in those stem walls and footings.
Totally agree Brian . There is a good reason they call it a " Wrecking Ball " When in doubt , old school get's it done .
We own a Cat universal processor with pulverizer jaws and I still would not bring it in on that job. I guess we are not in the "big leagues". I think it would be ridiculous to pulverize those walls then have to clean up all that broken concrete the whole time mixing dirt in it. We have been in business for well over 20 years and have never broken a boom, stick or dented in a bucket so I guess you can tear out concrete and not " beat the snot" out of a machine.
Once again why? There is no reason to complicate this job with "new fangled work tools" as you call them. A 25 ton hoe will take care of this project with the size of the footings. Concrete performs great in compression, very weak in tension.:cool2 Depends on the job, accessibility, location to disposal site, etc. My first choice is 20's, as one truck can service two or three cans depending on haul distance, add another roll off if the haul distance is greater. No time wasted loading dumps as you can always have a loaded can waiting on the roll off. However, it depends on the individual site. Hauled a lot of concrete in tandems and tri-axles as well. I demo'd one several years back, for the price and the fact I didn't see the benefit of the attachment for the types of demo I perform, decided against purchasing one. We do residential and light commercial demo, no industrial or heavier structures as I primarily do site construction. Anytime one can remove large sections of concrete and load them out it's always faster and cheaper to do it that way. That's why I didn't see the benefit of the pulverizer. The project I demo'd it on involved removing 6" concrete pavement and a small retaining wall. I had the slabs up and loaded out while the pulverizer was munching, leaving further debris to clean up. They have their place no doubt but not for what I do or for the project Aliate is bidding. Reminds of a job we did 6 years ago for a fast casual restaurant. The existing building was demo'd to the outside walls, slab and roof because if they took the entire structure down, the set backs wouldn't be grandfathered in and the building would have set farther from the HWY. They originally planned on keeping the building slab but decided early on that it wouldn't be feasible with all the new plumbing and electrical underground that was needed, plus the fact the finish floor was going to be the polished concrete slab. The slab was around 2K sf. I knew how the GC expected it to be done and I bid it that way - with jackhammers and a lot of manual labor. The super was worried this CO was going to affect the schedule, I told him don't worry we'll have it done in a day. In which he said - "No way". Showed up that morning and the first thing we did was strip the sheathing and remove the studs on an outside wall in order to get an 8' opening. The building was trussed front to back with columns in the middle, so the side walls were non-load bearing. Had a slab saw come in and cut the floor into 4x4 pieces. Put the mini-ex inside taking the slabs up and ol' Blue (Gradall 536) with the boom shot through the hole. Loaded the slabs onto the forks and then loaded them into a tri-axle with high lift gate. Finished the job in the early afternoon and the super was shocked. I bid the job with jackhammers and laborers as that's the price they were expecting, however I knew how to do it otherwise. In the end everyone was happy, bank account a little fatter and the schedule stayed on track.
Well said Landclearer.:thumbsup
Thanks CM!
I am trying to get an idea on what the bid would be to do the job for future reference, any one got an estimate figure in mind?
you know some how some way us dumb ol southern boys giter done every one and a while even a blind squirrel finds a nut once and a while.......
It's funny, I cut and pasted this thread link and sent it to one of my buddies. He replied, why are you even wasting your time, you must be really bored. The way to handle this job with a concrete densifier is that you go to each foundation, crack the walls, crack the slab and munch the concrete on a small section of slab in the middle, back the truck up to each pile and load it out. If you are willing to work a long first day to overcome the mob/set up the whole job should take two days. One day processing, one day loading. CM, just out of curiosity what does your example have to even remotely do with the original question? Work tools for heavy equipment are for people who want to do the job as quickly and efficiently as possible and then move on to the next job. I notice from having worked in the South you guys like a slower pace and older equipment, either that or you need to increase your sales volume. There is a reason why we won the big one. :usa I'm glad you guys are happy with your work methodology, work pace and the amount of money it brings you. I'm sure working slower, with older, less expensive equipment, not bothering to invest in new technology and a smaller sales volume will lead to less stress and a longer life. You guys do indeed have it figured out.
The feelings mutual, I said my piece - now I'm bored with the discussion. You have came on here recently (August 2014) and proceeded to preach to members how they are doing it wrong in a rather brash manner. Your first post on HEF was in this thread, not a good way to make friends IMO. Furthermore, I don't understand nor really care why you have such animosity towards the south but coming on this Forum to stir any kind pot is something we frown on. There are plenty of places on the net you can go for that. Let's keep the discussion here on HEF about heavy equipment and the associated means and methods.:cool2 Keep in mind one of the Forum rules located here - HeavyEquipmentForums HEF has members from around the world with different equipment, means and methods of work. It's fascinating to me to get to see and learn how other regions and countries in the world tackle basically the same problem. David427, you might try keeping your fingers still and eyes open once in a while, you might learn something.
well said CM1995:thumbsup
Well, some of us are descended from farm stock, survivors of the depression and the folk that did without and got things done with what they had while sending massive volumes of the latest and greatest technology to Europe and the Pacific so the fighting forces could win the big one. I'm not trying to throw gas on the fire of a disagreement, there will always be newer, better (maybe), faster ways to do most any job. If you have a need or tend to specialize in a certain type of work, or have a rental company close to hand that will give you a good rate on the special machine or attachment you want to use, then go for it. Most of the small contractors tend to make do with what equipment they have on short jobs, mostly because it's either paid for, or the payment needs to be made on it. On a personal note back when I was head mechanic for a construction outfit I supervised several mechanics and a couple other guys. They seldom did things the way I would have, but as long as the job got done correctly and safely I rarely intervened. If they asked for it, or I thought they needed it, I would advise or suggest. In the process generally we both would learn something. You don't always need the latest and greatest whiz bang gadget to get work done, if that's your thing and you can afford it great, but don't look down your nose on somebody doing things a different way, they might just know something you don't, yet. Let's all have a beer and then go back to work on Monday :drinkup
I will never own a pulverizer out of spite for this guy.
Aliate, I'm in the Tacoma area (suburbs). Let us know how it turns out, I think you will do fine. Brian
I'm going to submit my bid on Monday, they may just be price shopping so who knows... either way its good bidding experience for me.
Yair . . . Well now that's all over . . . (big grin) Actually I found the discussion quite interesting as a couple of years back I saw what I now know to be a "concrete densifier" working while on a visit to the big smoke. I remarked at the time to another old bush bloke who was watching from our hi-rise balcony that the whole operation looked like expensive bull****e and the machine should have been at the other end of the operation and processing the material before or went into a crusher or landfill. They were cracking it out in bloody great slabs and then munching and he reckoned it was 'like cutting mill-logs into firewood' which sort of ties in with Landclearers observation of breaking large easily handled pieces smaller and getting them mixed up with dirt and what all. I think some folks get carried away with technology. The dirt and concrete are the same as they were fifty years ago. Only the machinery and methods have changed and, from what I see of failing pavement, concrete cancer, mismatch of machinery and poor co-ordination on jobsites I think some folks have lost the plot on the altar of "technology". Cheers.
Well said
Ok Aliate let's get this thread back on track and let's see if you can win this job. Do you have any more questions before tomorrow?
I don't know how deep you dug to check the thickness of the concrete, but I'd verify that the smallish footing aren't just overpour. Man, they seem small.
They were really square and I was able to get under them with a shovel. CM, Containers for me are going to be around 400 - 500 a can, which is way more expensive than hiring trucks, but I just figure I'm going to bid it using cans and make that decision later. Otherwise I think I'm good to go, dump is 15 min away and $10/ton, wouldn't be a factor if I were to use cans, and the cans are easier to load... just thinking out loud.
Go with what's cheaper for this project, your competition is. I don't know if it's available but I hired roll-offs by the hour and had them haul to a specific dump that charged by the load. At $10 a ton and 15 min away, it's going to be hard to beat hiring trucks.
The way we would do it is dig around the footing then drop a wrecking ball on it into sections,proably like 5 foot sections and do a little clean up but we would use a 225
This sounds like how I remove concrete. Good idea taking it up like that.
It appears Nebraska is a honey hole if you are competitive with a 225 and a ball...
Whats wrong with using a 225?
Nothing if your are Fred Flintstone.
While I have great love for a 225 and the whole 200 series, you know it's 2015, right? Using a ball on anything in 2015 must mean you have a lot of time on your hands and really aren't all that interesting in moving on to the next project and profit source. It's easy to see who are the backyard hobbyist and who are the professionals from their comments.
If someone showed up to a project and off loaded a 225 it sends up a big red flag that they can't be profitable in this business. Or they just started out and are being very frugal with their capital Or it's a very depressed market and area in general and that's the best there is. 225's were great machines 30 years ago. When did they build the last one, 1994?
Well that old 225 and ball I wreckon are paid for many times over and dead nuts reliable.it would get the job done no differently than a new machine. So in your case David427, you use the pulverizer, and have a loader/bobcat, or I suppose even a ditching bucket to clean up all the small refuse. Any dirt you put with the concrete costs more to dispose of. I still think a 25 tonner with a thumb and pull it out in slabs would be the quickest cleanest way to get it done. I'd suspect 2 days would put a good beating on it, why break up the concrete more than you have to? It will cost the same to dispose of either way and the recycling yard can eat the cost of breaking it up and dealing with the rebar rats nest that's bound to be left over from the pulverizer. More than one way to skin a cat. Also, not every place in the country is as rich as boston would be, if that old 225 sits for a month it doesn't cost a dime, what are the payments on a new 320?
Why do you assume I am suggesting turning the concrete into 3/4" pieces. You break into pieces that are loadable and process able - smallest probably 2'x2'. Pulverizers also have rebar cutters built into them. If your sales volume is low enough where a 20+ year old 225 makes sense, stay with what works for you. The CAT 225 was a great machine for it's time with the bonus of being 100% made in the US but by the mid to late 80's the Kom 220 was walking all over them. CAT then partnered with Mitsubishi for the junk BL series but then did ok with the 300 B's. I prefer Komatsu but buy CAT because my local Komatsu dealer sucks and you can't beat CATs financing deals - although JD (Hitachi) offers comparable ones. I've done this work over the course of 33 years, including using a ball or large hard rock to break concrete. Now I own an excavation company and use the latest methods to maximize my work force, complete projects as quickly as possible and move on to the next project. That is how you become successful in this business.
Ok, so you are going to process the concrete into 2x2 pieces with a pulverizer. That means every 2 feet, you will have @ a 2 foot section ( the width of the pulverizer) that is pulverized into pieces that will need to cleaned up somehow or will be loading a lot if dirt to have a concrete free site. Sounds pretty inefficient to me.
Loading what dirt? Sounds like you've never used a pulverizer before, you can crack and break concrete without actually 'pulverizing' it. Do you always comment on things you have no actual experience with 438 posts to your name I would assume that is a yes. 2'x2' is the optimal large sizing if you are crushing onsite or if you want to get a tipping discount for a load that is ready to feed into the crusher at the recycling yard. Oops, once again, I forgot you've never done this before. It's funny, I stopped reading this forum a while ago. Obviously it's full of way too many back yard operator/drivers who have done it all but really haven't done anything but won't hesitate to throw an uninformed opinion into the mix. I went back to read the postings I missed (auto email notification of a posting) and caught the originator of the thread writing 'that he would never buy a pulverizer, to spite the poster (me)', with his current attitude and methodology he'll never been in the position where he has to make that choice. The originator of this thread asked how to approach a project like this. I told him how a professional demo contractor would do it. The methodology and concept is fairly standard and proven in the industry in 2014 - the time of the posting.
Well just so you know we do have a Cat pulverizer and I have many hours running it so that is the first point you are wrong about. The next mystery to me is how you are going to get 2x2 piece of concrete to feed into a crusher without breaking it and the rebar. If you would like I can even post many pictures of demo jobs we have done. The next thing is that I have never run a crusher, wrong again! I can post pics of that if you like. You should not make assumptions about people without knowing anything about them or their operation. I have plenty assumptions about you but I will keep them to myself.
Dave You have to remember every region is different for example down here where i live concrete is free to dispose of only have to pay for the hauling which in most cases only runs 50 to 150 per load since the fill centers are never really that far away. For a small demo job like the one posted i wouldnt waste time crushing the concrete i.would rip Cut out rebar toss it in a steel recycling can and load up truck to get rid of the concrete
Yair . . . Well it's on again!! I have commented up thread but really I have no experience or qualifications to comment on this subject but I have shown this thread to an old mate of mine and we reckon if we had to do it we would go in with one of these on an old D8 . . . . We'd tip those foundations out by smoko and have a cup of java and a **** (the latter can take a bit of time at our age) and we'd have bit of a think about whether we were going to preserve them in large pieces and stack on the lowboy with the treepusher or use the tracks as a "concrete deconstructer" and slip back to the depot to get one of these . . . . to load it . . . . the point being that time isn't always of the essence and, (as has been said by others) there are different ways to do any given job and often old gear and proven methods can out work the latest wankmobiles and attachments . . . a case in point is a big brand new tree muncher out on the coast that hasn't munched in several days because "it's throwing codes". Just some thing for poster David427 to think about and maybe ponder how his fancy gadgets pencil out if as I have had to do he has to finance his gear at over 20%. Cheers.
I agree! You can tell who really makes money when the market slows down, and the repo man starts taking machinery
I know this is a moot point now in regard to the job that the original poster was bidding, but I can't help but comment. Many of the folks contributing put forth their ideas in relation to the criteria in each of their areas, and then listened to the other posters and considered varying regional differences. Others did the same, with the exception of factoring in any of these variables, or scale of economy. It is great to be the most efficient time wise so that one can hurry and get on with the next project, unless of course the next project may not start until next week. The original poster was renting all the equipment for the project, which most likely means that he is starting out and does not yet have more work than he can handle. The most important aspect to him would be to do an excellent job while hopefully making some money so as to begin to build his reputation, and learning from the process. An area where good aggregate is plentiful, and dumping areas are as well, will certainly change the equations from an urban area where real estate is valued much higher due to supply and demand. A large company may haul the concrete back to their own yard, crush it and resell it. A one man operation just starting out certainly cannot do that, so it doesn't even enter into the equation. The cost of crushing the concrete may not be viable in some areas, but may be the key to profit in others. Bringing in a track crusher, crushing the concrete and then selling to a project a block away may make the most sense, assuming you have another project a block away. I suspect that some could take a week to do this project and make money, while others would loose if it weren't done in a day. Just because something makes perfect sense in Boston doesn't mean it makes any sense in Miami, or Lubbock, or Olathe, or Seattle, or Melbourne, or Tel Aviv, or Paris (Idaho)! I have bloviated enough, cheers!
Did you get the job? I live in the PNW also and I would bring a 160 or 200 and rip it out, drop pieces to break it and load it into dump trucks. Break the chunks into 3x3 ish size chunks and set up to load. Clean and quick. Load carefully so you don't have a bunch of wasted space and the trucks will be able to haul their max weight. And everyone that says the footings are small, that's a typical footer for a wall under 4' around here.
Yep i would have done it the same as tyler. Rip out, drop it on other pieces to break up, shake it to break rebar and load out in chunks. Clean up with sifting bucket and hand pick last pieces. Done
Very well said, Oxbow!
Thanks Adolfcase, I had forgotten about this thread. We have many superb businessmen on this site that are willing to share their knowledge and experience. When someone comes and immediately discounts the experience of others I tend to get a bit perturbed. I think the thing that most impresses me about the people here is that they can have disagreements in a civil matter, and are willing to acknowledge the merits of another's viewpoint.
I was taught it 's exchange of known truths that have withstood the test of time. Truth or the exchange of know wisdom sometimes offend us, because we know it all. Ego gets in the way; There you have it, my way of skinning is the only right way, becomes the only way that works! Pistol Pete just got his degree and paper work to prove he,s right.It may have offended the person that his point of view was not the one choose or people where ganging up on him. Instead of trying to learn from a mistake; or different approach of doing things; which we all make, yes even the A team sometime has there moments of mishap. Let all take step back and thank good lord for another day above ground!As my old boss would say at the end of the day ,they(customers) are not calling during dinner and asking why you did this way.He always reminded who was signing the check and that was end of story. What was the thread about again? Moving on and good night to one and all!