CM's not so exciting demo part Deux [Archive]

CM1995

03-19-2009, 07:28 AM

Don't you just love the smell of a old burnt house. You just can't describe it... and it will not go away!

This is the best way I can describe it - a burnt house smells like charcoal, burnt plastic, mildew, and for folks that have been around steel mills - a coke plant (not the drinking kind or the other kind:rolleyes:, the coal kind) all rapped up into one lovely odor. Oh yeah and the nice super fine ash that floats everywhere, I was glad this one was still wet from the rains, it helped keep the dust down. Although with it being wet, the tonnage at the landfill goes up.:bash

Careful !! You might hit the cab, or knock off a light...

LOL - I use the old fashioned method - paying attention.:D

Wolf

03-19-2009, 04:24 PM

great demo pictures, man. I know what you mean about the stink of the old house. Yuk!

Dirtman2007

03-19-2009, 09:08 PM

This is the best way I can describe it - a burnt house smells like charcoal, burnt plastic, mildew, and for folks that have been around steel mills - a coke plant (not the drinking kind or the other kind:rolleyes:, the coal kind) all rapped up into one lovely odor. Oh yeah and the nice super fine ash that floats everywhere, I was glad this one was still wet from the rains, it helped keep the dust down. Although with it being wet, the tonnage at the landfill goes up.:bash

LOL - I use the old fashioned method - paying attention.:D

Don't forget about the deep freezer full of meat that has not been opened for the last 6 weeks in summer temperatures. I can still taste the oder in the air to this day as the truck pulled away with that "juice" leaking out the back:eek:

I know some people had to loose their lunch driving behind it... I know I almost did.

tyler5652@yahoo

03-19-2009, 09:25 PM

Don't forget about the deep freezer full of meat that has not been opened for the last 6 weeks in summer temperatures. I can still taste the oder in the air to this day as the truck pulled away with that "juice" leaking out the back:eek:

I know some people had to loose their lunch driving behind it... I know I almost did.

ive had my share of them freezers busted open during demos

Turbo21835

03-19-2009, 09:29 PM

Don't forget about the deep freezer full of meat that has not been opened for the last 6 weeks in summer temperatures. I can still taste the oder in the air to this day as the truck pulled away with that "juice" leaking out the back:eek:

I know some people had to loose their lunch driving behind it... I know I almost did.

Come on, thats easy as pie, you get used to it. Just like working at a landfill. I actually did a job at a rendering plant. Actually I should say a transfer station for one. One part of the business was handling waste cooking grease, that side smelled like french fries. The other side of the plant the ground up whole dead cows, and left overs from butchers. Pretty cool operation despite the smell. Still amazing to see a machine that can grind up pretty much anything, except for cow skulls. Apparently they are too tough to grind up.

Pretty cool, they take all that stuff. Cook up. Some parts go for animal food, fido likes beef. Some parts go to cosmetics. Finally, other parts are used to make gelatin, YAY JELLO!

CM1995

03-19-2009, 10:14 PM

Don't forget about the deep freezer full of meat that has not been opened for the last 6 weeks in summer temperatures. I can still taste the oder in the air to this day as the truck pulled away with that "juice" leaking out the back

I know what you mean. The last demo I did was a burn down as well with a fully stocked fridge that was not burnt, which was also not opened for a few months during the summer. Every piece of mechanized gear with an air conditioner on the job (roll-off, dump truck, loader) had that absolutely discusting smell in it for over a week. You could let the loader sit for the weekend and get in Monday morning and remember the frig at the demo.:rolleyes::bash

Come on, thats easy as pie, you get used to it

Turbo - you are a sick individual. LOL

Couple more pics from today-

Cleaning up the main level walls. I made a hole to the basement to better gather the debris to be loaded.

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Picking up the remnants of the rear first floor wall that fell out instead of in, it was burned pretty bad, not much there to stabilize it when I took the other walls down.

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My carefully sorted scrap metal pile, I know scrap is not bringing as much as it used too, I guess just force of habit. Although I did get about a 3/4 of a 30 yard box when all was said and done.

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Finally down to the basement walls, block walls come down easily. I had 2 trucks running with a 45 min round trip to the landfill, so we were slinging some cans. Didn't have any time during the day to take any more pics of the main floor system demo. Plywood subfloor is very aggravating, I like to gather it up in one spot and put it into the bottom of an empty can, smash the hell out of it and then top it off with "fines".

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Real shame this nice old Chevy pickup was under the deck when the house burned. The people were not home at the time and all they were able to salvage was their new Dodge Charger from the garage. Don't know what they are going to do with it, too much trouble to remove the gas tank and tires with today's prices for us to take it as scrap.

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CM1995

03-19-2009, 10:27 PM

All that is left is the "inert" material from the basement - block, brick and concrete that goes to a seperate area of the landfill and of course a cheaper disposal fee.:cool:

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It's really un-nerving how easily concrete blocks walls will come down.

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I had to "live load" the roll-offs due to the very wet clay soil. By the time we got to the heavy stuff, the dirt in the front yard had become the consistency of "play-doo":rolleyes: and the boxes would not load right on the trucks.

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I think I got a cab light.:cool:

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Down to the basement slab. The problem I ran into was the dirt was very wet and very soft. When I took the block walls out I had several cave-ins which added more dirt to sift through.:bash At this point we had a flat-rate at the landfill for inert materials, so it wasn't soo bad.

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hi-ball

03-19-2009, 11:32 PM

As for the old truck you might want to give a local auto wrecker a
call usually they will haul away for free. hi-ball

Dirtman2007

03-20-2009, 07:08 AM

Don't know what they are going to do with it, too much trouble to remove the gas tank and tires with today's prices for us to take it as scrap.

37350

you have a excavator, yank the tires off, rip the gas tank out and smash it to hell. then you should have a full load of scrap then. This is just a redneck thinking tho:drinkup

Wolf

03-21-2009, 05:41 PM

CM1995

03-21-2009, 08:27 PM

you have a excavator, yank the tires off, rip the gas tank out and smash it to hell. then you should have a full load of scrap then. This is just a redneck thinking tho:drinkup

Yeah, after you get done ripping off the tires and gas tank, like Chris says, just pick it up in the jaws of the excavator, and drop it down like 30 feet. Have some fun making it ready for the scrap man. Drop it and smash it up good. Get out your aggressions man.

Well umm... at the time I didn't really have the salvage rights to it but the inner junk man was thinking about it.:rolleyes: Actually the builder called me yesterday afternoon and said the homeowner wanted it gone. Of course I pulled my metal can out previously and sent it to the shedders. He asked if I would "take care of the truck" which of course I said no problem:bash.

Now I don't want to bring another can out just for the truck because the roll-off business is actually picking up, so I am reduced to the "how much will you give me for a burnt truck with no title" wrecker guys.:rolleyes::cool2

Wolf

03-21-2009, 09:27 PM

I am reduced to the "how much will you give me for a burnt truck with no title" wrecker guys.:rolleyes::cool2

or you could run a charity event and let the neighbors just take a sledgehammer to it. great fun.

there's always the option to "donate it to charity."

so let us know how much you do get for the burnt truck.

John K

03-22-2009, 08:39 AM

Hey CM,

Nice to see a fellow Birminghamian here.:)

CM1995

03-22-2009, 08:40 AM

so let us know how much you do get for the burnt truck.

I did take a 3/4 full 30CY can of burnt appliances, sheet metal, water heater, A/C units and furniture from this job across the scales and got $163 for it, not too bad for tin scrap.

The burnt truck saga continues into next week.......

CM1995

03-22-2009, 08:49 AM

Hey CM,

Nice to see a fellow Birminghamian here.:)

Welcome to the Forums John!:drinkup Glad to have you here. I have lived in the 'ham my whole life except for a couple years down south at AU.

This particular demo was in Pleasant Grove, which I am not too familiar with. I don't think I have ever seen as many 12th Ave, 12th Plaza, 12th terrace, 12th street - all in the same neighborhood.:beatsme

Wolf

03-22-2009, 09:48 AM

I did take a 3/4 full 30CY can of burnt appliances, sheet metal, water heater, A/C units and furniture from this job across the scales and got $163 for it, not too bad for tin scrap.

The burnt truck saga continues into next week.......

that's decent money for that kind of junk. not too bad. and since you own the can, it didn't cost extra for that. how much you think you will get for the burnt truck?

tracksfan

03-22-2009, 09:43 PM

on the smell of house demo, the rotten meat was bad but what really turned my stomach was the cologne, aftershave and perfume all mixed in with the rest. lord help ya if you walked through it you smell it every where you go for a week.

John K

03-24-2009, 07:34 AM

CM1995,

Thanks for the welcome. I would pm you but the site won't let me.:beatsme

CM1995

03-24-2009, 07:54 AM

CM1995,

Thanks for the welcome. I would pm you but the site won't let me.:beatsme

I sent you a test PM, reply to that PM and we'll see if everything is working right.

CM1995

03-24-2009, 08:35 AM

so let us know how much you do get for the burnt truck.

Well I didn't get any monetary value out of it but we sure did get alot of laughs. Like I said before the builder called me up and asked if I would get rid of it and they are a good customer so no problem I'll take care of it.

So we needed someone to come and get the truck pretty quickly, so we called a couple of salvage guys but with the tires and tank still on it and the motor and trans gone, there was not much there to really fool with. (I moved my hoe out while the trucks fate was still in limbo, too much trouble to mob it back). So we had to resort to ahem......the the "how much will you give me for a burnt truck with no title" wrecker guy. :cool:

I just need someone to come and get the truck. Turns out it's was a little harder than I thought until "Cooter" came to mind and this is the point that we decided to have some fun.. (His name has been changed in this story to protect the "innocent":rolleyes::bash). A little background on Cooter - he's the type guy that would spend thousands of dollars and many hours putting a lift kit with 54" tires on an '85 TransAm :rolleyes:, but he does have a roll back.:cool2

So we call Cooter up and begin to give him a story about this "special truck". When the story was finally spun, the truck was a collectors issue - 1 of 300 ever made and was once Bobby Allision's personal truck and if he didn't come get it soon, word would be out and Bobby was coming to get it. A little background - Bobby Allison is an old school NASCAR driver, back in the day he drove the Miller High Life car. Pleasant Grove is right next to Hueytown where Bobby Allison and his late son Davey Allison are/were from. Neal Bonnett another old school driver is also from Hueytown. Now back to the story.

We get Cooter pretty excited about this truck and the possibility that he is going to get something really valuable and then not have to pay for it. I negotiated $50 for the old truck, knowing that I would never see it but the price had to be low enough for Cooter to travel all the way across the City to pick it up. Well Cooter came and picked up the truck and cussed from the time he showed up until the truck left on the roll back, he did take the truck since he made the trip and spent all that money on gas. (He probably needed the bed for a Corvette/El Comino conversion:rolleyes:) Needless to say I didn't get my $50, never expected to but I got the truck gone and another happy customer, nonetheless.

Now this may sound like a mean thing to do to Cooter but you don't know Cooter. He's the type guy that if you sell him something you better get cash in hand before he leaves with whatever you sold him. Before I knew that I had the salvage rights to the truck, Cooter kept trying to get the address of the truck so he could "go look at it" but I knew if we told him, he would come snatch it and deny ever taking it. Yes this business sometimes puts you around unscrupulous people.:cool::cool2:rolleyes:

Dirtman2007

03-24-2009, 05:44 PM

Well I didn't get any monetary value out of it but we sure did get alot of laughs. Like I said before the builder called me up and asked if I would get rid of it and they are a good customer so no problem I'll take care of it.

So we needed someone to come and get the truck pretty quickly, so we called a couple of salvage guys but with the tires and tank still on it and the motor and trans gone, there was not much there to really fool with. (I moved my hoe out while the trucks fate was still in limbo, too much trouble to mob it back). So we had to resort to ahem......the the "how much will you give me for a burnt truck with no title" wrecker guy. :cool:

I just need someone to come and get the truck. Turns out it's was a little harder than I thought until "Cooter" came to mind and this is the point that we decided to have some fun.. (His name has been changed in this story to protect the "innocent":rolleyes::bash). A little background on Cooter - he's the type guy that would spend thousands of dollars and many hours putting a lift kit with 54" tires on an '85 TransAm :rolleyes:, but he does have a roll back.:cool2

So we call Cooter up and begin to give him a story about this "special truck". When the story was finally spun, the truck was a collectors issue - 1 of 300 ever made and was once Bobby Allision's personal truck and if he didn't come get it soon, word would be out and Bobby was coming to get it. A little background - Bobby Allison is an old school NASCAR driver, back in the day he drove the Miller High Life car. Pleasant Grove is right next to Hueytown where Bobby Allison and his late son Davey Allison are/were from. Neal Bonnett another old school driver is also from Hueytown. Now back to the story.

We get Cooter pretty excited about this truck and the possibility that he is going to get something really valuable and then not have to pay for it. I negotiated $50 for the old truck, knowing that I would never see it but the price had to be low enough for Cooter to travel all the way across the City to pick it up. Well Cooter came and picked up the truck and cussed from the time he showed up until the truck left on the roll back, he did take the truck since he made the trip and spent all that money on gas. (He probably needed the bed for a Corvette/El Comino conversion:rolleyes:) Needless to say I didn't get my $50, never expected to but I got the truck gone and another happy customer, nonetheless.

Now this may sound like a mean thing to do to Cooter but you don't know Cooter. He's the type guy that if you sell him something you better get cash in hand before he leaves with whatever you sold him. Before I knew that I had the salvage rights to the truck, Cooter kept trying to get the address of the truck so he could "go look at it" but I knew if we told him, he would come snatch it and deny ever taking it. Yes this business sometimes puts you around unscrupulous people.:cool::cool2:rolleyes:

haha, Ol Cooter huh LOL

I think we all know a couple people like that. atleast I do:bash

CM1995

04-27-2009, 09:32 PM

Started another house demo today. It was also a burn in a rather "blue blood" neighborhood.:rolleyes:

Warming the 315 up, ready to get started.

39817]

One gable end of the house that was burned badly, made for a tricky removal

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Only a couple of rafters and a partial stair wall holding the last dormer up

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Working my way into the foyer (pardon the reflection in the front windshield) I pealed the brick veneer off the front wall prior to collapsing it inside. You can see the OSB covering an old window on the right.

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Front load washing machine for the metal pile

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CM1995

04-27-2009, 09:48 PM

Working my way through the center of the house

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Coming to the new addition at the rear of the house. The very burnt gable to the left in the pic had me on my toes until it was down.

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Packing, ripping and stacking debris for the ramp. I was able to reach the burned wall prior to this pic and collapse it inside.

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Looking back down on the living room. I had an adequate ramp to reach the second floor at this point. I left these walls up on this side until the end to contain debris and dust from the house next door. And to boot, they had a shared driveway.:bash

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Closest neighbor (with the shared drive). Second floor I-joists can be seen in to the left.

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CM1995

04-27-2009, 10:09 PM

View of the carnage plus a nice blob of grease on the side window.:rolleyes:

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Taking out the I-joists in the hallway leading to the kitchen so the rest of the interior walls can "break" to the inside. The chimney in the background caused much anxiety. It was around 30' tall. I took all the wood walls down around it and collapsed it before I left.

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Grabbing the kitchen cabinets.

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Loading out the first 30 CY box. I called in the reinforcements and got a 100CY push out trailer. The push out trailer was a subcontractor and was there on the clock thus no time to take pics. :cool: You can get a lot of crap in a 100CY trailer. The truck is returning tomorrow, I will try and snap a few.

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End of a long day. So far hauled out 2- 30CY boxes and 1- 100CY trailer, 1/2 way there to getting it all out.

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Raildudes dad

04-27-2009, 10:27 PM

This particular demo was in Pleasant Grove, which I am not too familiar with. I don't think I have ever seen as many 12th Ave, 12th Plaza, 12th terrace, 12th street - all in the same neighborhood.:beatsme

In our jurisdiction we have the intersection of Reeds Lake Blvd, Reeds Lake Blvd and Reeds Lake Blvd. 3 legs of a 4 way intersection with the same name, actually 4 but there are no houses on the 4th short leg:beatsme. Makes for interesting 911 responses. Fortunately the 911 dispatch center has it figured out pretty good.

I like the demo pictures by the way. If I was going into business, that's what I want to do:)

Wolf

04-28-2009, 06:11 PM

Great demo shots, CM 1995. Looks like a pretty challenging, but fun, job you did. Get any pictures of loading up the 100 CY trailer? How did that go for you? Make any money on salvage from the job?

CM1995

04-28-2009, 08:20 PM

Great demo shots, CM 1995. Looks like a pretty challenging, but fun, job you did. Get any pictures of loading up the 100 CY trailer?

Thanks Wolf! I did get a few shots of the 100 CY trailer today. It is an older one with a ram instead of a walking floor but it did the job.:thumbsup

Loading the 100 Yard

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100 Yard pulling out loaded.

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My little scrap pile. 2 water heaters, storm door, HVAC duct and miscellaneous metal crap. A normal 2000-2500 SF house will have 4-5K lbs or so of scrap including the A/C units, water heaters, prefab fireplaces, HVAC duct, etc. You end up getting tin prices at the scrap yard due to the mix of different metals you encounter. It's just not enough to seperate into the different grades. I average $200-300 at the scrap yard (depending on current prices) for a house this size. It is worth seperating the metal while waiting on trucks for the load-out, the way I look at it instead of paying a $200 dump fee for that 30CY, you are able to get $200 or so at the scrap yard. This particular house had 3 cast iron tubs.;) This house also had some copper flashing and a boat load of copper plumbing which we were able to salvage a good bit of it.

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Turbo21835

04-28-2009, 08:48 PM

Cm, dont knock that "old style" push outs. They are about the best trailer for the demo business. One company I worked for had a few walking floor trailers that just could not hold up to the abuse. We ended up welding a piece of aluminum plate over the entire length of the trailer. They would not unload themselves, but this was done because the floors were just beat to hell. From that point on, all they did was haul scrap, since there would be a machine to unload them where ever they were headed.

The push outs always served us well. They held up to the abuse. In fact, when I was loading aluminum sheet out, I had to beat the **** out of everything to get a decent load on the truck. My first load I shipped a whopping 9,000lbs. The office was not happy, they wanted more. So the next round I beat and beat on things as i laid a layer of sheet, I would beat on it with the grapple. That load was a big load at 14,000 lbs. The scrap yard was not too happy about it though. They sent our office a picture, it was one giant bale of aluminum sheet. It seems the entire load came out of the trailer in one piece.

When it comes to your scrap. Do you separate anything, or just send it all? Most of the time, we try to sort out all the wire, copper pipe, aluminum, and any stainless steel. We take that with us at the end of the day. Its a little more hastle, but the return is usually worth it. Even better if you have a place where you can store the copper away for the future. Aluminum and stainless require too much space. While copper eats up a lot of space, it weighs enough to be worth it. Ill hold on to as much copper as possible. One day prices will be back through the roof.

Wolf

04-29-2009, 08:16 PM

While copper eats up a lot of space, it weighs enough to be worth it. Ill hold on to as much copper as possible. One day prices will be back through the roof.

So you are just stockpiling the copper until the prices come back up? About how much do you have in your yard? You must have a pretty big yard to be able to store it and wait out the price drop that has happened.

Wolf

04-29-2009, 08:18 PM

Like that 100 yarder CM 1995. Looks like you can pack it pretty good, and the trailer can take a beating. How far do they have to haul the material to get to the landfill? How many trips can they make for you in a day?

CM1995

04-29-2009, 10:28 PM

When it comes to your scrap. Do you separate anything, or just send it all?

On these small jobs I usually just seperate copper and all the other metal into two piles. There is usually very little aluminum, so I usually just throw it into the metal can. I usually don't spend much time on the wiring unless it is a large service cable. This house produced 5200LBS of class 2 unprepared at $110 per ton, not getting rich by any means but was worth going through it.

Wolf

04-30-2009, 06:43 PM

On these small jobs I usually just seperate copper and all the other metal into two piles. There is usually very little aluminum, so I usually just throw it into the metal can. I usually don't spend much time on the wiring unless it is a large service cable. This house produced 5200LBS of class 2 unprepared at $110 per ton, not getting rich by any means but was worth going through it.

Yeah, well worth it. Take whatever you can get for the scrap. It sure beats throwing it away, and paying dump fees. Besides, you are helping the environment too, the greenies would be happy with you, man.

D5G

04-30-2009, 11:53 PM

John K

05-01-2009, 07:07 AM

CM,

Was the house in Homewood? It looks like a old Homewood style house. Was it on a slab, can't tell?:)

CM1995

05-01-2009, 08:27 AM

Was the house in Homewood? It looks like a old Homewood style house. Was it on a slab, can't tell?

Close John, it was in Mountain Brook. The house was on a crawlspace, which part was built in the 50's or so and a recent addition on the rear. The older footings have a blue/green color concrete that sometimes contains glass. The aggregates used at the time were recycled from blast furnace slag, which was a byprodouct of the US Steel Foundry in Fairfield.

History Note - Birmingham got it's start as the "Steel City" due to the large forges and foundry's located around the city. ACIPCO (American Cast Iron Pipe), US Steel and a few small operations still remain today, but the large scale steel mill operations have withered away, replaced by the Medical and Financial Industries.

The geological formations in and around B'ham consist of iron ore, limestone, sand and coal, the ingredients for raw steel. I travel through "Red Mountain" about everyday through downtown, to our project north of the city. The mountain (would be a hill to some folks:rolleyes:) got it's name due to the iron ore deposits located with in it. There are old mines littered throughout the hillside and there is even a mining museum.

CM1995

05-01-2009, 09:00 AM

Looks like you can pack it pretty good, and the trailer can take a beating. How far do they have to haul the material to get to the landfill? How many trips can they make for you in a day?

Wolf I can pack it fairly well sitting on top of the pile. The 315's bucket is small (42") so it will easily fit inside the trailer to pack the debris down.

On this job the debris went to 4 different landfills, not that it was planned that way. The 100 yard went to their landfill and the truck had a 1.5-2 hour turn around depending on traffic. 20 min drive one way and 20 min to push it out. The reason why the waste went to 4 different landfills was the hauling we did in 30CY cans. We were pulling a few 30's out off the job while also swapping some 30's for other customers (never want to run without a box). So it went like this - drop me a 30 and I load it up. If we had a swap in the north eastern side of town, the can I loaded went to a landfill in that area, drop my empty and pick up the customer's, going back to the same landfill since it was closest and on to the next drop. I pulled a few at the end of the day that went back to our yard to be dumped at the county landfill a few miles away the next morning and on the route again.

Pulling a few 30's out while the house is coming down works pretty well depending on where we are swapping other boxes. I can load a 30 in 15 mins or so taking time to get a full packed can. If we have a swap close to my demo, the driver brings me the empty and I live load it. Take that can to the closest landfill and then take that can to swap out the customers. Dump that can and bring it back to me. That gives me some time to take down more of the structure and sort metal but also removing debris and making some revenue servicing our other accounts.

Wolf

05-01-2009, 03:05 PM

That gives me some time to take down more of the structure and sort metal but also removing debris and making some revenue servicing our other accounts.

Man, I am impressed. That is really smart of you to figure out how to get the 30s out to other customers, and generate more revenue, while you are swapping out the boxes you are loading with demo debris. I don't know how you figure it all out, but it sounds like you are making good money keeping the boxes in circulation like that.

Nice going, man.

CM1995

05-01-2009, 08:16 PM

CM, I must say, your demo topics are always very interesting to me. I am amazed how many burn jobs it seems you do, must be in a very highly populated area? Looks like you sure have it down, I am always impressed with the series of pics you also show. Keep up the great work, and please keep the pics commin.

Thanks D5G. B'ham is not a large city, the metro area is close to 1 million folks. As far as the burn jobs, they are the ones that have come up here lately.:beatsme These are insurance jobs where people actually have money to pay.:rolleyes:

I don't know how you figure it all out,

Wolf, I don't do it alone - credit goes to a very good general manager of the roll-offs who makes it smooth (and also drives).:thumbsup We are a small company(s) who are working our ass off to make it through these tough times, money is very hard to come by.