Commercial construction work pictures

[colson04]

That 916 looks like a handy size loader. We had a CAT 904b on our farm for loading feed wagon for several years. We put over 12,000 hours on that little baby loader before repairs got to be burdensome. The 904 was undersized for what we were asking it to do.

 

[skyking1]

I get home and the power company service crew is over at the neighbor. He is down about 70 volts on one leg and they determined it to be in the direct bury wire from meter to disconnect. The company mini is now landlocked and I also have the 120 on the job, so I will rent a 35 from the Cat dealer and bring it home tomorrow night, and dig in a new conduit with wire.

 

[CM1995]

Several UG utility companies around here ran 916's back in the 80's and 90's. They are a good size for sewer and water projects.

 

[John C.]

I seem to recall the 916 got renamed to something else as time went on. Does anyone else remember if that is true or not?

 

[skyking1]

The Cat dealer really wants my business. He made me a fine deal on a 303.5 rental. I got it picked up, and dug the trench in the dark for the power line. A giant cottonwood stump was right up against the pole and over the wire, and probably killed it. I tried every thing I could to get him to cut those trees down when they were small.
We ended up using a boom lift in 2020 to get them down safely, but the damage was done.

 

[skyking1]

I sneaked between these lovely trees with the new trench in the dark Thursday night.

 

[skyking1]

Here is a report on the Cat 303.5E2
The travel pedals are annoying. Easy enough to foot it forward, but any amount of backing up will have you going for the handles. Definitely not a fan of that.
It feels more bobby/tippy fore and aft with blade up.
The float option, that sucks. I want the blade down to dig over, now, no monkeying around.
The boom offset shifts a long ways to the left, that was nice.
Other "features". Compared to the JD, it has giant pockets for collecting dirt sticks mud in the middle, right around the travel motor hoses. Really a bad design. In the JD the hoses are protected, and there are a couple of castings that are easy to clean for daily transporting.

This particular machine was ill prepared to go out for rental. About 4 hours in I got the dreaded rough dying engine from a filter full of dirt/water. I cleaned it up and loaded it on the trailer ( more rough running from that climb ) to return to NC machinery. One would think they would just sump every machine every time.
It is a catch-22. Customers don't want to pay dealer price for fuel, but they have no quality control over the fuel. All a rental dealer can do is sump sump sump. They failed.
Travel brakes made noise. That was something I had not heard before.
retainer pin for thumb cylinder fell out and thumb pin had to be monitored and pushed back into place several times.

 

[CM1995]

Sounds like a typical rental machine.

As far as operation goes I agree on the tippyness of the 303.5 that's why I bought a 305E2 - night and day difference in operation and balance and not that much heavier. Haven't had any issue with debris around the travel motor hoses. Don't use the float option on a mini so no comment.

 

[skyking1]

I don't either. But there it is when I go to put the blade down to dig. This thing was tippy compared to my cab equipped 35G, so going for more of an apples to apples comparison. The job I am on now the 305/50 would have been a liability.

 

[John C.]

Most company rental machines there are lucky to see a recommended service let alone get cleaned. Many machines don't see a shop in three years. Most just go from one rental to the next to the next and so on. Many times they are sold off a job and we couldn't get the rental company to bring the machine in to be prepped for the sale. The company didn't put telematics on the rental machines so no one ever knew how many hours were getting put on them unless it broke and the renter called for repair.

 

[skyking1]

they are getting it back with hours to spare on an 8 hour rental, and an earful about their **** poor services.

 

[John C.]

It won’t bother them at all. I doubt anyone will even give you sympathy.

 

[JLarson]

I just bitch to get $$$ off.

 

[skyking1]

they fixed it, and I picked it up after work with a cleanup bucket and backfilled the job in the dark. I still have hours left on the rental.

 

[skyking1]

Back to the jobsite, this one is by far the best recent example of not wanting a bigger mini. This was today.

 

[skyking1]

Busy fun day on the job Wednesday. We had excavated inside a building with vac trucks to re-route a sewer line for a remodel. The trench was ~8' deep, 4' wide and 50'+ long, and inside an operating care facility.
The piping was all done and connected and we needed to backfill, so we hired a bark blower truck to blow pea gravel in through the windows with a hose.
I had mobilized the 120 excavator the day before, and today I hauled in 5 loads of pea gravel. I dipped it out of my truck and dumped into the bark truck, one hour round trips and kept them working and not driving to get more gravel. We placed 72 tons of gravel in 6 hours.
It was my first go with blowing in pea gravel. It went as well as it could.

The shallow end, just getting started. I never had time to go back as I was busy hauling and loading it into their truck

 

[colson04]

Why pea gravel? Can they blow sand in too, or is there a reason for the pea gravel?

We had this done at our farm a couple years ago, but I wasnt there when they did it so I dont know what they blew in. We had a 100,000 gallon under the barn manure pit that we abandoned and needed to be filled in. Hiring a blow in rig was the most economical way to get the out filled in.

 

[CM1995]

Why pea gravel? Can they blow sand in too, or is there a reason for the pea gravel?

Probably due to compaction. Similar sized pea gravel, like #57 crushed limestone we have, will be at 95% compaction just dumped in trench.

 

[hvy 1ton]

Busy fun day on the job Wednesday. We had excavated inside a building with vac trucks to re-route a sewer line for a remodel. The trench was ~8' deep, 4' wide and 50'+ long, and inside an operating care facility.
The piping was all done and connected and we needed to backfill, so we hired a bark blower truck to blow pea gravel in through the windows with a hose.
I had mobilized the 120 excavator the day before, and today I hauled in 5 loads of pea gravel. I dipped it out of my truck and dumped into the bark truck, one hour round trips and kept them working and not driving to get more gravel. We placed 72 tons of gravel in 6 hours.
It was my first go with blowing in pea gravel. It went as well as it could.

The shallow end, just getting started. I never had time to go back as I was busy hauling and loading it into their truck

View attachment 255289

That's has to be cheaper than pumping flowable.

 

[skyking1]

yes instant compaction. a quick cost breakdown:
I mobed in the day before, mobed out the same day. I billed 12 hours between the truck and excavator at ~$120 = $1440
Bark truck was a flat $3600
72 tons of pea gravel at $21 per ton = $1512
total ~ $6550
just getting the dirt out with vac truck?
$20K ++

I did not price CDF. I suspect it is ~$120 per yard so 52 yards is $6220, plus a pump and crew. Plus cleanup.