A few projects I have done recently

Hat's off to ya CM, you do some damn good work even if it's outside of your wheelhouse, my dad used to be the same way, take you're experience and tackle a new challenge and knock it out of the park in the process.

CM I have never done anything close to that, but I do agree with the getting older pick the lower hanging fruit. Since I turned 71 in June I pick and choose but still enjoy a challenge. I can't wait to go to work in the morning and depending on what the job is still try to put in 10 -12 hour days. Why because I just plain enjoy working!

willie59 said:

Hat's off to ya CM, you do some damn good work even if it's outside of your wheelhouse, my dad used to be the same way, take you're experience and tackle a new challenge and knock it out of the park in the process.

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Can't take all the credit Willie, all I did was estimate the job the best I could and put a number on it. It takes a crew to pull it off.

dirty4fun said:

CM I have never done anything close to that, but I do agree with the getting older pick the lower hanging fruit. Since I turned 71 in June I pick and choose but still enjoy a challenge. I can't wait to go to work in the morning and depending on what the job is still try to put in 10 -12 hour days. Why because I just plain enjoy working!

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Dirty it's why we do what we do. I couldn't imagine taking another career path or heaven help me a desk job.

CM1995 said:

Can't take all the credit Willie, all I did was estimate the job the best I could and put a number on it. It takes a crew to pull it off.

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That's the thing CM, by you taking on this job, and working with your crew, they are learning new things that will advance them, doing things they wouldn't dream of doing on their own. Same thing happened with me, working with Dad, lead me in ways that separated me from him all because he taught me to use my head, ended up being a heavy equipment mechanic, nothing I trained for, just followed my passion and used my head to learn it. You're doing work with your crew that you don't even realize even if they stay with you. You're making memories of work done for some of your guys, and some may move their own lives from that experience all from your leadership. Carry on my friend.

I guy I worked for when I was 21 told me: "If a customer asks, never say we can't do it. The correct answer is, of course I can fix that, what is it?"

I have lived by that my whole life.

What working with Dad taught me, don't be afraid to take on new things...if...those things are within your mental ability to noodle them out. That's what you've done. You have the training, you have the experience, you're just expanding both. And trust me, with leadership like that, you're men will follow and learn the same lesson. Carry on my friend.

Forgot to give credit to Craneop for rigging advice. The first couple of boxes we were doubling our 4 leg chain sling through the wire rope loops for the tea cups. He suggested we use 1" shackles for the connection in order to save wear on the wire rope.

His advice was taken and expounded on. The 349 just didn't like handing the boxes on flat ground with the end of the stick that high so we bypassed the 4 leg chain and shackled the wire ropes directly to the 4 leg chain ring. Amazing how much difference a couple of feet made on handling.

This was the original rigging on the first day we unloaded a box.



After Craneop's advice and tweaking.



This set up allowed the 349 to carry a box with ease across the site.

Box #9 of 11 going into the hole. Overall we 66+ LF of culvert to remove and replace. 10 - 6' box sections, 1 - 4' section and 2 - 1' PIP connections.



Lowering #9 into the hole.



Pushing #9 into place with the 325FL as the 349 holds it up. The molds for these boxes were not the same. Some boxes had an 11" thick floor and some others had a 10-10 1/2" thick floor. It made for "interesting" tongue and groove mating with some foul words along the way. Fun stuff..

Box #11 the 4 footer rigged up and going to the hole. We had to dowel #5's on 1' centers on the new box and existing culvert. The end boxes were flat faced, no tongue or groove.



#11 going into the hole. Going, going..



Gone!



I have some slightly used wire rope loops and tea cups for sale in addition to a Grade 120 4 chain sling rated for 34K lbs plus.

Upstream connection to the existing culvert saw cut and ready for #5 dowels. On a side note, bought a Milwaukee M18 1" SDS hammer drill for this project. It will drill 12 - 3/4" holes 6" deep in 100 year old plus concrete on one battery, not too shabby IMO.

Had to run 2 - 3" mud pumps at times to keep the upstream water at bay. Built a plywood dam to back the water up for the 3" pumps. Tapcon'd the 2x4's to the side of the existing culvert. Silt fence fabric and sand bags helped seal the upstream side of the dam somewhat with sand bags on the down stream side for support.

Used 2- 2" submersible pumps downstream of the dam to keep the hole dry. Worked pretty well.

The culvert had a brick floor that was hard as hell. The bricks were harder to hammer than the 14-16" thick concrete walls.



Caught this pick of #57 bedding stone being sprinkled from the excavator bucket. Thought it was a cool shot.



2 weeks ago we poured the connection for the first box. Today the last box went in. It's been a challenging and rewarding part of this project. I never say never but if this was our last 8x10 box culvert project it wouldn't hurt my feelings.

This is one of the bricks from the floor of the existing culvert.

Graves Brick company was founded by William Graves a real estate developer that started a brick company to supply brick for his speculative buildings in 1901. Graves later won the contract to supply bricks to the City of Birmingham which led to starting Graves-Mathews paving company. The companies were merged before they closed in 1920.

I love old stuff like this and the history that goes along with it. Fortunate enough to get several of these old bricks along with other manufacturers whole out of the demo debris. The Graves brick had two different stamps - one stamped in the brick and one a relief out if that makes sense. I've got to clean up the ones with the relief out, when I get them cleaned up I'll post a pic.



A little therapy on the 953C pushing the spoils and concrete demo from the culvert demo at the dump. I always "volunteer" myself for dump duty.



I've collected a few intact bricks at the dump as they come in on the loads.

CM, what a accomplishment that one you will remember the rest of your life and tell story’s about it 20 years from now. Nice to have photos of the work when the memory dims.
We have yet to take on something that large and from your comments I know if asked some day I can’t get enough money for it lol.
Really appreciate you sharing it with us like everyone else.

Oh and as far as dump site duty goes, I have been doing the same thing, been doing it on your current project since January 1. It is nice to just get away from the job site to the peace and quite of the dozer running if that makes sense. Then the cell phone rings always, unfortunately.

Thanks Jmac.

This project is the largest dollar contract we've ever taken on. Almost our entire 2019 contract volume. A little back story on how it came to be.

Received an invitation to bid on the project from the largest GC we work for in late Feb of this year. Joked with my wife and business partner - " We won't get it but I think I'm going to bid it". Famous last words...

So I started digging into the estimate and getting material prices. This project had 22K CY's of export and our dump is a 30-45 min round trip from the site including loading time, depending on traffic which gave us a leg up on the competition.

Bid day to the GC gets here which is a week or so before actual bid date and the estimator starts calling me. I get nervous as I know what this could mean..

Estimator in one of the many phone calls we had asks me if I've given my number to the other 2 GC's, which I reply - "No. I wouldn't bid this type of job with any other GC than you guys. We have a relationship that I don't have with the other 2 GC's. Those guys would gobble up and spit out a little sub like me". The phone went silent on the other end for a minute...at that point I got really nervous, I knew my number was the lowest and actually had a shot at getting the job. "What did I leave out?" is the only thing going through my mind.

Now this happens in the middle of March and CV19 is upon us. The bid invitations for our normal small retail and restaurant projects dropped off like car off a cliff - silent. The job is bid on March 18th to the owner. A week later my GC is awarded the project. I get a call from the senior PM prior to a letter of intent, which was a vetting call. Although we have done many smaller projects with this GC, they work in a different division and didn't know us. It was the typical "can you do it and do you want it" type conversation, I guess I passed.

Received our letter of intent, the Wife and I decided to jump in after much deliberation as we didn't know what the future work load would look like and this job is a government job with guaranteed funding. We needed to keep our crews busy and revenue coming in.

Signed the contract in late March and they wanted us to start the first week of April, a full month ahead of the contract schedule. Mob'd in early April and the rest is documented up thread.

CM,
I have been there myself. I think our businesses are pretty close in what we do. Here in NY the government work that large is scary because of the rate pay we have to abide by like laborers starting at around $56 an hour and every one else above that. So the labor can catch up to you if you have any unforeseen problems.
If you think back you always had to take the next leap in size and faith every time it’s scary, certainly has been for me. Up until now I haven’t had any business ending screw ups but not done yet. It’s like going to the casino and putting it on black. Always think I must be to low, I track the jobs daily as to expenses, money owed etc so hopefully at least a can tell early on if I am in trouble. I takes a big set to take the next leap out of your comfort zone but how do you grow if you don’t.
I have dump trucks and they give me a lot of heart break. Last week alone broke an axle on one and power divider on another. Tires like every day. Lol
I really enjoy your thread.

jmac said:

CM,
I have been there myself. I think our businesses are pretty close in what we do.

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Agreed. That's one thing about this forum that I like so much, like minded equipment people can get together and talk shop whether it be operators, small business owners, big business managers or mechanics helping another fix their machine. There isn't a lot of places where we can all talk shop.

jmac said:

CM,
I takes a big set to take the next leap out of your comfort zone but how do you grow if you don’t.

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Jmac I don't know if it's a big set, ignorance or sheer will - or a combination of all three.

jmac said:

I have dump trucks and they give me a lot of heart break. Last week alone broke an axle on one and power divider on another. Tires like every day. Lol

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Gave up on on owning our own trucks last company go around in the 2000's. I've found it's cheaper to hire them for the day and sign them out at the end of the day. No payroll, no payroll taxes, fuel taxes, tires, maintenance, etc - just an hourly ticket for the day. Build the price into the job with markup, if I get the job I get it, if I don't I don't. Haven't missed a meal yet.

jmac said:

I really enjoy your thread.

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Appreciate that Jmac.

Spot on CM, leave trucks to the truck contractors. With our current emission laws, trucks are no longer trucks, no, they're insatiable money pits with no end to expense, let someone else deal with that overhead.

I agree with you guys on trucking but take the job I am on now. We have been on it for six months and exported around 25,000 yards to a dump site a couple miles away. Every day since the beginning we had 1 to 4 trucks running either hauling off or hauling back in. Conservatively we have had 120 days of trucking with at least two trucks running. Trucks for hire are $90 an hour so $720 a day times two, that’s $1440 a day times 120 = $172,000. That’s a budget busters for sure. Also I have at least one sometimes two trucks running most days during summer hauling asphalt for hire at the same $90 an hour rate. I also can’t find trucks for hire because they are always running asphalt for the plants. Upstate New York puts lots of asphalt down every year because of the salt and plowing they use every winter. Trucks are by far my biggest expense and my biggest head ache but owning my own I think is still cheaper in the end. I am always looking for a better way though.

Agreed Jmac it all depends on your business model. Trucks just don't fit into mine. Tags and insurance is so expensive then add in O&O costs and you have to keep your trucks running all the time. I prefer to hire them out. BTW - the going rate here for tri-axles is $85-90 an hr.

The projects we do vary widely on import or export. I prefer export jobs as it's easier to get rid of dirt especially the smaller the city/town is. Someone is always looking for dirt.

We did an Autozone in a small but developing city last year. Project had several hundred yards of export. Guy that owns the drag strip on the edge of town who is also a city councilman came by the job and asked if he could have all the dirt we had to get rid of and he had his on truck to boot. Needless to say we made a contact and a friend on that job.

If I were to run my own trucks I would do them like you Jmac have several and hire them out running asphalt or aggregates when they weren't on my jobs. If a company has DOT DBE status they can keep all their trucks busy all the time on State road projects here. That's how the big road builders hit their DBE participation percentage.