A few projects I have done recently

[CM1995]

Thought I would post some pics and commentary on some jobs I have done recently.

This project was an interesting one. A frozen food processing facility was installing a new cooler. Problem was the building had a high water table underneath the slab where the new cooler was going. Our job was to excavate 22" of very sticky, very wet clay and replace with woven geotextile fabric and #57 stone to separate the water from the -10 F degree cooler that would sitting on top of it. The Engineer was worried the cooler would freeze the ground and buckle the $100K cooler. This project was done in July, a rather dry time in this part of the country and as you can see from the pictures, there was a substantial amount of ground water.

The staging area in the loading zone. T250, S300 and PC78


The bay we were working in. Friday afternoon we mobilized in and ditched the area to a sump pump.


Saturday morning we started hauling out the muck. It was a challenge with several large fans to keep the exhaust vented to the outside. The temp inside the plastic offed area was over 100 F.



Every bucket had to go out a loading dock door and into the truck. I don't know how many trips I made that very long Saturday.

 

[CM1995]

Some pics of the geotextile fabric and gravel going in. There was also a bore from the loading dock into the bay we were working on to allow the ground water to pass through and exit the cooler area (we did not do that).

One of many buckets of very wet, very sticky clay.


Woven geotextile fabric going down and gravel going in.



We started at 6 AM and left there at 11 PM, it was a helluva long day but we got it done.:dizzy We had to have our part done and cleaned up before the following Monday as they had shipments going out.

 

[CM1995]

A couple of more from the same job:

The Engineer wanted a french drain to collect any water that could be above the outside wall of the cooler room to be collected, piped through the area we excavated and filled with stone and tied into the drain that was bored to the loading doc area.

Loading out the spoil


The tie into the building, the cooler room is on the other side


Finished shot of the drain, prior to patching


This shows the amount of ground water we had to deal with. This is the end of the bore casing, draining into the parking lot/loading dock area


This was an add on while we were there. There was a section of the concrete parking/loading dock area that failed. We saw cut the concrete and excavated the subgrade, only to find probably the worst mess underneath a parking lot I have seen. Undercut about 10CY and pulled out an old tree stump. It was a wonder the concrete had held up that long with heavy truck traffic.:beatsme

 

[EGS]

Thought I would post some pics and commentary on some jobs I have done recently.

I always enjoy your posts CM. Looks like quite the interesting project.

Is that PC78 your machine or rental?
How is your work load looking for this year?

 

[CM1995]

Thanks EGS. I have finaly figured out how to resize batches of pictures on my Mac, so I have been going through them and picking out the interesting ones. I've got a couple of more projects that I'll post pics of as I get time.

The PC78, S300 and dump trucks belong to a business partner of mine. In this economy we have had to get creative and pool resources together to get and complete the few projects that are out there. The only piece of iron I had on that job was the T250.

 

[willie59]

Nice work CM. I've drilled and installed horizontal drains in that Alabama clay...damn stuff is like drilling peanut butter, and when you loose drilling fluid circulation and friction dries the stuff out, it'll lock up a drill stem tight.

 

[dirty4fun]

Very nice work in not so good conditions. Amazing to see the water table that high. Great to see you were able to pool you equipment and make the project work. Thanks for sharing with us.

 

[OldandWorn]

Interesting project CM...thanks for the pics! When I was reading your description of the work and cooler I kept thinking that I had heard about this project at some point. Maybe you mentioned it in an older post while doing the job. Nice to see the details and results.

 

[CM1995]

Thanks for the kind comments.

Yeah Willie, the ol' boys that made the bore had a tough time. They were there for 3 days for a 1/2 day bore. They shot the bore the first time and were 3" lower on the inside, which totally defeated the purpose of a gravity drain ointhead, so they had to pull out the casing and try to shoot it again. Problem was the sticky clay just kept guiding the bit into the existing hole. They finally shot it level and we blocked our 2" PVC (that ran from the back wall of the cooler room that connected the french drain on the upper side of the building) to provide a very limited amount of fall to the outside. The good part about that was the bore casing was 3' below finished grade in the cooler room, which will allow the head pressure of the ground water to push it through.

Dirty, that's the way we have been working our projects here lately. I have know this gentleman for over 20 years and we have a good working relationship. In this economy we don't want any payments for new iron or pay rent for something the other one has, if that makes sense. We take the jobs, choose the proper piece of iron out of both our stables for the job and estimate the costs. Once the job is completed, the equipment is paid according to the estimated costs and then the remainder (overhead and profit) is split 50/50. In essence we are subs to ourselves. It's a little different way of doing things and as long as you have trust in your partner, it works well. The emphasis being on trust.:cool2

Oldandworn, I think I did reference this project in the past. This was done in July '11. I have a couple of more projects we've done and we are starting the conduit and pond filling job I started the thread on asking pointers of blowing a string through conduit today. With the rate I am going on posting pics, those pics should be in this thread sometime around October..

 

[maddog]

nice job.

 

[CM1995]

Another pic of the parking lot repair. This shows how nasty it really was.




I filled the hole with 2 layers of geotextile and #57 stone. It was the best we could do with the amount of $$ the owner wanted to spend.

 

[CM1995]

I went to "help" my 82 year old Grandpa take down 2 30" + pine trees in his back yard that were dead due to pine beetles. This is how this went - Friday afternoon my mom calls me and tells me that Grandpa is going to cut down the 2 dead pines in the backyard by himself and no one is able to talk him out of it.:cool2 Now I feel totally responsible for this since the weekend prior I was visiting them and remarked about how he had two dead pines from pine beetles and how they needed to come down...ointhead

I take off to the Grandparents house that Friday and luckily Grandpa was having a problem with is 30 year old homelite and he wasn't able to start cutting before I got there. After a little discussion, it became his "idea" that we should wait until tomorrow, when I could bring the T250 and grapple down to "help" him clean up the trees once they're on the ground. Me and my Grandpa are close so I was really the only one that could talk him out of cutting those trees down by himself.

I'll tell you what, that old man worked my butt off cutting those trees up. It was 100 degrees and I had to work faster than him (this is a man that would literally frame houses by himself :cool2) cutting up the trees because he wasn't going to take a break until they were on the ground and cut up ready to pile. Luckily I had borrowed a Husky from a friend of mine and it worked circles around the homelite.

Unloading the machine, my trusted buddy and partner laying in the grass supervising..

 

[ddigger]

Well done on all counts.

 

[CM1995]

Thanks ddigger!

Now this was one of those projects that I really love to do. No engineers, no staking, no specs - just meet with the landowner and make their vision a reality. This was on a "gentleman's" farm where the owners wanted a new drive that would go over the pond dam and connect with the existing driveway to make it a circle. The owners live full time in Arizona and this farm is where they are planning on retiring in a few years. It was a pleasure working with this couple and I am sure I will be down there again.

Stripping the topsoil for the new driveway. Notice the tire tracks in the grass, that was where I rode with the wife around to determine where she wanted the new drive - the true essence of "design-build".



Topsoil is stripped and ready for red dirt to go in to bring the drive to grade before stone goes down. I was able to borrow the red dirt from on site and in turn bury some brush/stumps the owner had piled up, in the borrow pit. He was very happy to have his stump piles cleaned up.


Red dirt is bladed in over the pond dam and ready for the compactor. There are two ponds here, one upper and one lower. They were nicely stocked for small ponds.


Fueling up at the end of the day. I did this project by myself other than the drivers tailgating the stone.


Once again my "supervisor" on the trail of some unknown to me scent.


This guy was cool to work with. He brought his Kubota to cut the fields and duct taped to his dash was an Ipad, so he could listen to music and receive his emails. Nothing like a "high-tech redneck".:drinkup

 

[dirty4fun]

Nice job DFC, hey no mud. You had to like that, and sure makes thing go so much better having good conditions.

Glad you have worked out a way to pool with another person to do the bigger jobs. It would be nice if I could get into a deal like that.

Thanks for sharing real good pictures.

 

[CM1995]

Thank you for the kind words dirty4fun. I have had to think outside the "box" in order to get work and so far, so good. I have been burned by a couple of partnerships in the past and armed with that hard earned knowledge, I proceed with caution and surround myself with good people, or try to anyway. Yeah, not having to deal with mud, tight working conditions and an almost unachievable timeline was a nice change.

This project involved putting down some RAP on a private driveway. The drive had a good gravel base but one section was pumping, so we laid down some non-woven geo-textile we had at the shop to bridge the area. The hydro-seeder on the trailer behind my pickup was used to wet the RAP down, something I learned here on HEF. This was the first project that I have used RAP on and it worked OK. It was August when we put it down and we used several tanks of water while we were spreading and compacting it.



First load spread with the truck


Finished section

 

[Dozerboy]

Nice work

 

[CM1995]

How is your work load looking for this year?

I missed that question EGS. So far 2012 seems to be picking up. Right now we are booked up through April, beginning of May with larger jobs that we have not seen in a while.

We are starting a conduit and temp. retention pond fill-in tomorrow. On this same project I am also bidding extending a street 200 LF - grading, sewer (storm and san) and domestic water. The developer has sold one of the lots to a local credit union to build a new bank and all this work is in order to get this lot ready to build on. Friday I received the site plans from the construction manager for the credit union to bid on their site work as well. The PM for the CM wants us to do the work since we are familiar with the site and will already be there. They will have export from the bank site and we have it worked out with the developer to use the export on-site in other areas and in exchange the developer is giving them topsoil in return. With this arrangement, we will be under anyone else that prices the job.

I have another large job lined up 1hr away from home base that involves grading for erosion control - rills, ruts and slopes, that will take a few weeks to complete. This job also involves quite a bit of rip-rap which my partner will be hauling with his tri-axles.

So far so good and I am holding my breath that it stays this way.

 

[JDOFMEMI]

Glad to hear things are looking up CM.

Nice projects you have posted there.

Like you, I have more work lined up than I have seen in a while, if I copuld just get it started. Agencies are slower than ever in approving permits.

 

[CM1995]

Thanks Jerry, glad to see some work loosening up on the other side of the country as well.

I think the economy is improving, albeit very slowly. Certain segments seem to be doing OK - industrial, retail and commercial but anything residential, other than a few custom build projects, is non-existent.

Same here with the permitting agencies, everything seems slower to get started even thought there is not much going on.:beatsme