CM's not so exciting demo part Deux

[Wolf]

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]

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]

CM1995,

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

 

[CM1995]

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]

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.

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":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 , 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) 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.:cool2

 

[Dirtman2007]

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.

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":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 , 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) 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.:cool2

haha, Ol Cooter huh LOL

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

 

[CM1995]

Another Demo

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

Warming the 315 up, ready to get started.

]

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



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



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.



Front load washing machine for the metal pile

 

[CM1995]

Working my way through the center of the house



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.



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



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



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

 

[CM1995]

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



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.



Grabbing the kitchen cabinets.



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. You can get a lot of crap in a 100CY trailer. The truck is returning tomorrow, I will try and snap a few.



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.

 

[Raildudes dad]

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]

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]

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



100 Yard pulling out loaded.



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.

 

[Turbo21835]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

 

[John K]

CM,

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

 

[CM1995]

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) 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.