As someone that has literally documented the History of Demolition in the States for the last 15 years I have seen almost every conceivable method to take down a structure.
The High Reach Attachment is used for a variety of reasons, but first and foremost to deconstruct a structure in the safest way possible.
In 1990 while living in Italy my camera became trained on local construction sites that caught my eye. Standing in the middle of every construction site of every country I visited was a piece of machinery I had never seen before. It was a tower crane. In the US, at that time, the use of tower cranes was few and far between. Now they are everywhere.
While shooting Boston’s Big Dig from 1998-2005 there were multiple technologies used that were invented, refined as improved on that were used to help construct the $14.8 billion Central Artery Tunnel Project. These were mostly construction technologies that were not from the US. Advanced Slurry Wall technologies came from Italy and Germany. Soil Mixing, Grout Injecting and Saline Soil Freezing Methods came from Japan. Mechanically every manufacturer worldwide had one state-of-the-art piece of heavy equipment somewhere on the Big Dig. In fact, even the massive 475 foot long walking gantry for placing viaduct road segments came from Sweden and Italy.
Having traveled extensively in the UK and Europe in the last 25 years there is only one thing to say. Everything we do in the States is totally different from the way ‘you’ do things over there. Not to say that our way or your way is the right or wrong way. It’s just different.
There are so many vastly different factors to consider. For everything from the time you get up in the morning to the time you go to sleep.
Speech, language, automobile sizes and uses, truck weights and models, food on our tables, the way we school our children, our sports heroes, our life heroes, rules and regulations of towns, local and civil governments, rules on the job site, expectations, training, EVERYTHING is different.
I was asked early on, from Mark Anthony of Demolition News, to join this debate and knew it would stir up a lot of emotional responses so I decided to see how things would play out before voicing my observation.
It is unfortunate that we, as people, are drawn to the entertainment of the suffering of others. It seems the videos that get the most attention on YouTube are those that are failures, loss of human life and injuries caused by reckless behavior. It is human nature.
It is even more unfortunate that most of the ‘demolition gone wrong’ videos have originated from the USA thus lumping every demolition contractor into the ugly American category.
I once posted a video of ‘textbook’ method for pulling down a water tower from the top of a 5-story building. The comments were unbelievable. Most felt it would have been better if it were cut up piece-by-piece and systematically dismantled. Others felt that a HRD would have been better attacking it from various sides to tear it apart.
But the comment that really took the prize came from the UK, from someone I used to have a lot of respect for. He stated that the location of this demolition was obviously from the REDNECK area of the United States and that HSE in the UK would have shut–down the site.
Needless to say that comment started a whirlwind fury of back and forth comments, opinions, gossip, accusations. Much like what is going on in this thread.
We as American’s have our way of doing things, some of it is good, some of it great and some not so great. Perhaps and better way to title this topic, that obviously was meant as a jab in the kidney’s, would have been ‘How have High Reach Excavators Helped your Company?’
My answer to this question would have been.
One of my biggest clients, Testa Corp, uses a Jewell High Reach Attachment that is mounted to a Komastu 1250 PC platform with a reach of 100 feet as a base machine and 120 feet when used with the extension member and weighs in at 200 tons.
They make use of the high reach attachment when certain factors apply to safely and accurately dismantle a project. They have 1 high reach attachment that is easily transported and can be quickly assembled. Additionally, they have a single highly trained professional operator that travels with the high reach attachment wherever it is deployed.
To end my contribution to this debate I have one question for you.
A friend of mine, a Scotsman (born and raised) is visiting me here in the States this week. While he has been here many times before he asked quite a peculiar question that I found rather odd.
He wanted to know why everywhere he went he saw American flags flying. He’s seen them on cars, on trucks, flying from flagpoles in people’s yards, on the front the front of houses, everywhere.
He said that in the UK it is illegal to fly the Union Jack and he wanted to know why it isn’t illegal to fly our flag here in the states?
Just curious. Seems ridiculous that you can’t fly the flag of your own country whenever you want…
