Various Jobs

Best Practices for Various Jobs

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Nice pics. Photos like this show a promise that maybe slowly things are beginning to recover. At least a little... Is the 200 rippin sandstone?John

JD8875 said:Nice pics. Photos like this show a promise that maybe slowly things are beginning to recover. At least a little... Is the 200 rippin sandstone?JohnClick to expand...John, yes that is some bad sandstone that showed up after we cut 4' off of one side of the site, thankfully it is only on that 1/2. It really has a tremendous wear factor on all machinery.

Thought that awful stuff looked familiar. We got loads of it in my neck of the woods just south of KC. Putting in 500' of poly water line at home this last week I had 8" of clay/topsoil and sandstone to 36". It's terrible stuff to wear on buckets, teeth, and any other GET's.John

A sewer service we installed with 16" of concrete road to get through on a state highway.

No dust masks and no water on the saws... wouldn't get away with that out here in Ory-gone. Well... the state would require diamond saw cut anyway.:my2c

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I agree some water to control the dust should have been used, dusk masks were available on site but we're not used. The saws are diamond blade saws that are for dry or wet cutting applications.

Yair . . .JBGASH. Crikey that's a good looking road mate, they don't make them like that over here.With that thickness of pavement to excavate and reinstate it must be getting close to worthwhile looking at horizontal drilling?I saw a small cobbled up set up working on our main tourist strip late last year. It had a 13hp Honda driving a hydraulic powerpak. They drilled a six inch hole under two lanes of non stop traffic.Cheers.

JB what's the story on the storm system in the first pics? I see a combo of PVC, ADS and RCP coming and going out of that junction box.Scrub it looks like he was tying in at the main, which normally runs the center line of the street, so directional boring wouldn't have worked.

Yair . . . gotchaCM1995. Showing my ignorance again. (big grin)Cheers.

CM, The storm box we installed was how it was engineered, it is getting the pvc and the ads lines from upstream and the main outfall is the rcp 30". The site is a new strip mall being built near a Wal-Mart Supercenter.Scrub, CM is correct we are replacing the sewer service from the home out to the city main line, as short and close quartered as the line is, it was not theasable to directional drill. It actually would be more work that way by the time you dig at each end of the drill shot in addition, we installed a new main "sewer tap" so excavation was needed no matter what in the street area.

JBGASH said:I agree some water to control the dust should have been used, dusk masks were available on site but we're not used. The saws are diamond blade saws that are for dry or wet cutting applications.Click to expand...No full face shield will get you a OSHA citation in MN. A kid working in Eau Claire, WI on a water line job about six or seven years ago for a local contractor there jammed and busted a carborundum blade in the ditch and a piece stuck him in the throat. They found him bled out trying to crawl out of the ditch. Not sure a face shield would have saved him but he lost his life and the company has never recovered. Better safe than sorry.

Old Iron, Good suggestion on the face shield use. I think I need to evaluate and update my saftey program.

Septic chamber failure. The pic shows a 22" wide leach field chamber that is sitting full of sewage effluent, we found that all 3 runs were failing also as well. We will install and design a LPP septic system (low pressure pipe) to correct the situation.

Drop manholeInstalling a drop manhole pipe

Was that a urinal in the manhole lol but on a serious note a good friend of mine is missing half of his face due to a demo saw. The blade jumped and caused the saw to kick back and hit him so hard it shattered his face shield. It is one of those damed if you do damned if you dont situations. The doctors said he would have been better off without the shield because the back if the blade gaurd is what got him. They said all he would have needed was a few stitches where the guard got him but since he had a sheild on they spent several hours picking shattered plastic out if his face

Good Grief Dude ! Are you out of your freakin Mind ? I can't believe you posted those pictures on the Interweb for the whole world to see !

All the company's I see doing that sort of work use road saws or saw attachments on their equipment, safety and fasterstill interesting to see your work

What is illegal about using a hotsaw cutting a road pavement with safety glasses on? This procedure is very common in our area.pafarmer said:Good Grief Dude ! Are you out of your freakin Mind ? I can't believe you posted those pictures on the Interweb for the whole world to see !Click to expand...

old-iron-habit said:A kid working in Eau Claire, WI on a water line job about six or seven years ago for a local contractor there jammed and busted a carborundum blade in the ditch and a piece stuck him in the throat.Click to expand...I am trying to figure out how he jammed a diamond blade hard enough to break it into pieces - was there a manufacturer's defect in the blade.Unfortunately I have had my share of time on demo saws.Always wear safety glasses, most always wear ear plugs and dust masks. If we have water available we use it for dust control. Very rarely do we have a fiber blade in the saw unless cutting metal. Our saw is mostly used to cut RCP.Due to my natural hatred for demos saws, if the job has a lot of cutting or it's deep cuts, I price the job to sub it out to the cutting guys.

JBGASH said:What is illegal about using a hotsaw cutting a road pavement with safety glasses on? This procedure is very common in our area.Click to expand...Who said anything about being illegal ? Where Did you see that said ?If one of your crewmen gets hurt using your highly documented practices, you are going to get an education from some insurance's companies lawyer you will never forget. Not looking for a fight, trying to help you speaking from my personal experience. I don't care what you do or how you do it, but you certainly should start....Hand sawing concrete, seriously ? Get a blade of your skidder or a road saw and make some money with your time....work smart , not hard...peace

Yair . . .pafarmer. Way over the top.What may work for you will not work for some of us . . . we are not all in a position to have all the bells and whistles.If you can afford and justify a cutting attachment goodonyuh mate you're do'in well.I've got a concrete saw out in the shed, I haven't used it for years but its there if I need it . . . Stihl wouldn't be making millions of the bloody things if we we're all going to end up in court . . . how about explaining how insurance lawyers got involved with an injury case if the operator had the correct safety equipment and training?Cheers.

Yair, your right ! What the hell was I thinking....tell me , you do much work in the good ole USA later ?Either your born with them or you never have them....A wise man speaking of balls and brains !I'm outta here !

Yair . . . Oh well ...Cheers.

Nobody's perfect and the 'verse knows I take shortcuts on my PPE, we can all use a reminder now and then, but geeze, no need to get all het up about things. Everybody does their work with the tools available, in the manner that is acceptable in their local and if present according to the stated job requirements, wherever in the world they are. Yes, in the US where juries have been known to award people stupid enough to spill hot coffee on themselves, or be injured burglarizing a home or business, millions of dollars in damages it is best to keep an eye out for ambulance chasing lawyers, but again, no need to get excited about it. Until they open the hunting season on lawyers and politicians (mostly the same thing) we just have to live with it.

pafarmer said:Yair, your right ! What the hell was I thinking....tell me , you do much work in the good ole USA later ?Either your born with them or you never have them....A wise man speaking of balls and brains !I'm outta here !Click to expand...This thread isn't about you

Pafarmer, I appreciate your comments and thoughts and take no resentment in any way. I am always open to any ideas and views from others regarding the type of work I do. I actually have 2 walks saws also, one was in use on another job we were doing at the same time and the other was in the repairs shop, so that left us with the ones in the pics. Kinda of a use what you have thing. We cut a lot of concrete with the hot saws year round including many concrete walls and so far in 20 plus years have never had an accident yet, IWill keep my fingers crossed however and hope for the good luck to continue. Thanks again Jeffpafarmer said:Who said anything about being illegal ? Where Did you see that said ?If one of your crewmen gets hurt using your highly documented practices, you are going to get an education from some insurance's companies lawyer you will never forget. Not looking for a fight, trying to help you speaking from my personal experience. I don't care what you do or how you do it, but you certainly should start....Hand sawing concrete, seriously ? Get a blade of your skidder or a road saw and make some money with your time....work smart , not hard...peaceClick to expand...

lantraxco said:Nobody's perfect and the 'verse knows I take shortcuts on my PPE, we can all use a reminder now and then, but geeze, no need to get all het up about things. Everybody does their work with the tools available, in the manner that is acceptable in their local and if present according to the stated job requirements, wherever in the world they are. Yes, in the US where juries have been known to award people stupid enough to spill hot coffee on themselves, or be injured burglarizing a home or business, millions of dollars in damages it is best to keep an eye out for ambulance chasing lawyers, but again, no need to get excited about it. Until they open the hunting season on lawyers and politicians (mostly the same thing) we just have to live with it.Click to expand...Lantraxco, I agree with you 100%' everyone needs a little wake up call now and then.

Scrub, Thanks, you are so right, everyone has different ways of doing things. I try to use what I have and make do.pafarmer said:Who said anything about being illegal ? Where Did you see that said ?If one of your crewmen gets hurt using your highly documented practices, you are going to get an education from some insurance's companies lawyer you will never forget. Not looking for a fight, trying to help you speaking from my personal experience. I don't care what you do or how you do it, but you certainly should start....Hand sawing concrete, seriously ? Get a blade of your skidder or a road saw and make some money with your time....work smart , not hard...peaceClick to expand...Scrub Puller said:Yair . . .pafarmer. Way over the top.What may work for you will not work for some of us . . . we are not all in a position to have all the bells and whistles.If you can afford and justify a cutting attachment goodonyuh mate you're do'in well.I've got a concrete saw out in the shed, I haven't used it for years but its there if I need it . . . Stihl wouldn't be making millions of the bloody things if we we're all going to end up in court . . . how about explaining how insurance lawyers got involved with an injury case if the operator had the correct safety equipment and training?Cheers.Click to expand...

Wow.... JB keep on keepin on. Life and business is about risk. We minimize it when we can and accept it when we have to. In an ideal world we'd all have remote machines to remove the operator to a safe area, robots to work in shored out holes so a person didn't have to get in the ditch, and things of that sort. Unfortunately we don't and some days we gotta do what we gotta do to get the job done. Lord knows I've done things wayyyyy worse than cut concrete with a hot saw and safety glasses before, both in this business and in my other job.John

JB - What's your process to repair the septic field? Is there enough land to just abandon that one and construct another or will you have to remove that one? Septic tank rules vary so much from county to county, state to state. It seems everyone has differing rules.There can be good money in **** if you know how to handle it.:tong

Good pics JB. Never spent much time around utility-type work so always nice to see something new. CM that applies to much more than just septic.

How bad does the ripper get the machine shaking, If at all?

CM1995 said:JB - What's your process to repair the septic field? Is there enough land to just abandon that one and construct another or will you have to remove that one? Septic tank rules vary so much from county to county, state to state. It seems everyone has differing rules.There can be good money in **** if you know how to handle it.:tongClick to expand...County to county is not bad,,,, here its township to township,,,, I wished we had countywide zoning,, well not really wish for it,, just wish the townships would standardize.

JB great pics,keep living the dream,Plumbing and drainage aren't for everyone,but its an honest earner,Just got to get putting up with a lot of ****e, sorry stuff that comes from some people,All people actually,some of the time. PAFARMER is definitely not a brother drainer.

Cm, to correct the septic at that site, we will abandon the existing leach field chamber type system that is 24 to 30" deep at present. We will instal a low pressure pipe system that will require a sewage pump, pump tank with high level alarm, and appox 600' of 1" PVC with holes drill in the bottom at measured intervals to provide even distribution over the entire 600' of pipe. The 1" pipe will be 18" deep, 8" wide with 12" of clean rock around the pipe and 6" topsoil.CM1995 said:JB - What's your process to repair the septic field? Is there enough land to just abandon that one and construct another or will you have to remove that one? Septic tank rules vary so much from county to county, state to state. It seems everyone has differing rules.There can be good money in **** if you know how to handle it.:tongClick to expand...

Sewage effluent lagoonAnother septic repair that a new sewage lagoon was installed instead of a leach field. This also has a septic tank upstream of the lagoon

Nice loader work JB. I see you have a quick coupler on the 953, how has it held up? Do you have a set of forks for it?

CM1995 said:Nice loader work JB. I see you have a quick coupler on the 953, how has it held up? Do you have a set of forks for it?Click to expand...Thanks CM, actually that is my 21 year old son that built the lagoon. Yes, I have a set of forks and also a 10' Dozer blade with side tilt for the loader that is excellent and used often. The Balderson, forks, Dozer blade & quick coupler has held up well and still is tight with 6k hours has been on it since it was new. The forks really come in handy when handling concrete storm boxes or manholes or any big heavy objects, also when we string ductile or larger heavy PVC pipe. We could not make it without that loader and we will buy another when it's time to trade again.

JB you've taught your son well.I have a set of over the bucket forks for the 953 but honestly I hate them, too cumbersome and hard to handle and transport. Is your quick tach manual or hydraulic?A real set of forks like the 420DIT has works great and I usually have it on the job when laying storm as a support machine but that doesn't always pencil out. It can handle a 36" headwall, 4x4 knockout box and pipe up to 36-48" effectively.BTW - I would have used a loader on that job too.:tong

It has it's own hydraulic power unit for the quick attach mounted in the rear left side of the loader, it is very similar to a Bobtac on a skidloader. This allows us to change any attachment from inside the cab in 30 seconds. I could see where the over the bucket forks wood be awkward.CM1995 said:JB you've taught your son well.I have a set of over the bucket forks for the 953 but honestly I hate them, too cumbersome and hard to handle and transport. Is your quick tach manual or hydraulic?A real set of forks like the 420DIT has works great and I usually have it on the job when laying storm as a support machine but that doesn't always pencil out. It can handle a 36" headwall, 4x4 knockout box and pipe up to 36-48" effectively.BTW - I would have used a loader on that job too.:tongClick to expand...

Septic sand filter systemThis is a septic sand filter system we built at a factory.

JB, what purpose does the hay serve?From the pics it looks like a layer #57 stone covered by pea gravel? Interesting work, thanks for sharing.

CM, the straw is placed on the top of the last layer of large sand (>8MM) to prevent the silt that is present at that site from migrating down into that layer and filling up the porus area around the grains of sand. I actually had a sewage / septic engineer we routinely use design this system that we have used in many past septic engineering jobs and have never had a failure yet with his designs. Landscape fabric would prolly do the same thing but he prefers the straw so we go with that.CM1995 said:JB, what purpose does the hay serve?From the pics it looks like a layer #57 stone covered by pea gravel? Interesting work, thanks for sharing.Click to expand...

Wont the straw rot over time?

All day, yes the straw will rot in time, but the engineer claims by then the soil has stabilized and will not migrate downward. He is correct because we have many of these we installed over the last 20 years that are still in use with no problem issues of any kind. We also do most all the Maient on them such as pumping the septic tanks and any pump issues needed.

Grease interceptorThis is a grease interceptor we installed for a nursing home facility.

Did you have gravity fall to the sanitary line or have to put in a pump? The last pic is why I ask.

Nice work JB !

CM, no pump was needed it was gravity to the sanitary main line in the street. We had to break out and repour all the concrete in the kitchen area and replumb and replace all the under slab plumbing and reroute it all into the new grease interceptor. This project was done with the kitchen still in partial use, we did use a sewage pump temporarily while we did the inside part of the job. This was to bypass the sewage flow while we rerouted the plumbing.Pafarmer, thanks for the kind words.

I could not work out why the engineer wants straw, whats wrong with Geo-Textile. For mine if that straw is say 600mm deep,and then you back fill over with sandy-lome soil, when the ground stabilizers some time down the track you have a 500-600mm void, and if someone breaks the top soil by driving over you have a 600mm + open trench ?. Whereas if you filled with rock to withwin 100mm of finished surface and then Geo over the top of rock-etc, then place sandy-lome soil over you wouldn-t have a sub-sidence problem ?

Sewer service replacementA sewer service we did

Garrie, We have installed around 30 of these type of design systems from that engineer and so far have never had a problem with any, I would agree that the geo would do the same thing however.Garrie Denny said:I could not work out why the engineer wants straw, whats wrong with Geo-Textile. For mine if that straw is say 600mm deep,and then you back fill over with sandy-lome soil, when the ground stabilizers some time down the track you have a 500-600mm void, and if someone breaks the top soil by driving over you have a 600mm + open trench ?. Whereas if you filled with rock to withwin 100mm of finished surface and then Geo over the top of rock-etc, then place sandy-lome soil over you wouldn-t have a sub-sidence problem ?Click to expand...

Sewage lift station repairsSewage lift station repairs we did

Nice work JB.I wish I had my plumbers master card just for work from the building to the main. In my experience, there is a hole in my local market for this service and money to be made. Did a Taco bell last fall where the plumber ran the main 4" PVC, set the grease trap and 1" PVC water service. The run was 120' or so, including catching the dumpster pad. We ended up digging for and setting the grease trap (they didn't know how to work a laser to level the gravel pad under the grease trap - I kid you not.) and digging the main sewer line by the hour for the plumber why we were there. Super told me that portion of work was $20K, I about fell into the trench.:cool2Alabama state law says a licensed plumber has to run from the building to the lateral. I can set main sewer line and run laterals to the property line under my commercial license up to $50K of job value but can't run from the building to the lateral. Yeah I know it's #$%^ up.

CM, I understand where you are coming from and that is exactly why I have a master plumber with gas license. We have done many commercial jobs consisting of all outside utilities and the inside plumbing because of that fact.

I hear ya' JB.On a dollar store we did recently, it required a fire hydrant and a tap on the main. Once again and I kid you not, the plumbers set their 334 mini-ex in the road with no traffic control on a busy street and dug 4' or so down to the main. They were cutting the asphalt with a quick saw as cars whizzed by them. It was so bad I didn't want to be on the job so I wouldn't be subpoenaed by the courts...Hydrant and tap was a $6500 job and the city supplied the hydrant.:cool2It seems our local plumbers are not set up to do this type of work as you are. I am sure there ones in my area that have the equipment and knowledge to do it but I haven't ran across them.

Its the same way in some of the counties in PA. We can run up to 5' from the building, anything else has to be licensed plumber. I would think that installing mainline and laterals is more important than the 5' from building to the lateral.

Commercial lift station replacementA small commercial sewage lift station replacement job we are doing in a rural town.

A commercial sewage lift stationA small commercial sewage lift station replacement job we are doing

Sewage lift station is installed and up and running

Well done JB......that was quick....What's the story on the bent yellow safety barriers ?

pafarmer said:Well done JB......that was quick....What's the story on the bent yellow safety barriers ?Click to expand...Pa, not sure what happened to them, they were like that when we arrive on the site, my guess a truck backed into them, just glad it wasn't any of mine!

Sewer relocationHere are some of a Convience store sewer line we reroute and replaced

Not a bad looking 1845C!

Is all of the soil in your area look like topsoil? That looks so strange to me, as dirt that black in my area is topsoil. How do you tell the difference between topsoil and "regular" dirt.Really enjoy seeing jobs from other parts of the country and how things are done.

Kshansen, thanks that is a1997 model that has been excellent, have only put batteries and 1 starter on it since it was new.Cm, our soil in this area is highly productive farm land that will easily produce 200+ bushel corn / acre as long as we get enough rain during the growing season. There is clay at about 36" deep below the top soil you see in the pics. The soil type in the pics is "marshall silt loam". It is appox 10,000.00 per acre to buy, if you could find some for sale.

Sewer service line replacementA few more pics

Septic system & leach fieldA few pics of a septic system we did. Space was limited so we used 34" wide chambers with a 1000 gal plastic tank.

Nursing home storm sewer repair job.A storm sewer repair we did that involved removing and replacing a couple hundred feet in a parking lot. Look closely at the drop inlet box by the road, it had 2 fiber optic lines, a 2" driscoplex gas line, primary 7200V power line and a couple other small lines we inserted the 18" SDS through the maze of utilities. Luckily no problems were encountered, we will pour the concrete road surface back and be finished in one more day. I am very blessed to have a great bunch of guys for employees, for without them, we would be nothing.

A pic of a residential sewage pump system we installed due to a collapsed sewer line that was inaccessible for repair.

Look closely at the drop inlet box by the road, it had 2 fiber optic lines, a 2" driscoplex gas line, primary 7200V power line and a couple other small lines we inserted the 18" SDS through the maze of utilities.Click to expand...Gotta love those tight tie ins. I hate tying into existing junction boxes for that reason, every other utility is right there next to it. Good job.Did a large auto parts hub store last year, had 2 3/4 water services and a phone line all less than 8' apart, which really sucks when you are laying 8' RCP.No comment on the basement stuff - that looks like manual labor busting and carrying all that concrete out, something I am highly allergic too.

Site cleanup and leach field jobSome pics of a lagoon we closed and filled, grubbed the brush and timber and installed a traditional septic lateral leach field

Yair . . .JBGASH. Is that perforated pipe just covered with gravel? . . . I don't see any umbrella trenching on site?By umbrella trenching I mean half circle plastic sections that cover the pipe before backfilling . . . we used to use 44 gallon drums split lengthways and well tarred.Cheers.

Scrub, Yes it is perforated pipe that has 8" of clean rock under it and also was covered with rock 4" over the top then backfilled with top soil.the trench width was 3' and No umbrella was used, we do however use chambers instead of the pipe method shown in the pics on some particular sites. Some soil types require different methods to achieve success with these sewage leachfields here in the area we live in.Scrub Puller said:Yair . . .JBGASH. Is that perforated pipe just covered with gravel? . . . I don't see any umbrella trenching on site?By umbrella trenching I mean half circle plastic sections that cover the pipe before backfilling . . . we used to use 44 gallon drums split lengthways and well tarred.Cheers.Click to expand...

A few pics some different jobs we r doing

I know I am a little late to the concrete saw/dust issue.I almost never saw concrete without water anymore, all the top tier saws already have the water kit with quick disconnect installed. Water = less stress on the saw as it cuts easier, less wear on those not so cheap diamond blades and less to no dust in your lungs (or saw). 55 gal poly drums with a little sump pump work great.

David427 said:I know I am a little late to the concrete saw/dust issue.I almost never saw concrete without water anymore, all the top tier saws already have the water kit with quick disconnect installed. Water = less stress on the saw as it cuts easier, less wear on those not so cheap diamond blades and less to no dust in your lungs (or saw). 55 gal poly drums with a little sump pump work great.Click to expand...Thanks David, the poly drums sound like a great idea along with the sump pump, I will give that a try

Your guys will grumble about having to take those extra steps but after they do it a couple of times they will grumble if they don't use water.

A few pic's of a low pressure pipe septic leach field, this LPP system is an alternative type when a conventional system will not work with poor soils

A sewer job we are doing with very dangerous soils.

JB, Do you put Geotextile matting over the top of your last rock layer before backfilling with soil, ? Just thinking soil penetration into the rock and absortion trench. keep plumbing.

Garrie Denny said:JB, Do you put Geotextile matting over the top of your last rock layer before backfilling with soil, ? Just thinking soil penetration into the rock and absortion trench. keep plumbing.Click to expand...Garrie, yes we do put geotextile over the rock layer to prevent soil penetration.

Here are few pics of a sewage lagoon will built that serves a few homes, each home has its own septic tank and the effluent goes to the shared lagoon.

Nice work JB as usually !It's always interesting to me how different regions of the country have such different rules and Regs. On these types of installations....

Interesting, I've never seen this type of on-site wastewater system. Is there a problem with the soil perking?

CM, Yes that particular area does not perc very good and also has a "seasonal high water table" at certain times of the year that causes the leachfields to fail often.

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