IDE president John Woodward adds name to the campaign for car park inspections.

John Woodward, the current president of the Institute of Demolition Engineers, has added his weight to the growing campaign for regular car park inspections. Woodward’s renewed call – on his website – comes as the Concrete Repair Association (CRA) and the British Parking Association have joined forces to call for the same regime.

According to the CRA, car parks are expected to last like bridges and yet are built to a less rigorous design code.

Judging by our news archives, car park collapses are not a purely UK issue. In the past year, we have reported on collapses in Fort Lauderdale, Singapore, as well as Southampton and Southend in the UK, while Woodward also cites another incident in Ontario.

“From our own experience of structures of this type we can only agree with the car park operators that regular inspection, testing, and maintenance is needed to ensure that our ageing car parks remain safe, and all suspect car parks are demolished safely and quickly to remove any chance of a premature collapse,” Woodward says.

Entry level and virtually indestructible camera ideal for demolition.

Given the huge (and growing) demand for demolition video, we would like to urge all demolition companies and their operators to invest in a “>GoPro video camera.

Largely indestructible and as cheap as chips, it is the ideal tool for capturing demolition action on your sites and even from the cab of a machine.

Don’t believe us? Then check out the following video. We’re not huge fans of the soundtrack but the footage from the “>GoPro camera is superb:

50 percent greater fuel efficiency and ROI in one year, manufacturer claims.

Caterpillar has unveiled the first model in its new line of hybrid excavators, the Cat® 336E H. The new 336E H will be available following its official launch at bauma 2013 in Munich, Germany. The order board for the Cat 336E H opens in Feb. 2013, with factory shipments beginning in March 2013.

The Cat 336E H uses a new hydraulic hybrid technology developed by Caterpillar. “A hybrid is independent of any particular technology—it doesn’t have to be electric,” said Ken Gray, global product manager for large hydraulic excavators for Caterpillar’s Excavation Division. “There are many ways to store and reuse energy, including our patented hydraulic hybrid system featured on the Cat 336E H.”

“Caterpillar has developed, built, and tested electric hybrid excavators, but—until now—we had not found a hybrid approach that would actually lower our customers’ owning and operating costs,” Gray said. “Large excavators operate in high-production applications in which fuel is a very significant operating cost for our customers. So, the 336E H, the hybrid version of our workhorse 336E, is ideal for introducing our new hydraulic hybrid technology, with its more than 300 filed patents.”

The 336E H has all of the same powerful advantages of the 336E with the biggest difference between the two models being even greater fuel efficiency. To achieve added fuel savings, the design of the 336E H uses three building block technologies that:
1. Conserve fuel with engine power management via the Cat Electronic Standardized Programmable (ESP) pump, which smoothly transitions between the hydraulic hybrid power sources, engine and accumulator.
2. Optimise performance using restriction management via the patented Cat Adaptive Control System (ACS) valve, which intelligently manages restrictions and flows to seamlessly control machine motion with no loss of power, and to ensure operators experience no difference in control, hydraulic power or lift capability.
3. Reuse energy via the hydraulic hybrid swing system, which captures the excavator’s upper structure swing brake energy in accumulators, and then releases the energy during swing acceleration.

The 336E H delivers industry-leading productivity with up to 50 percent greater fuel efficiency over the 336D. Customers can expect the 336E H to use up to 25 percent less fuel compared to a standard 336E, and up to 33 percent less fuel than the 330/336D.

Precisely when customers will recoup their initial investment in a 336E H depends on fuel prices and their applications. Assuming today’s fuel prices and a high-production application for a 336E H, Caterpillar estimates customers can realistically expect to see a return on their investment for the hybrid excavator model in as little as one year.

“The 336E H is a game-changer—the most revolutionary excavator to come to market in decades,” said Gary Stampanato, vice president of Caterpillar’s Excavation Division. “Customers aren’t going to choose the 336E H simply because it is sustainable. They will select it because it actually lowers their owning and operating costs.”

The city of Columbus starts demolition on the Poindexter tower.

The city of Columbus started demolition on the Poindexter Tower on the east side Wednesday morning.

The demolition, which will cost an estimated $1 million and was paid for in part by a grant, began at 10 a.m.

The apartment building has been vacant since 2003. When Columbus bought the building in 2008, officials slated it for demolition.

City officials say there are no current plans for the building, but they are asking residents for suggestions.

The Poindexter Tower was built in 1961 as one of the first public housing developments to provide low cost apartments for the elderly.

By the 1980s, the building was plagued by crimes such as robberies, vandals and murders.

Read more here or view the local news video below:

John Skidmore uses launch of report to highlight need for further waste minimisation.

In front of 200 guests at the House of Commons, the 2012/13 CIWM President John Skidmore was inaugurated today and used the occasion to launch a major CIWM report. Entitled Professional Perspectives on Waste & Resource Management, the report provides a current picture of waste and resource management across the UK and Ireland and draws on the views of CIWM members and the Institution regarding future issues, challenges and opportunities.

Looking across the board, John welcomed the different policy approaches that are emerging, but emphasised CIWM’s view that meeting the big waste and resource challenges ahead will demand a co-ordinated approach across national boundaries and involving all stakeholders. He called for more government leadership and said that the waste prevention plans required by the Waste Framework Directive offer “a unique opportunity to put in place a long term vision to design out waste by ensuring that the roles and responsibilities at every stage of the product supply chain are recognised”.

Quality is paramount both in terms of service delivery and recycling performance, but as well as resolving some of the current tensions regarding collection methods and frequency, John said that governments must ensure that the economic development potential of waste is also realised.

“We need measures to encourage businesses to capitalise on the value of secondary materials and waste-derived energy, recognising that dependency on sending these resources abroad may not be desirable or sustainable in the longer term. Governments must help to plan to keep waste and resources working here in the UK and Ireland, and that means working at a larger than local level and through inter-governmental collaboration.”

Looking forward, John told the audience that CIWM members identified the need to deliver new infrastructure as one of the major challenges ahead, and said that the Institution is not confident that the right support to address barriers including planning and investment is yet in place.

Moving on to his presidential year, John identified a number of key priorities for the Institution, including communications, influence and partnership working with key players such as the retail sector, supporting the regulatory bodies in improving compliance, and health and safety.

Calling on the sector to find its ‘Olympic spirit’, John summed up by highlighting the need to build on the progress made so far and not lose momentum.

“With resource and energy security issues high on the agenda, and the spectre of climate change now ever present, we are at an exciting tipping point,” he said. “We may need to work with, rather than against, the economic situation in which we find ourselves but there is no doubt that now is the time to be ambitious, to break down barriers, and to formulate a long term vision for waste management and resource use and conservation – not just for the term of one government, not even for the next decade, but for the next 100 years and more.”

Demolition workers that discovered $330,000 stash unlikely to benefit.

Workers dismantling a vacant house in rural Japan discovered $330,000 cash stuffed in a tin box underneath the living room floor, press reports said Wednesday.

The house, in a farming town on the northern island of Hokkaido, had been empty since its elderly male owner died two years ago, the reports said.

The cash — about 2,600 notes each worth 10,000 yen ($127) bundled together or put in envelopes — will be handed over to the dead man’s relatives on the main Japanese island of Honshu, the reports said.

“Because the cash was discovered at an individual’s house, it is clear whose money it is,” a spokesman for the local police station said by telephone. “So we don’t treat it as a lost-and-found case.”

Campaign to save quake-hit cathedral takes new legal twist.

A legal battle to save Christ Church Cathedral is set to rage on after high-profile Auckland lawyer Mai Chen claimed the demolition order may be unlawful.

Campaign group Restore Christchurch Cathedral sought advice from Chen’s firm ChenPalmer to back up action taken by the Great Christchurch Buildings Trust (GCBT), which this month sought a binding court ruling on whether the Anglican church’s deconstruction plans breached an act of Parliament protecting church buildings.

Chen’s view was the New Zealand Historic Places Trust (NZHPT) breached its statutory obligation to protect heritage buildings by approving the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority’s section 38 demolition order.

In her opinion, the NZHPT signoff was required under the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery (CER) Act.

The NZHPT was obligated under the the Historic Places (HP) Act to consider the “least possible alteration or loss” of heritage values despite the act being amended for emergency demolition after the February 2011 quake, Chen said.

Expert engineering advice proved the cathedral could be safely maintained in its existing state or restored to pre-quake condition.

Read more here.

Hydraulic crane equipped with wrecking ball tackles silo demolition.

But for the life of us, we can’t remember ever seeing a wrecking ball hitched to a hydraulic crane before. Until now.

For that s precisely the demolition method selected to demolish the Taylor, Smith & Taylor silos in Chester, West Virginia.

The silo work, originally scheduled to start in August, was delayed because samples of soil from underground tanks at the base of the silos had to be tested for anything toxic, Six said. Officials were awaiting the results and final approval from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

“We had to get sampling done from underneath the tanks to make sure nothing had leaked out into the soil,” Six said. “The results came back clean, so they said, ‘Go ahead and take them down.'”

The silos are at least half full with powdered clay that was used in the pottery-making process. Officials had hoped the clay could be reused but found that it couldn’t because it was in a hardened form, Six said.

Once the silos are down, the crushed concrete and clay will be used as filler material on the site, Six said. Other materials, including bricks, concrete, sandstone, steel beams and wood beams, have either been hauled away for reuse or kept on site as clean fill.

More than 254 loads of asbestos-containing material have been hauled away and taken to a certified landfill since cleanup began in April. Officials also believe that some of the riverbank soil is contaminated with lead, requiring further remediation with the help of a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Read more here.

All the presentations, all the speakers, all in high def’

It’s hard to believe that the National Federation of Demolition Contractors fifth Demolition Day seminar/exhibition took place a week ago today.

While exhibitors have been following up enquiries and speakers have been responding to email questions, we have been beavering away in the background to bring you all the very best footage from this event.

Each of the main speakers’ presentations was recorded by our video crew, and all the resulting videos are now available on our YouTube channel.

To help you pick and choose your viewing pleasure, we have provided direct links to each presentation below:
• Competency Through Training – Sophie Cox, National Demolition Training Group
• NFDC Waste Exemption and Permitting Guidance – Graham Winter, Environment Agency
• Fee For Intervention – John Underwood, Health & Safety Executive
• Demolition Case Study – Dr Clifford Burton, Keltbray Environmental
• Competency – John Woodward, Institute of Demolition Engineers
• Demolition Case Study – John Rimmer, Cantillon Limited

HSE’s John Underwood looks at the numerous challenges facing UK demolition contractors.

Following in the immediate aftermath of the launch of its controversial Fee For Intervention scheme, the presentation by the Health and Safety Executive’s John Underwood was one of the most hotly-anticipated presentations at the NFDC’s recent Demolition Day.

In truth, the whole of Underwood’s presentation was enlightening, providing a snapshot into the litany of legislation facing the modern demolition contractor. But most interesting of all comes at the 23 minute mark where Underwood suggests that – based on the HSE’s target figures – inspectors will need to be charging for around half of all inspections if they are to raise the anticipated £23 million. Underwood’s thoughts on what his fellow HSE colleagues make of the FFI scheme also make for interesting vieweing.