UK contractor claims to have doubled productivity with new twin-boom excavator.

Demolition contractors are renowned for their innovative approach to equipment use. But, even by those standards, the new twin-boom excavator in the Armac Group fleet is really pushing the envelope.

The company claims the machine was developed in response to the need for higher levels of productivity. “We carried out extensive time and motion studies and we realised that we were losing valuable productivity each time the machine had to slew to another location,” says Armac’s Adrian McLean. “So we approached Hitachi and worked with them to develop this new twin-boom arrangement.”

McLean reports that the new machine has almost doubled productivity levels although he says the development has not been without its problems. “One of the key issues we’ve had to address is making sure that the operators are good friends. The first pair we put on it hated each other and would slew each time their opposite number was about to start work. If anything, that probably halved our output,” McLean says. “In addition, the position of the twin cabs means that the operators are breathing exhaust fumes almost non-stop for the entire day. So we now have two operators that like each other enough to work side-by-side but who are expendable.”

McLean adds that the hydraulics of the machine have been downgraded to avoid what he describes as “the helicopter effect”. “During initial trials, we had a really big, powerful hydraulic pump driving the slew motion,” he says. “But during fast turns, the operators claimed that the machine would rise slightly above the ground, hover, and only settle when the slewing motion had ceased.”

Although he refuses to be drawn on the speculation, rumours suggest that Armac has a set of high reach front end equipment for this machine but has yet to find a set of neighboring tower blocks in need of demolition.

So isn’t McLean concerned about utilisation levels. “We looked into the utilisation levels very closely before making this financial commitment, and it’s true to say that the machine works so quickly that it is often stood idle waiting for the other supporting equipment to catch up,” he concludes. “But we have recently been approached by the Highways Agency who believe the machine is ideally suited to reinstatement work at T-junctions.”

Delays and vermin pile on the problems at 1515 building in West Palm Beach.

The building’s called 1515 but the name could just as easily be the number of problems facing the demolition crew.

Faced with city demands for $50 million insurance cover for imploding the 30-storey condominium, the demolition team have started to dismantle the building by slower, more conventional means. But, as WPTV reports, those methods are causing delays and a growing number of complaints from local residents.

According to neighbors, at 7 o’clock in the morning a breakfast truck rolls in, then the break truck, then the lunch truck. It’s nothing but noise and dirt they complain.

They also say they’ve seen rats.

Big ones says Ben Levy. “It looked the size of a large cat,” he says.

Wonder if it’s the same one the rest of the industry smelled when it saw that insurance clause?

Read the full story here.

Demolition News is well on its way to collecting the world’s strangest outfit.

Several months ago, I decided it might be quite amusing to wear a kilt at a music festival. Since then, I have been sent various items of clothing, so much so that I am now well on my way to the world’s strangest and least fashionable outfit.

To couple with the kilt, I now have a DemoBoys t-shirt, a pair of glow-in-the-dark yell SealSkinz gloves (more of those another time) and, thanks to those fine people at SCG Supplies, I am now also the proud owner of a very fetching (and almost incredibly warm) hat.

But winter is drawing ever closer and, while we still know no shame, we think it’s getting just a little too breezy for the kilt.

So if anyone would like to send us some equally badly-matched trousers, socks, boots or coats, we’ll be sure to model them right here.

Massacheusetts’ Uniroyal complex will fall for almost half estimated bid price.

Another day and another tale to add to the growing “US demolition bid pricing implosion” pile sat in the corner at Demolition News Towers.

Bids for the first demolition of decades-old, decaying and vacant industrial buildings in the former Uniroyal complex were opened Wednesday delighting city officials since the low bidders were well below the $1.2 million estimate. Mayor Michael Bissonnette said the low bids for the demolition of six buildings will allow the city to begin planning the next phase of demolition.

Community Development Director Carl F. Dietz said the apparent low bidder is McConnell Enterprises of Essex at $696,440. The next two other low bidders are Costello Dismantling of Middleborough at $876,000 and S and R Corporation of Lowell at $996,000.

“We are delighted to see these numbers for the demolition of the oldest buildings in the complex. We think the economy has a lot to do with it. We had 15 bidders and over 40 contractors take out bidding packages and take walk-throughs,” said Dietz.

Read the full story here.

New video from Dutch contractor shows exactly what ultra-high reach means.

High reach demolition excavators are notoriously hard to photograph. They’ve now grown so large that you almost need to be in the neighbouring county to get the whole machine in.

But this new video of Beelen Sloopwerken’s Cat 395 UHD machine nicely captures just how high a high reach machine actually is:

How many Finns does it take to fill a recycling bucket? Eight, apparently.

We can’t tell if these guys are sheltering from the snow or whether this was the result of a drive-by sauna accident but it certainly does show just how big the new REMU WL600 screening bucket actually is.

Although it’s more usually found suspended from a 16 to 24 tonne class wheel loader screening waste, it apparently has the capacity to handle eight large Finnish gentlemen in relative comfort.

Click here for further information.

Angela Chouaib on how one UK contractor reduced exposure to hand arm vibration.

The HAV debate driven by the Health and Safety Executive, leading contractors, equipment suppliers and rental providers has seen major changes in tool design and operating practices to minimize damage to the health of operatives. Hire companies have had to bear a big responsibility to drive the campaign, updating rental fleets with low vibration equipment and creating initiatives to learn about the HAV facts

But it’s actually working with tools on-site where the issues surrounding hand arm vibration remains a kind of dark art or a nightmare of calculations. The accusation still holds; it is difficult to understand, difficult to communicate, difficult to monitor and difficult to implement.

Many key contractors have put considerable effort into HAV and one particular contractor BAM Nuttall saw an opportunity to assess and manage HAV at a construction project in Kent. Using the latest compact HAVi device, BAM Nuttall product tested the HAVI system for hand-arm vibration management.

The civil engineering project at a waste water treatment works in Lenham, Kent comprised multiple construction tasks, a variety of tools and more than 15 operatives and staff. Here they would trial test the HAVi for more than three months and assess the results

BAM Nuttall Site Agent Nick Howard actively involved operatives in the process including training on HAV and contracted with tool rental provider GAP Group for the supply of a wide diversity of tools and machines. The project proved an ideal scenario to test out the HAVi system.

Nick explained, “Hand arm vibration was one area of health and safety management that BAM Nuttall focused on. We made a decision to look into HAV in a real time situation and if HAVi was to deliver for us then we had a simple working solution for the entire company.

HAVi is a very simple compact piece of kit and operatives easily understood how it worked and adopted it.”
Using as many as 15 HAVi units on site as tools were brought in on hire, HAVi units were set up for each individual tool. All operatives had to do was simply observe the points and be fully aware that the danger limit of 400 points a day is a maximum, pocket size counter books recorded a daily tally. No complicated training, just a quick set up and get on with the job at hand.

“What the HAVI did immediately was get operators on board; they could understand how it worked and what it was measuring” said Nick.

Andy Mee, Technical Sales Manager, for HAVi visited site and set up the project, including training key personnel on how to use a HAVi on different machines. For 2- 3 months BAM Nuttall observed, monitored and got to grips with HAVi.

The majority of tools fell within safe working limits. But one clear observation was that some tools regarded as low risk tools can have a major HAV issue depending on usage time. A lightweight impact tool can do as much damage as heavier high impact tools

The HAVi highlighted some surprising results and allowed both management and operatives to observe and learn about a variety of tools and to take this forward on to other sites

Another element was that the HAVi relies on manufacturers and hire companies providing in use vibration magnitude measurements which are often the results from bench testing. National rental company, GAP Group utilises the traffic light tool tag system to provide the correct data to set up tools.

Not all rental companies are actively providing HAV data, which is surprising given it is a recommended requirement of tool hire. The OPERC HAVTEC database provides details for the majority of plant and equipment to help in the election of the most appropriate tools.

After two months trial with BAM Nuttall the HAVi has provided clear guidelines for managing the HAV risks on site. Overall the impact of trialling HAVi has been a success and immediately identified the low and high risk areas, highlighting problem vibratory tools and methods. High risk areas meant tools could be assessed for performance and operatives could be rotated to share the risk and at the same time BAM Nuttall assessed measures to change to more suitable tools or techniques.

The system minimizes risk by not allowing operatives to exceed the maximum dosage points, it does not wait until the results are logged and recorded to highlight that actually the damage has been done.

Steve Cluer General Manager BAM Nuttall Ltd said “HAVi helped BAM Nuttall focus our efforts where they needed to be so we could monitor and manage HAV in the workplace. Following further assessment I am confident it will become a benchmark for good practice across the company.

Having been exposed to this initial field testing HAVi has demonstrated to be robust at withstanding typical site wear and tear. Staff have bought-in to the system and it definitely places an important part of working safely back into the hands of operatives.“

For further information, please contact Angela at Riverside Environmental Services Ltd on Tel: (UK) 0870 950 0161. To see the HAVi unit in operation, see the video below:

Unexpected demolition of 300+ buildings leaves three dead from shock in Accra.

Three people are reported to have died at Kwabenya, in the Ghanaian capital Accra, following last Saturday’s demolition exercise on the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission land, which affected about 300 buildings, according to Percy Nii Addy, a local representative.

The deceased people, whose names are yet to be established, are said to have died from shock, after witnessing their properties and possessions demolished in an exercise undertaken by authorities of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC), under the supervision of fully armed police and military personnel, numbering close to 200.

Read the full story here.

Construction News publishes its Top 11 demolition contractors table.

UK trade magazine has published details of the Top 11 (why 11 is a mystery) UK demolition contractors by turnover.

There are no huge surprises – Keltbray, McGee and Erith stealing the top three positions – but what is interesting is that the leading six companies all enjoyed a significant growth in turnover over the previous year, even though most of the accounts were submitted after the current recession took hold.

To read the full table, please click here.

Aerial footage of smokestack implosion from Lawrence earlier today.

A pair of 100-year old chimneys were dropped by explosives in Boston just a few minutes ago.

You can check out the raw TV footage by clicking here or you can check out the amateur footage below: