The start time of next week’s NFDC/NDTG Working Wednesday has changed.

Due to overwhelming demand, the time of the NFDC’s “Working Wednesday” seminar on quick couplers has been changed.

The event, which is being held at the new Resurgam House on Wednesday 20 May and hosted jointly by the NFDC, NDTG and by Miller International, will take place at 16.00 and NOT 18.00 as originally planned.

The NFDC and NDTG has asked members wishing to attend to advise Sophie Francis on Tel: 01442 217144

WRAP and RIBA announce competition to promote reduction in construction waste.

The Waste & Resources Action Programme and the Royal Institute of British Architects have launched a competition encouraging designers to focus on reducing construction waste in the design process.

The initiative, Designing Out Waste is set to emphasise the importance of reducing the £1.5 billion the construction sector wastes each year by approaching design in a different way.

Click here for further details.

The closing date for entries to the inaugural demolition awards put back to 31 July 2009.

The closing date for entries for the Demolition Awards, organised by D&Ri and supported by the EDA, has been extended to 31 July, 2009. The Awards are open to all companies involved in the demolition industry around the world. Individual companies can enter as many categories as they feel are relevant to their activities and there is no charge for entry.

The Innovation Award, open to manufacturers and equipment suppliers has also been modified to now offer two awards – one for series-produced products aimed at a mass market and a second for custom-produced products developed in response to specific individual customers’ requests.

The Awards event, being held in Amsterdam in the evening of Friday 6 November, now forms part of the Demolition Summit, a full day event that consists of a top quality technical conference organised jointly by D&Ri and the EDA that is open to all, whether EDA members or not. The Summit opens on the evening of Thursday 5 November with a cocktail reception hosted by the EDA that is also open to all delegates attending the event.

SED 2009 got off to a sunny start yesterday…but exhibitors were thin on the ground

Back in February, we here at Demolition News predicted that SED 2009, traditionally the UK’s premier construction equipment show, might be below par. Well, under blue skies, the show kicked off at the Rockingham Motor Speedway yesterday but I fear our predictions were not too wide of the mark.

From a demolition man’s perspective, the show was a shadow of its former self. In recent years, the show’s Demolition & Recycling Zone has been a hive of innovation and activity. Yesterday, the pure demolition-related exhibitors were outnumbered by burger vans.

Admittedly, the show aisles looked remarkably busy. However, there appeared to be a couple of contributory reasons.

Up until last year, the exhibition largely filled the enormous expanse of the Rockingham Motor Speedway car park, extending from the venue’s grandstand almost to the road that serves the site. With an enormous shortfall in exhibitors, this year’s show was squeezed, falling several hundred yards short of the grandstand and making the aisles seem busier.

Another factor impacting upon the visit numbers was the presence of an unusually large number of students and equipment operators. This is based purely on gut-feel and may or may not be confirmed by the attendance statistics when they’re finally revealed. But it says much about a show when the biggest crowd of the day was gathered around a pork roast on the Pirtek stand.

Another indicator of just how bad things are could be seen in the press office, professionally run once again by Louise Murphy. In years gone by, the press office has been a veritable hive of activity with shelves running floor to ceiling bulging with press releases and brochures. This year, barely a single shelf was filled and even the press, who were taking advantage of the press office’s hospitality, seemed resigned and downbeat.

And what of the machines? Well, following immediately after Intermat in Paris, innovations were about as common as hen’s teeth to be honest. Indeed, I would struggle to think of a single reason why a demolition professional might take the time to visit the show this year.

Saddest of all, of course, was the lack of premier league exhibitors, with Caterpillar, Komatsu, Volvo and Liebherr all conspicuous by their absence. And even those majors – JCB and Sandvik among them – were there in a much-reduced, recession-fighting manner; JCB under the guise of its local dealer and Sandvik, traditionally a big SED supporter, down to a small display of hydraulic hammers.

Obviously, we had the video camera on hand although, as you will see from the footage that follows, we could find very little of note to point the camera at.

All we can say is that the decision to postpone this year’s Hillhead exhibition by 12 months may yet prove to be a stroke of genius.

Skid steer maker Bobcat has unveiled a steel tracked unit for demolition applications.

Bobcat, far and away the world-leader in the manufacture of skid steer loaders, has underlined its commitment to the demolition industry with the introduction of the new T320, a steel tracked undercarriage machine designed specifically for arduous demolition applications.

In the exclusive video, Bobcat’s Loader Product Manager Frank Plas highlights the key features of the new model:

Demolition News’ exclusive podcasts have been accepted by Apple and iTunes.

The growth and acceptance of Demolition News continues with the great news that its current and future audio podcasts will be available via iTunes. Not only will this allow readers to take this content with them on their iPod, iTouch and iPhone devices, it also exposes Demolition News’ growing content to a global audience.

Current iTunes users can hit this link to be taken directly to the correct page. However, Demolition News will be added to the iTunes search engine later this week.

“Demolition News has come so far in such a short space of time, considering that it was nothing more than an idea born out of a conversation at the bar just six months ago,” says site founder Mark Anthony. “The readership statistics have been on an upward curve virtually since day one and the site is regularly read by thousands of individuals each week. However, with our acceptance by iTunes, we now have the ability to bring our industry content to a huge, global audience.”

Although the podcasts will be free to download, Anthony believes that the iTunes deal will help increase revenue on the site, allowing the site to produce yet more valuable content. “Demolition News really runs on a shoe string and, if it wasn’t for the handful of sponsors we attracted early on, the site probably would have failed,” he says. “But we have more sponsors on board now and, with our ability to speak to an ever wider audience, I am expecting that to grow still further. This will allow us to invest in producing more and more valuable content for our readers and listeners.”

“When we first started on this venture, I doubted whether there would be sufficient material out there to actually write about and discuss. If I am honest, I was expecting to update the site maybe weekly,” he continues. “But the availability of information and the demand from readers is such that rarely a day goes by when a new item isn’t added.”

This is set to increase still further with the launch of a series of new “shows” looking at specific aspects of the demolition industry. “We are currently in discussions with a number of leading industry figures that we would like to involve in regular audio broadcasts on subjects such as health and safety, training, legislation and equipment,” Anthony concludes. “We will continue to produce irregular podcasts and shows on non-specific items and issues but I am determined to create a series of regular shows that match the specific interests and needs of the listeners and readers.”

The Colony Plaza Hotel in Florida is the latest US hotel fall.

Hot off the press, here is the final moments of the Colony Plaza Hotel in Occoee Florida, a 1960s hotel that was imploded just a few hours ago.

R. Baker & Son All Industrial Services video showing the pulling down of a water tower.

In our constant scouring of the Internet for content of sufficient quality to deliver here, we’re constantly amazed at the sheer number of videos out there showing the various aspects of demolition and dismantling. Obviously, there is a great fascination with explosive demolition, and the public just seems to love it when a demolition job goes awry.

However, every once in a while, you stumble across one like this that appeals to the more technically-minded demolition professional; one that takes an inside look at how a specific task was undertaken.

Being located the wrong side of the Atlantic, we know very little about R. Baker & Sons, aside from the fact that they’re very active on the web and that they produce a damn fine video. (and it’s worth sticking with it till the end for the celebratory puff of dust the emanates from within the tower as it hits the ground.

Construction giant Skanska responds to site death by banning semi-automatic couplers.

In a move akin to banning cars because drivers don’t always fasten their seat belts, construction giant Skanska has banned the use of semi-automatic quick hitches on its UK sites. According to UK construction magazine Construction News, the decision was reached following investigations into an accident on a Skanska UK Skanska/Grantrail Docklands Light Railway site in December last year, when a bucket became detached from an excavator and struck 58-year-old carpenter Harold Sheridan, resulting in fatal injuries.

Full story here.

The subject of semi-automatic quick hitches is one that we have covered extensively here on www.demolitionnews.com and, while we embrace any decision designed to make the industry a safer place, we cannot help but think that this is a knee-jerk reaction against an inherently safe product that, sadly, is often used incorrectly.

New video showing benefits of Hyundai Hi-Mate remote monitoring system.

The good people of Hyundai Heavy Industries Europe have just unveiled a new video demonstrating their new Hi-Mate remote machine monitoring system. Similar in concept to Komatsu’s Komtrax, Hi-Mate allow users to monitor their Hyundai construction equipment fleet live, on their computer screen. It uses GPS & GIS (Geographic Information System) to pinpoint the machines’ exact location and to retrieve operational and diagnostic data.

Oh, and it has quite a catchy theme tune as well.