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Common sense is a dirt contractor's best friend when it comes to arriving at a site prepared and ready to work. By Penelope Grenoble O'Malley |
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"The soundest advice I can give anyone setting up a work site," says Joe Abbott, national sales manager for Godwin Pumps in Bridgeport, NJ, "is plan your job. Work with the estimators and the people who have looked at the job. Go look at the job yourself." Common sense? You bet. Planning means scoping out the size of the site you'll be working on and the lay of the land; determining whether access is by paved road, air, or water (important if you're working in such places as Alaska); what the soil is like; whether you can tap into municipal power; the availability of fuel suppliers and rental companies for last-minute specialized equipment; and overnight accommodations for your crew. You'll want to know how many other contractors will be working on the site with you, and you'll need to be clear about what your legal responsibilities are (including regional and local permit codes) and what security arrangements have been set up. You'll need to take into account the time of year and the weather‹will you be working through spring or fall, and has the weather been wet so you'll need pumps or lights to extend working hours? And having established all of the above, you'll need to decide how much of these arrangements you want to handle yourself and how much to contract out. You have to plan the logistics of the site, including the placement of any generators and light towers, and how to park your equipment so it can be easily fueled and maintained. You might also have to think about controlling traffic and adjusting work procedures at the site. First Things First Power and fuel decisions are critical. You'll need power to run dewatering pumps, compressors, and‹depending on how long you're out‹maintenance equipment, computers, copiers, and small appliances if you intend to set up in an operations trailer. "You want to be clear about how much power you're going to need and what you need it for," says Steve Micheaelis, sales manager for Howard T. Moriarty Company in Toledo, OH, distributors of Winco equipment. "The number of amps you can get out of a generator is important for starting your equipment. Your average homeowner-size unit, for example, which you can throw in the back of a pickup, provides enough power to run a submersible pump. But if you have three pumps and it takes 1,000 watts each to run them, don't be fooled [into thinking] you can necessarily run all three off a 3-kilowatt generator because it may take 2,000 to 2,500 watts just to start each one of them‹and the last one is going to start really slow. And if you do that time after time, you're slowly going to burn up the electric motor. The standard formula is volts times amps equals watts. This is important, especially if you're renting‹you don't want to pay for more power than you need and you don't want to burn unnecessary fuel. You also have to watch out because some generator manufacturers are now labeling their units in kilovolts instead of kilowatts. One kilovolt equals 0.8 kilowatt, so if you mistake a 50-kilovolt generator for a 50-kilowatt model, you might run short. "Another thing you need to remember is that generators tend to cycle up and down. This is not such a big deal for pumps or lights, but if you're running computers or a copy machine, you'll want to be sure your unit has a voltage regulator. Noise can also be a consideration if your site is close to a populated area. If you're going to be running 24 hours, you might think about renting a unit that comes on a trailer that includes an extra fuel tank‹you don't want to have someone out there every eight hours refueling. The number of outlets on a unit is important as well as the amperage each outlet will allow, and if you've got a big enough machine, your equipment will have to be hardwired, which means you need to plan to have someone on hand who knows how to do this." "Everyone thinks a generator supplies an infinite amount of power," says Mark Conrardy, sales engineering manager for Wacker Corporation in Menomonee Falls, WI, "but it's not a power plant. It can only produce so much, and if you overload it, you're going to be tripping breakers and you won't have the capacity to do what you want to do." The idea is to set up the generator close to the equipment it's going to be powering. "While you can run a lot a cable off a generator," states Conrardy, "you have to watch out that it's not being run over by heavy equipment or a concrete truck. You also want to be sure you don't set up your trailer and the generator in an area that might be subject to washouts or runoff from a slope. And when you rent, be sure you tell the salesman what you need the power for. Our distributors are trained to match the generator to the customer's needs. The biggest one is not necessarily the best." Freestanding generators don't have to be the only source of power on a work site. Light-tower manufacturers remind contractors that their units generate more electricity than is needed to run their lights, which means there's enough left over to power something like a drill or a heater. Jack Lockwood of Allmand Bros. Inc. in Charlotte, NC, reports that in remote areas in Canada and Alaska, he routinely sells 16- and 20-kW light towers because contractors want the larger generators. "This way they don't have to have a separate piece of equipment to heat or air condition their job shack or power their computers. The more remote the job site is, the larger the light-tower generator capacity should be. "Contractors who are good at projecting what their needs will be on a project will sense when the job might get tight, and they'll end up working at night," continues Lockwood. "And they know there are always going to be surprises‹so on any remote site, whether they need it or not, you always see them take along as many as four light towers, depending on how big their complex is going to be, because the towers are flexible." Allmand Bros. is currently promoting the Light Sequence Commander, an automatic sequencing mechanism that allows eight on/off sequences in the course of a day, a week, or a month. The unit is programmed to start the engine at the programmed time; check for high temperature, low oil, and low fuel; and, when the engine is running at 1,900 rpm, turn on the light switch. If a condition develops that might damage the engine, such as high temperature, the controller will automatically turn off the breakers and shut down the unit (the same procedure occurs when the fuel gets within 10% of empty). The lights stay on until they're programmed to go off. Commanders are available for all the engines Allmand Bros. features with its towers; an optional photocell sensor can be substituted for a timer, and there is an optional wireless modem module that allows a site manager to control one or more light towers from a central, remote location, a feature useful for remote sites. Dewatering
In Montana, Kelly Rowe of Rowe Excavations works out of his truck and usually shuts down at dark, which means no light towers and hardly ever a generator. Rowe specializes in pond reclamation and streambank restoration, which means dewatering is a way of life. To run his 12- and 16-in. Crisafulli pumps, he hooks them up to a power take-off on one of his tractors. "We usually pump out to a 16-foot depth, and we use the tractor because most often we're out in remote areas and want to stay compact," says Rowe. "When we're not pumping, we can unhook the tractor and use it for something else. The only time we might need a generator is when we build a bridge across a stream." Likewise in Missouri, Lyle Derr of Lyle Derr Farm Company typically takes along one of the Crisafulli 16-gal. submersible pumps he uses on his farm. "They're versatile. You can idle them down and they don't pump very much, or they'll pump 10,000 gallons a minute. Usually we don't need any electricity at our remote sites, although we do have a small portable unit we can use to run a welder or a grinder when we have to fix something." Godwin Pumps's Abbott says the biggest mistakes contractors make when it comes to pumps is flying by the seat of their pants. "Take my phone number, tell me what you want to do, and I'll get the right pump to you on the first delivery. If you're going to pump up a hill, you've got different needs than someone who's pumping on the flats. We have an engineering department here; contractors can send us soil borings, and we'll use these to recommend what pumps they're going to need." To Shelter or Not Dirt contractors are often the first to arrive at a job site; they get their work done and are on their way before the rest of the crew arrives, which means setting up an operations trailer can be an unnecessary expense and a nuisance. "We don't have an office," says Rowe. "We don't sit around and drink coffee. I figure if you do away with the office, you won't have a coffee-drinking problem. Everybody in our crews [17 in peak season] is hands-on in the trenches. On the bigger jobs, you need to have a manager to keep things rolling, but that's my job and I'm pretty mobile. I put 70,000 miles a year on my pickup." Derr agrees. He never rents an office trailer unless he's forced to. "If I'm working on a job for the Army Corps of Engineers or the Natural Resources Conservation Service, they're going to require an office, so we rent a trailer; same with your wildlife people‹they always want a place to get in. I have a company that sets the whole thing up for me. When this happens, I just bid the job higher; usually I'm paying about $180 a week. Sometimes if it's really cold or the weather is bad, the crew might go in and warm up, or we might eat dinner in the trailer if it's hot." In San Antonio, TX, Santos Valadez works as a utility subcontractor excavating trenches for sewer and water mains in new subdivision construction‹work that can require him to be on the job for weeks and sometimes months. He can be at a site for up to 14 hours a day, which can make it difficult to use his truck as headquarters. Valadez has thought about renting a mobile office trailer, but because he has access to the units his general contractors bring on the property, so far he hasn't had to. "Because I have a close working relationship with the general contractors on the site, I've never had a problem finding a desk to sit and do my paperwork. I haven't had to rent a trailer yet, but depending on how big the job is and especially how long I'm going to be working in one place, I can see there might be a time when I might need to." Contractors who decide to use a mobile office can make the arrangements themselves or rely on such companies as William Scotsman Inc., which rents mobile units nationwide and keeps a record of all local permit requirements. If you rent, you'll want to know what features the rental company considers standard (e.g., stairs, ramps, air conditioning), what insurance obligations you'll be responsible for, what warranties come with the deal, what you'll be responsible for when you return the equipment, and what services‹such as delivery and pickup‹you can expect from the rental company. Keeping Things Moving
To fuel his vehicles, Derr trailers an 800-gal. tank and has a local distributor top it off while he's in the field. In Concord, CA, Bruce Carone of Carone Grading and Paving uses trucks equipped with 1,500-gal. fuel tanks. His fuel distributor fills the trucks at the company's main yard, where they're parked until they're dispatched to a work site. "This gets us away from doing a lot of permitting," says Carone. "We'd have to have a lot of capital to put a tank in and maintain it." "Permits are the name of the game," says Kent Robinson of Gasboy International in Landsdale, PA, manufacturers of fuel management systems. "In the old days, you'd just get an old tank, put some fuel in it, and pump. Not anymore. You're dealing with a hazardous fuel and you have to follow local regulations, which are usually written according to tank size. A lot of contractors will use a pump and tank contractor, someone who's in the business and knows what the restrictions and regulations are. Sometimes oil companies will supply the tank; sometimes it's a petroleum equipment dealer, and then the contractor arranges with a supplier for the fuel. And if the operation's large enough, it may keep track of what it fuels with bar codes or programmed pump keys, which limit operators from other crews having access to its facilities." Once the fuel's on-site, the challenge is to streamline the refueling process. "You can save a lot of time and be a lot more efficient if you are organized about how you park your equipment," says Brad Van De Veer, production demonstrator-instructor at the Caterpillar Edwards Demonstration Application Center in Peoria, IL. "A lot of companies will park their equipment in one or two lines so that whatever side the fuel cap is on is toward the center. I've seen dozers backed up in a line together so all the fuel caps face the same way. The less time the fuel truck has to be moved to get to another machine, the more efficient it is." Keeping good drainage is another important site management consideration. "If you keep good drainage, crews can get back to work after it rains," says Van De Veer. "It takes a little planning ahead, like determining where you're going versus where you started the job, and then it takes routine work. When it gets close to shutdown time, for example, it's not difficult for a dozer operator to pull off early and knock down high spots and fill in holes and ruts to make sure the site drains. The other thing is to dress the borrow pit so that it all drains to the sump end and you can pump the water if it rains. Also, fill needs to be knocked down and typically bladed off, and sometimes it's a good idea to compact and blade it and keep it crowned so water doesn't stand anywhere. On one hand, it's a matter of having competent operators, but on the other, the site manager needs to make sure this gets done." Another commonsense element is operator scheduling. Van De Veer suggests assigning operators who have been trained on more than one machine to remote sites. And because replacements might not be easily available, safety is crucial. "Wear seat belts and always maintain three points of contact when climbing on or off a machine. You don't want your good operators getting hurt." As with safety, equipment maintenance becomes more crucial on remote sites. "Some contractors are very good about taking care of their equipment," says Van De Veer, "and others wait till something breaks‹and then it takes three or four other parts along with it, which could cost more downtime. When I worked for a large excavation contractor, I made it a point after every shift to make a list of anything that was wrong with the equipment and give [the list] to the mechanic. Daily walkarounds are important‹in the morning and at the end of your shift and anytime you're going to be off the machine during the day. It's much more efficient to replace a tire at night so it doesn't cost downtime during the day. If you start wearing out cutting edges or teeth getting into the surface they connect to, you can ruin the bucket and blade. And at a remote site, this means downtime until they can bring in a replacement." If there's more than one crew on-site, Van De Veer advises keeping all equipment in separate areas so the different contractors can keep track of their respective equipment and maintain and fuel their own machines. Contractors who want to control access to equipment on remote sites where there might be minimal supervision can take advantage of Caterpillar's new Machine Security System (MSS). It uses electronic keys, each with a unique digital ID, to limit operators (to prohibit access, for example, to a machine an operator isn't trained on) and designate the time frame for machine startup so that equipment can be totally locked down when it's parked over a weekend. The system is available factory-installed or by a retrofit kit. In San Antonio, Valadez installed an MSS system the two Caterpillar 420D backhoes he uses to dig the utility trenches he specializes in. "The work I do requires me to leave the equipment overnight," says Valadez, "and I used to worry about it. If I was out having dinner with my family, I'd drive by the site to see that it was still there. I bought locks that keep you from being able to raise a boom or a stabilizer, but you could still turn on the machine and move it. Being new in this business and investing $80,000 in each of these machines, it's well worth it. I sleep a lot better at night." Aside from controlling machine access, the keys can also be programmed to expire after a specific period of time. "There's a lot of flexibility in how the system can be designed," says Steven Morrison of Cat electronic parts marketing. "A fleet owner can have one key that works on all his machines and individual keys for all his operators. For rental machines, the keys can also be programmed to expire after a specific period of time. The customer can manage key access to fit his needs." Theft deterrence and security are major planning considerations when you're working at remote sites. "Park all your equipment together, number each piece, lock it behind chain-link fences, and hire a security guard," recommends Van De Veer. Other options include lighting the area where your equipment is parked (Lockwood recommends using high-pressure sodium lights) and installing an onsite monitoring system. Construction Protection Services in Gardena, CA, provides eCamSecure, a self-contained trailer that includes cameras, power, and lights. The cameras are equipped with motion detectors, and the system is accessible from anywhere at anytime via the Internet. The images are transmitted to a command center, where they're monitored by eCamSecure personnel. If fences, guards, and patrol services aren't appealing (fences are easily cut and one guard might be hard put to keep track of an entire site), look into equipment manufacturers and third-party suppliers that market systems to help owners keep track of their vehicles. Caterpillar's Product Link tracks individual machines and feeds back their location. An e-mail or pager alert goes off if the machine is outside a designated area or has ventured into an area that has been programmed as off-limits‹or if it is found to be operating outside programmed operating hours. Chau Nguyen, Cat service operations development supervisor, says equipment owners have found Product Link particularly beneficial when they're working on remote sites. "You know where the equipment is at all times," says Nguyen, "because the machine reports back its location. We've had some customers who have lost equipment for weeks or months at a time, and this solves the problem." The locator aspect of the system works on both Cat machines and other manufacturers' equipment, but a second Product Link feature offers additional advantages to remote-site managers. This aspect of the system is specifically tied to Caterpillar equipment electronics and keeps track of any events or warnings that occur in the operating system. Information is accessed through a secure Web site: The end user goes to his Cat dealer's site, clicks on Product Link, and is immediately updated on all his machines‹their location, service meter hours, and, where applicable, total fuel and diagnostic codes. The system can also be set up to issue a pager or e-mail warning when machine components are not operating within ordinary perimeters. Van De Veer suggests this feature for offsite managers who want to keep a handle on site operations, including operator efficiency and catching mechanical problems before they become high-ticket maintenance items. If work on a remote site means you'll be moving equipment across a public roadway or otherwise involved in controlling traffic, consider using mobile traffic signals, such as those offered by Horizons Signal Technologies in Wayne, PA. The solar-power units resemble regular streetlights and can be programmed to control civilian traffic to allow construction equipment to cross a public roadway. They can also manage flow when traffic on a public roadway is detoured or otherwise diverted. "We're moving about a million cubic yards of dirt from one side of the road to the other," says Dave DuBose of Sternhahl Enterprises in Sun Valley, CA. "To do that we have to cross a county road. There are two pairs of signals, two for street traffic and two for construction traffic. When you have high-speed traffic like we do at this site, people pay attention to the lights [more than they do] a flagger because they can see the lights from farther away. The system sets up easily, and the lights are easy to program." Farther north, Bruce Carone used the same system when he had to control traffic while repairing a slide. "We reduced the road down to one lane using K-Rail [fencing rail], and we used the lights for 24-hour traffic control‹so many minutes in one direction, so many in the other. At the end of the day, I could walk away and know the traffic was controlled without worrying about where we were getting power or the expense of running two shifts of flaggers. The solar power made it efficient and much easier than what we would have ordinarily done, which was erect temporary poles and tap into conventional power." And while Rowe doesn't have to worry about controlling traffic on public highways with the pond restoration work he does in Montana, he does have to keep track of where his crews are on the job site. "The people we work for are very particular‹they don't want to see even a car track across their grass‹and we've built a reputation for how contained we keep our work area. Instead of going from here to there in a straight line, I train my crews to go around the areas we want to protect, to stay in the same track when they're moving equipment around, and not to ever move the equipment out of an area where we're working. You train them the way you want things done so they don't know any other way." Common sense? You bet. Journalist Penelope Grenoble O'Malley is a frequent contributor to Forester Communications publications.
GEC - May/June 2003
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