Finally done with "free fill"

Ironwood · January 28, 2012, 08:17:32 PM

Well, for those who know me, I have been expanding my storage platform. I want to put up my cantilevered lumber racks. Well after a summer of free fill from local paving outfits, the township, local construction crews and the like. I moved ALOT of tonnage all summer/fall (about 1500-2000 ton, at LEAST). Well, this past week I finally finished the the project enough to pull the plug and put up a "No More Fill" sign. I recently bought a Bobcat 763 to some of the construction chores and etc.... I got it just in time, two local crews (Water Co. and Gasline Co.) brought 800 ton in the last week or so. Then as things thawed they ABSOLUTELY trashed my 3/4 long drive. Ruts so deep my nieghbor could not get up his drive. He took it well, I called him immeadiately when I realized what had happened (I was out of town for the day), so at 9pm I called him, he said no worries I know you'll make it right. So,...... I tapped the Co's and they antied up 120 ton of #3 limestone, all I had to do was "final" spread it as there tailgating left something to be desired. Things are looking good at this point, and for the Co's stepping up I found several other dumping options close by. The "waste stream management" of the fill is getting tougher around here, so they were VERY appriciative. I may still take some of the "good stuff" the one paver brings during the summer paving season as I got about 100-200 ton of free "HOT" asphalt. and their fill is NICE.

No pics, but man it is nice to be putting this to rest. It takes ALOT of time to manage it, "free" aint really free.

Racks that need put up:

Ironwood

5quarter · January 28, 2012, 11:15:54 PM

Good gravy...You're putting those up the way they were? That's one serious project! I figured you'd cut them down some at best... You're definitely gonna have to get pictures of the progress!

Ironwood · January 29, 2012, 09:07:26 AM

Well, yes, as they were, height wise 22' to peak, then I would like to "bridge" the two. I have enough to go 60' side by side about 40' apart, then bridge them to make a "breezeway". There is no shortage of steel to support the roof, there is about 90,000 lbs of iron there. I just need to get my strutural engineering buddy to give me his stamp and design any cable strutting to ensure racking issues are accounted for in a snow load senario.

YES, BIG project. I need the storage. Also will use confinement curtains (on a roller rod, heavy duty) to keep driven rain, mist fog off the wood on the perimeter.

Ironwood

Meadows Miller · January 29, 2012, 09:19:25 AM

Looks good Mate ;)

I take it your going to end up with like 60 to 70' long by 60 or 70' wide including the eaves Mate ???

Ironwood · January 29, 2012, 05:44:46 PM

That is about right. ALOT of roof. I really dont want a flat roof, that is ALOT of potential snow load, I am thinking bar joists fabbed to a 3/12 pitch, steel roof and "let her slide" . My buddy has a structural fab shop about 2 hours away, I will let him do that part.

Ironwood

Taylortractornut · January 29, 2012, 07:43:38 PM

I bet they were really proud of the local disposal. At the landfill we take that stuff free for future cover and also we use the solids like concrete , blocks and pavement as winter road base. DEQ wont let you dig a borrow pit any more and refill it with concrete. We can do constructiv fill as long as there is an existing hole we can dump in it now.

Your set up looks grand to. A few years ago I built some racks like that for a mill a bit south of here. I had to make the pitches for the roof sections and then when they were set up weld them in place.

SPIKER · January 29, 2012, 07:53:03 PM

Not sure how much fill is under or planned on being under the racks though there is a lot of weight there hope it is well compacted and plan for settlement even if it was compacted...

mark

customdave · January 29, 2012, 11:40:44 PM

Boy Ironwood, you've been a busy boy! I bet you will be glad to get this big project done & under your hat. Looks good should the cadaliac of lumber storage!

Dave

Ironwood · January 30, 2012, 12:43:04 AM

Thanks guys, Yes, I compacted all but this last bit, which will be away from the actual building site. It will be my fork truck drive around the far side of the building. The area where the foundations will go is only slight fill and has been settling for about 8 years with LOTS of heavy forkllift traffic.

The plan for the concrete for the rack foundation is SUBSTANTIAL. I am planning 10"-12". The weight can get pretty crazy given rack capacity, esp. if weighted unevenly (one sided)

CustomDave, Man if you only knew the half of it. I have just finished one of my biggest custom jobs in several years as well, ON TOP of the fill project. It is tiring.

Ironwood

5quarter · February 01, 2012, 12:07:08 AM

That is some big thinking! I cut plenty of lumber, but it would take the rest of my life to fill up those racks. How do you find the extra time to do something like this?
Truly, I can hardly wait to see them go up.

mad murdock · February 01, 2012, 01:32:03 AM

Wow ironwood! That is going to be SOME yard! What do you think ( in round numbers) your total mbf storage capacity will be?

Ironwood · February 01, 2012, 08:00:42 PM

I dunno what the total would be. But keep in mind I do alot of reclaimed lumber, with storage and some milling when a order does finally come to fruition. So between my milling, urban log salvage, and reclaimed I could be about half full right off the bat. I have ALOT of lumber here. I am looking forward to having a better system, my current one works but I will be happy to have quicker access and easier juggling when needed.

I have been taking some more fill the last couple of days, the few companies I am allowing in have been sending single axle trucks (reasonably loaded) so the drive is not getting torn up and actually packing in the #3's nicely. The drivers follow my very specific instructions for alternating there tracks in and out and then I go down every few hours and check if anything needs attention, so it will be TOTALLY dialed in with all the proper pitch, swales, and water chutes off to the side. The other reason I am allowing them in is their material is PERFECT base, old road paver bricks, some concrete/asphalt and a little bit of clay. It packs well and will not perk water, so no chance of a slide. Not an ounce of organic anything in the mix so GOOD stuff.

Here is a pic of the current method for reclaimed and one more of racks

Ironwood

Kansas · February 02, 2012, 03:29:25 AM

We have been taking in fill since last summer from a company. What rules are there about it? We have a huge hole that was made when they redid an overpass near here. The concrete has been dumped in a pile for eventual crushing. The rest of the material looks like mostly a gravel type mix that might have been taken up from parking lots and road beds. The company spreads it out and has made a really nice area we can eventually park logs on. Also we take some and spread it out where we need it.

SwampDonkey · February 02, 2012, 05:25:23 AM

As my grandmother would say, "Go big or stay home".

Ironwood · February 11, 2012, 04:19:27 PM

Kansas,

Fill rules vary greatly by regional municipality. Depends on your local rules. Here all I needed was a "Disturbance Permit" this allowed me 5000 Sq.Ft. of fresh/ disturbed area. I have been way over that for nearly two years. I just got the permit a few weeeks ago. We are very private some no one sees or knows. Also, I have no streams near my site so siltation and runoff issues are minimized. Larger fills need an "engineering plan" which can be expensive as well as all the retention, and storm water management required (drains, basins, rip rap, etc,... other professional fees). I chiseled away at this for nearly the last 10 years as local projects came and went, Sewage down our road (I am exempted due to distance), street paving (bought all the millings) and such. I never had equipment to move any REAL volume until recently. This prompted me to want to finish that fill chapter "in earnest". It can be VERY expensive if you go BIG guns from the outset.

There ALOT of "homespun" solutions that the "professionals" over look, like using de-soiled root ball to disperse volcity and concentrations of water after culverts. This was done YEARS ago, but many burecrats forget about what the "intent" was and just think you spend ALOT of money to solve issues. One of my ole timer buddies uses this type "Simple technology" up north on some of his thousands of acres of development and road building, they actually had to bring out the whole Regions Soil/ Water guys to school them on how and why this works, is good and can be better than the "modern" way of doing it :

Neat guy, he has an elevator in his house made from a forklift mast ;) COOL guy, he even gets "blems" from a local garage door manufacturer that he uses to line/insulate alot of his commercial buildings and even his basement of his house where the elevator is. RESOURCEFUL fella, I try to emulate, I just have a different "decimal" point on my projects :D

I did take about another 500-600 ton this last week. All done, this makes a solid 1/2 acre of good flat storage area. I am tired of the mud, cant wait for some more gravel. ;)It is hard to say no to the crews, next week they are into some "dig outs" which means LOTS of #2 modified with dust, so GREAT to lock in my #3's on the drive. At this point they LOVE me, so whenever they have the "good" stuff I am at the top of their lists. ;D I try to keep some of the BIG stuff separate for the erosion control that will do on the runoff channel. Also, dont rule out using synthetic carpet for poor man's Geomatting. I did that on one of my new roads in and WOW how nice that worked. Also, dont rule out placing the pieces of asphalt like puzzle pieces to create a GOOD solid base. I floated ALOT of them over clay fitting them together and then putting the fines in the "gaps" and it worked VERY well. It takes some effort but is the best way to do it.

Ironwood

Meadows Miller · February 11, 2012, 07:21:22 PM

Ill add 6,8 & 10' x 4' sheets of 3 to 6" concrete work a treat also for yard and driveway bases just put it out there to afew demo crowds that your after it and they can usually deliver it in their tipper take the top soil away lay them out and run a truckload off gravel out over the top with the spreading chains on and you have one of the best yard surfaces ever imho ;)

Taylortractornut · February 11, 2012, 07:53:50 PM

We used tree stumps at the landfill for giant water breaks and silt dams and to hold back the bale silt dams. Now DEQ makes us bury them unless they come off the site. We use all our concrete and blocks as a road base for haul roads as it can be stock piled. I have worked alot of fills that we did a little at a time so the code man wouldnt catch us. We filled in an acre behind a plant one time. just pushed a load off at a time. I basically added a foot all the way across the lot. It was fun puhing off with a grader. Just side shifted the moldboard and drive across them. What was funny the code man came by he looked at the lot and kept looking. He couldnt figure it out. about avery month we were 5 feet farther out. THey parked a line of trucks near the tip so the inspector would see them 10 fee away from the drop off.

Ironwood · February 12, 2012, 12:14:16 AM

Meadows,

That is some HEAVY stuff your working with. You could float just about anything with the load disbursion there.

Taylor,

You CANT bury green waste around these parts they get pretty upset. I think they want a "dug" burn pit with an "air curtain" (big fan) to create a clean non smoldering burn. I have seen some HUGE ones locally on development sites, 15' deep 30' diameter. BIG BIG fan run off 6 cy;inder diesel. ALOT of air going at the coals.

I love the inspector story. Around here they use aireal surveys quite a bit. When the guy came out to see me for the "Disturbance Permit" he had a photo from about a year ago, my platform was maybe 1/3 acre. I could quickly ID the time frame (I was a Terrain Analyst for the Spec. Ops in the Army) If they compared the two they could give me some grief. I seeded and leveled ALOT of my adjacent work very quickly so it would green up in short order ;) that was perhaps another 1/2 acre. It would likely never show up in the photos. It also helps that they know me (at least a few in the Code office), and can kind of vouch for me being a good guy.

Ironwood

Taylortractornut · February 12, 2012, 02:07:27 AM

We have to bury our green waste as long as its propper in the cell. It takes a tone of cell space though. We recycle logs into firewood or to mills. Chips from tree services and the power co come home to be composted. All the smaller brush the compactor chew up and we use it for matting over things like bed springs and fencing so it wont wind up on the wheels and tracks. Also for holding down rubbish on a face prior to cover. We are looking into a tub grinder for stumps now.

It was fun messing with the inspector on that fill job. Here we can do a benficial fill with clean fill. THat job we had a foot thick factory floor and a 400 by90 building to take up. The new site was out of room. We ho rammed all the floor into sections and dry stacked them at one end of the hollow. with a few bales infront to stop silt from running through. It was in a kudzu patch and about 5 days it was covered. Then we started the fill. We dumped off afew dozen loads the first day saving anything with rock and stone for the lot.
We had already had trouble with the inspector from the town. THe DEQ man was fine with it. The town guy was with an HOA type outfit. When we dumped the dirt in a line I would come through with the grader and spread the load out we always kept it even. We had a water tower near by that was being flushed and we hauled the water off with the water wagon and would spra it on the layers for compaction.

We did this a few times The townie always came by the same time each week in the morning and he would look at the line of service trucks on the lot. We hust moved them back 5 feet every night. He didnt have alot of stuff for a visual reference. Two years ago the fill made the boundary line. Also another trick we used was moving racks and material piles near the edge.

Ironwood · February 17, 2012, 12:57:58 PM

Well, the gifts just keep coming. The one crew said they may be into some clean modified from a pipline "cleanout/redo" and well today they brought 35 ton of modified. There was about 4 skidloader buckets of clay chunks which I had to hand throw, and maybe 2 buckets of street pavers/asphalt. Spent the whole morning (4 hours) moving it and sorting. Puts a kink in my daily agenda but nice to get it. It went about 800 feet on top of the #3's heading to the house.

Ironwood