A Scrapper's Dream - Page 11

Work for me

We can hear them all too well....My wife said "My ears would be DEAD". LOL

Originally Posted by Yunkman

We can hear them all too well....My wife said "My ears would be DEAD". LOL

What did you say?

That is all of the small steam pipe. I never know when the 5 ton stuff is going to be dropped, so a video with a sonic boom in it has not been shot. When the metal is thrown down the boiler, the entire boiler shakes throughout the 10 stories. Add to it jack hammers mounted on skid steers tearing into concrete pads creates an environment that requires communication by hand signals. Needless to say, I do not need to listen to the radio or watch T.V. after work. Silence is a blessing.

Originally Posted by Patriot76

What did you say?

That is all of the small steam pipe. I never know when the 5 ton stuff is going to be dropped, so a video with a sonic boom in it has not been shot. When the metal is thrown down the boiler, the entire boiler shakes throughout the 10 stories. Add to it jack hammers mounted on skid steers tearing into concrete pads creates an environment that requires communication by hand signals. Needless to say, I do not need to listen to the radio or watch T.V. after work. Silence is a blessing.

Maybe her ears are tender from 15 years of playing bass guitar in front of amplifiers on stage. HUH ????

As a high schooler that scraps out of my pick up bed and a storage unit, the fact that you are even able to do this with such a plan and evident success is just amazing. I Hope that i can eventually go from collecting cans for a band trip to auctions for insurance money to maybe something of this nature and size. some things that are definitely in your favor is your values that you stick to and your willingness to actually work and not just push papers. Thanks for sharing and i hope to see some pictures of your scrap loads and weights to look at. Thanks again for taking the time to share!

ThatTubaDude - Welcome to the forum. I tried to send you a private message, but since you have not introduced yourself on the forum, you cannot receive messages. Take time to introduce yourself and you will be amazed by the help members will provide. Good luck.

Back at the ranch for the weekend and hope to provide pictures of our progress. We are up to the 6,7, and 8th floors now in the boiler room. We sold the metal in the turbine room to a demolition company and this puts us ahead of schedule. These are pictures of the fifty ton condensers with five inch thick steel. Remember everything cut has to be moved by hand.

Wanted to give you an idea of the size of some of the steel we are working with. This is an I-beam 2 foot wide, 16 inch flange, that spans 30 foot. The following pictures are the flanges and bolts that hold it in place.

Some pictures of one of four motors on the eighth floor of the building. These were time consuming and a pain in the a**.

Patriot wins the picture award I think for scrap jobs. lol.

Keep those updates coming an the pictures!

Sirscrapalot - Starbucks says they are going to start putting religious quotes on cups. The very first one will say, 'Jesus! This cup is expensive!' - Conan O'Brien

Thats some nice scrap metal..... And ps. Have an intro now

Hi, Patriot,

Whats the detail with the 4 big motors that you posted the photos of? Looks like an induced draft fan or something...? Interesting to see the old style mechanical "soft start" coupling on the motor shaft. What is the second device on the shaft--the cast iron box with the 2" pipe coming out of it....some sort of water cooling device to keep the heat from the fan away from the motor?

How many hp are these motors?

You mentioned that, with he sale of the metal in the turbine room, you have caught up to your schedule. So the "on time" is doing good. How about the "on budget" part of the equation? How is the return on the scrapping doing-are you making as much as you had hoped to at the outset? Are your manpower levels where you expected them to be?

Sorry about the nosy questions....the job is just so interesting!

Jon.

Sawmilling, sorry for the slow response. I had to go back and check for answers. You are correct on the draft fan and cooling device. Not sure about the HP of the motors since they are gone.

My goal with the project was a 33% return on investment. The last time I did the numbers I thought we were getting an 8% return. Then the real numbers were provided by the company and my ignorance was magnified. To sum everything up, this would be more of a scrappers nightmare than a scrappers dream.

The learning curve is steep as with all my challenges. The positive return can only be seen from a developers perspective. The owner saved money by using his own crew instead of hiring someone to do it. Example: we had a quote from a contractor to remove the metal from the basement and first floor for $ 100,000. These are the areas machines could be used. Above this everything has to be done by hand. We are on the 9th floor and the owner has made money from this perspective. I have learned the value of the project is not in the short term, but long term when the facility will have 220 apartments in it.

To sum everything up, demolition and salvage operations are out of my league. I was lucky to learn this lesson without sacrificing my life's savings to create a company and take on this type of project. Hopefully this information will help someone dreaming about this type of work. Make sure you do your homework. The real dream is the education, not the money in this case.

Thanks, Patriot,

I guess from the big picture, (the end result of 220 apartments in a high end development) the scrapping portion is just the tip of the iceberg, not to mention that it will be a pretty small entry on the overall apartment project cost estimate.

Your boss is getting the building gutted, keeping his crew working, and has a supervisor (you) who has been working his buns off to maximize the efficiency of the whole demolition operation, right through going through the details of torching, training, and return on the scrap generated. Not to mention SAFETY on the site. He's getting a very good deal and has the peace of mind knowing he is pretty close to minimizing the cost of his demolition. He wouldn't get it any cheaper by using a skilled demolition crew under contract!!

Not sure I understand your terminology for return on investment--for a 33% ROI, are you saying you would spend 10$ (in labor, cutting gas and the like) and get $3+ (in metal sales)? Given the amount of difficulty in doing anything on the upper floors, I can see that the scrap metal sales wouldn't cover the cost.

To ease the manual labor on the upper floors, have you investigated using small mobile equipment, like the baby excavators and walk-behind loaders that will fit thru doorways? If you are moving heavy stuff with hand carts the floor loading might be similar. Maybe check with your structural engineers...might be a blessing to have a small machine or two with your guys to help with the heavy handling.

Keep the pics and info coming!! And, by the way, I still wouldn't turn down a truckload of pipe for fencing!!

Jon.

For ROI it is how much you make with your dollar spent/invested. For example on 33% ROI: Every dollar I spend I get $1.33 back... If I get less than a dollar back then it would be a negative ROI. I always try to aim for 50% ROI, I spend $5 on a computer tower, I hope to get at least $10 back. From that $10 I need to subtract $5 investment, labor (~.25-.30c per minute), energy (gas/electricity; usually negligable), and any other cost associated with getting that return to see if its worth my time.

Saw - Jiffy is correct. My original goal was to make $ 3.00 profit for every two dollars invested. This is my goal when scrapping farms. The manual labor on this project prevents this.

You are correct about the perspective of a development corporation. The more they can save in demolition costs, the more they can invest in construction.

One concern about using any equipment on the grates is that most grates are moveable. In order to drive anything over them we would need to tack them down to avoid spinning them out of place as we move metal. In addition our crew enjoys the challenge for moving the metal they cut. Yes the crew enjoys challenges as much as I do and if we took this away from them they would rebel. They are so creative it is an education to a neophyte.

Saw, based on your comments one perspective has not been made clear. I am only a consultant, making recommendations and not making the final decisions. When the project started it was made clear, I was at a point in life that I could not sacrifice a life savings by taking responsibility, starting a company, doing pay role, etc. A demolition foreman was hired to make the final decisions. Although the crew was trained on cutting and recommendations on safety were made, I do not get credit for the success of the crew. We are saving the company money, but not as much as I think we could have saved. The best part about this project, I can return to my independent lifestyle regardless of the results. The bad part about this situation, I have been treated so well I will feel bad if the outcome is not positive.

We are well ahead of schedule and therefore working myself out of a job. A friend of the owner has been visiting the job site on a regular basis and made a proposal for another scrap job. We are working out the details and if it comes through, I will post information on it. It is as big, exciting, and challenging as this one. The owner also has another angle that is moving forward and will involve skills as a teacher, just as training the crew on how to read and cut metal. This angle does not relate to scrapping, but in itself will be another challenge.

For those wondering about the value of the forum, two job offers have been made because of this post. Both were turned down for two reasons, I love my freedom and I do not want to be responsible for the decisions others make. Bottom line, scrappers are responsible to themselves and their families and no one else. We follow the law, our values, morals, and no one else.

Wanted to finish the story on the condensers in thread 209. This is where we are at right now.









The last one is how the condenser sits at this moment. Notice the giant U-bolts that held it up. All of the metal from the condensers was thrown down eight stories by way of the boilers.